'Three Rivers' review: Watered-down hospital drama

CBS' "Three Rivers" began life as an organ transplant drama, not a bad distinction in a television landscape littered with medical shows. Bewilderingly, the network sent "Three Rivers" back to be retooled and wound up with something much more generic.

To the show's credit, organ transplants still have a major role. Alex O'Loughlin, breakout star of the short-lived vampire series "Moonlight," stars as Dr. Andy Yablonski. Andy's a hotshot transplant surgeon at the titular hospital in Pittsburgh; the premiere follows Andy and his team as they work to find a new heart for a pregnant mother.

That means lots of racing against time -- the mom-to-be could maybe get a temporary fix... but there's a perfect donor braindead at a hospital nearby... but the potential donor's family at the last second decides he may still come out of the coma... but now mom's condition is so dire the temporary fix may not work. You get the idea.

Elsewhere in the hospital, a teen boy is vomiting blood, and Dr. Miranda Foster ("The L Word's" Katherine Moennig) is convinced he's having trouble at home. We know this because she says it, and talks about her own childhood troubles, and is told about her old childhood troubles by Dr. Sophia Jordon (a wasted Alfre Woodard).

Restating the obvious is a problem in Pittsburgh: There's entirely too much exposition in "Three Rivers." Heck, we even get newbie Ryan Abbott (Christopher J. Hanke), who wears the squared-off ties not seen since the height of the 1980s and needs every plot point explained in detail. When that's not happening, the team gathers around a "Minority Report"-style video wall to reiterate what's going on.

"Three Rivers" feels like a combination of "House" and "CSI:" but without the atmosphere or intelligence of those series. That's a fault of the series' retooling. Even with the extra exposition, the transplant subplots are at least told with a depth we haven't seen a million times before. A series like this demands dramatic circumstances, so it'll be interesting to see how the show complicates each week's transplant.

O'Loughlin is a charismatic actor, and he does well as the cocky but talented Dr. Yablonski. It's easy to see why the show was initially built around his character, and even with the re-tooling, Yablonski is positioned as the McDreamy here. Moennig is okay as the team's token conflicted member, and we can see some darker plots headed her way. Daniel Henney smirks as Dr. David Lee, mostly answering Abott's questions. The worst part? Woodard, the best actor of the bunch, simply isn't given anything to do.

There's promise in "Three Rivers," but too much of it is diluted by wedging in your typical hospital-show subplots. If the show can get back on track with its transplant focus, CBS could cultivate a strong following.

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