The DVR-clogging onslaught of fall programming is pretty much over, at least for freshman series. Sure, there will be a trickle here and there before the holiday season kicks in, but Sunday's premiere of "Three Rivers" on CBS is essentially the end.

Oh, hey, look - it's a hospital drama. Never saw that coming. Doctors and nurses - and really good-looking ones at that - in a hospital saving lives? What will they think of next?

Actually, that's not fair to "Three Rivers" in a few ways. First, this series at least tries to be different in that it focuses on transplants, donors and patients. (The transplant part - that's the twist.)

And, at least in the pilot, there is only one quick reference to doctors and dating - with nary a kiss or a sideways look of lust. That's progress.

Also, for what it does - toil in the most overused of all genres, especially this season - "Three Rivers" makes mediocrity move more quickly than its recent competitors.

Fine, that's not much of an endorsement. "Not nearly as bad as 'Trauma' or 'Mercy' or 'HawthoRNe' and less edgy than 'Nurse Jackie' " might have made a better blurb for the boxed set (if it lasts that long).

But let's face it if you decide to make a series in a tired genre and don't offer anything innovative, it's a dog-bites-man story as far as TV criticism goes.

"Three Rivers" has had some trouble getting launched. CBS replaced Julia Ormond as the lead. Then it reshot the pilot. Then it decided that pilot wasn't quite right and, on Sunday, we get an out-of-order episode serving as the pilot.

Not a total failure

It's not a gratuitous failure and makes enough sense to see to the end. And to see the intended points: Being a donor is important; being grateful for being saved by a donor is good drama; rushing donated body parts around is better drama. At least in theory. That's why these shows get made.

Unfortunately, "Three Rivers" doesn't reinvent the wheel, it just spins it a little differently on the axle of network sameness.

Alex O'Loughlin ("Moonlight") plays the hunky transplant king of all doctors, Andy Yablonski. Katherine Moennig ("The L Word") plays Miranda Foster, the surgical fellow whose father essentially built Three Rivers hospital in Pittsburgh, but ended up never being there for her in the process. So now she has issues as she follows in his footsteps.

Daniel Henney plays the good-looking surgical resident who, according to CBS, "has broken as many hearts as he's replaced."

And Alfre Woodard holds them all together as Sophia Jordan, the head of surgery. There are others, including a newbie organ transplant coordinator and several other types who will be instantly familiar.

It's a hospital drama, people. There are only so many types you can create.

What's immediately different about "Three Rivers" is the length the series will go, to at least look original. This is one high-tech, modernist hospital. There's enough glass and elegantly appointed rooms to make you wonder - aloud, even - if anyone who made this series has ever been in a hospital. But this is a new hospital. Shiny new.

Digital hospital

No expense has been spared. Everything is digital, and the computers are fast. There appear to be HD TV sets in every room.

And if a doctor is looking at a monitor, chances are that monitor has picture-in-picture capabilities that can show a woman who just got a new heart and - wait for it - also gave birth on the same day, and an HD look at her happy husband a couple of floors down in the nursery, holding the new one. (Apparently there are so many nurses that a few have the time and the training to be camera operators.)

"Three Rivers" also uses split screen-graphics a la "24" (but uses colors to wash them out, like paintings). It sets up that the heart of a dying person is in Point A, the hospital is way over here at Point B, and there's traffic. And people are frantic.

Last, it has a code. You can't hover over dying people. "This is not how we do it!" one doctor says. "Why, because of some rule?" asks an eager transplant coordinator.

"Because it's the right thing to do," says the doc. "It has to be a gift."

So, yeah. It's a little different. But not. It's a hospital drama.