As a vampire investigator, Alex O'Loughlin was okay. As a surgeon, Alex O'Loughlin doesn't make the cut. I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but it's the truth. Every conversation he has is more difficult than the next to watch. Behind the cool high-tech hospital is an emptiness. There's patients, doctors, surgeons, administrators, and all sorts of people you'd find at a hospital, but at the end of the day, nothing really stood out and nothing really mattered.

The fairly interesting plot is almost derailed by the dialogue which is uncomfortable to watch due to the total absurdity. There are two separate situations that come together at the end of the episode, one annoying African guy who needs a heart transplant who doesn't factor into the episode at all, and one boy who has an itch in his brain.

Some guy falls and is brain dead, another pregnant woman's heart needs a replacement. Problem solved, right? No!! After some inhuman behavior (someone random hospital worker running up to a family member and chiding her for rethinking the donation), the family relents and the pregnant woman gets a new heart and the baby is saved as well.

The boy has tweezers in his stomach and Dr. Foster (Katherine Moennig) talks to the father. As always, the situation goes like this: the father bristles at any suggestion the family is to fault, doctor apologizes, father realizes she's right, doctor treats patient, everyone is happy. I've seen the angry family member too many times to remember, but to writers, it never gets old. I'm not even sure people react like that in real life. All it does is make the family member look stupid, because the main character is always right, and everyone lives in the end, most often from a medical procedure.

And then there's the other problems. The editing was the most horrendous stuff I've seen in a while. Before the end of every commercial, they'd show 3 situations side-by-side except they'd be in all green, red, or yellow to create the most distasteful crap on television I've seen in a while. It's not innovative, it's stupid. The music was equally horrible with primarily rock using a very obnoxious drum that made me want to turn it off. Occasionally when the location changed, it was accompanied by an idiotic sound of something sliding, and followed in rapid succession with the drums.

Minus the dialogue, the writing wasn't terrible which is the only reason why I'm not giving it a 2/10. The casting and characters are fine for the most part and the show could work as an average medical drama, but for all the attention this show was getting a while back (I'm guessing because of Alex O'Loughlin), Three Rivers really underwhelmed.

Score: 7.2/10