Diagnosis X - TV-PG
Medical docudrama has hokey re-enactments.
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- TV Rating: TV-PG
- Network: TLC
- Genre: Drama
Parents need to know
Families can talk about how medical series like this one reflect real life. How does the media typically portray doctors and their work? Does this show follow that trend? Do you think medical dramas (like ER) help or hinder the real-life professionals they use as examples? Is it difficult to believe that doctors might make mistakes?
Message
Social Behavior:
The series reminds viewers that doctors are human and can make mistakes, but it also gives insight into the emotions they struggle with when they can't help a patient.
Consumerism:
Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:
Violence
Scenes are made to seem real to viewers, and actors appear to be in pain most of the time. Violent topics like child abuse are always a possibility, and graphic descriptions of how injuries are inflicted on victims can be disturbing.
Sex
Diagnoses of sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis and gonorrhea might instigate conversations about sexual partners and habits.
Language
Occasional mild expletives like "hell."
Common Sense says
What's the story?
Reviewed by Emily Ashby
Each episode focuses on two real-life physicians, rehashing the stories of some of their most puzzling cases. The doctors recount their tales one-on-one to the camera and also star (along with a cast of actors) in re-enactments. The show's time is divided between these dramatic reconstructions and personal asides with the doctors, who share their emotional responses to the case and walk them through their thought processes as they searched for a diagnosis.
Is it any good?
In one episode, Dr. Charles Rocamboli struggles to pinpoint the cause for a young woman's dizziness and onslaught of violent head and eye pain. When an MRI shows lesions on her brain, he regretfully informs her that she's suffering from multiple sclerosis and starts drug therapy, only to discover from her negative reaction to the medication that his diagnosis was incorrect. Going back to square one, he hits upon syphilis as the cause -- stirring up plenty of ill will between the patient and her new husband -- before discovering that he was wrong that time, too. Along the way, Dr. Rocamboli talks openly about the frustration and guilt he felt in not being able to nail down some answers for his worried patient. He also discusses the inherent pressure to be perfect as a doctor, explains the competitiveness that exists in medical school and residencies, and sings the blues about being disliked by an overseeing physician.
Diagnosis X offers viewers intriguing medical dilemmas and allows them to puzzle their way through the clues to a diagnosis along with the doctors. The series may also open viewers' eyes to medical professionals' true humanness, since they're often incorrectly assumed to be infallible. On those two counts, the show has some merit. But on entertainment value, it comes up short, mainly because of its unique format. Falling somewhere between the pulse-quickening drama of ER and the tense realism of Surgery Saved My Life, this part-drama, part-documentary series often comes across as a little on the hokey side, which does the doctors a disservice. (The second-rate actors who back the docs up don't help matters much.)
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