“Roush Review: Off the Map Not Offbeat Enough - Seattle Post Intelligencer” plus 1 more |
| Roush Review: Off the Map Not Offbeat Enough - Seattle Post Intelligencer Posted: 11 Jan 2011 08:34 PM PST Tuesday, January 11, 2011 You've heard the phrase "Physician, heal thyself." In Off the Map, the latest and most exotic medical romance to emerge from the Shonda Rhimes assembly line, you could add, "And sun yourself while you're at it." Want more Matt Roush? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now! The greatest asset of Map is its tropical setting: a South American rain forest that's actually filmed in Hawaii. (We'll forgive the subterfuge. The show looks gorgeous, and takes some of the sting out of a brutally cold East Coast winter.) By now, you've seen the promos of the young cast leaping off a cliff side into the sparkling waters below. What you haven't seen is the show itself, saddled with such annoyingly cloying writing that you may be tempted to tell the characters to take a leap and not come back. Map has a very appealing cast — including Meryl Streep's daughter Mamie Gummer, Wonderfalls' Caroline Dhavernas and Friday Night Lights' beloved Zach Gilford (who coincidentally is back on FNL this week, for DirecTV subscribers) as fledgling doctors seeking redemption and purpose by working at a third-world clinic — but the show traps them in a jungle of trite exposition and whiny clichés. The gauntlet is thrown early on by the clinic's resident McYowza, the renowned Dr. Ben Keeton (New Zealand find Martin Henderson), who initially seems more celebrated for going shirtless from time to time. He greets the new arrivals with a sermon about how if they use their brains and instincts, "you'll learn more here in a week than doctors learn in a year of residency." Take that, Seattle Grace! He goes on to tell them, "You're standing in the middle of the greatest medical resource on Earth" — home-grown organic medicine! — and "this is where medicine was born." Do us a favor, doc. Take your shirt off and shut up. To be fair, it took a few weeks for most of the Grey's Anatomy characters to grow on me, but Off the Map achieves what I would have thought impossible, in making even Zach Gilford charmless as the most aimless and callow of the baby docs. Everyone has a back-story for why they're toiling in the jungle, none of which is very fresh. On the plus side, the cases tend to be extreme — one thrilling procedure is performed on a zip line above a yawning ravine — even if most of the patients are infected by Grand Metaphor Syndrome (shades of Grey's). And the conditions at the clinic and surrounding villages are unnervingly primitive, which adds to the drama and the stakes of many of these emergency triage cases. But it's the painfully earnest dialogue that could really make you ill. Off the Map premieres Wednesday, 10/9c, on ABC. Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now! View original Roush Review: Off the Map Not Offbeat Enough at TVGuide.com Other Links From TVGuide.com This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| US appeals court weighs Philly tour guide tests - San Jose Mercury News Posted: 11 Jan 2011 01:17 PM PST PHILADELPHIA—A federal appeals court appeared unlikely to overturn a city law requiring tour guides to pass a history test in Philadelphia, if only because the city lacks funds to even draft the test. Three tour guides in the nation's birthplace are challenging the law on free-speech grounds. They argue that the government cannot limit legal speech, or even the occasionally skewed fact. "The First Amendment protects your right to communicate for a living, and that's true whether you're a tour guide or a newspaper reporter or a standup comedian," said lawyer Robert J. McNamara, who represents the guides. McNamara insists his clients are well versed in history and could pass any test the city coughed up. They would not fight a voluntary test that came with bragging rights in the form of a certificate, he said, but they believe a mandatory test amounts to licensing speech. McNamara works for the libertarian Institute of Justice, an Arlington, Va.-based organization that fights eminent domain cases and other alleged government intrusions. Its clients include a group of wood-carving monks challenging a Louisiana law that limits casket sales to funeral directors. Several other cities, including Washington, New Orleans and Savannah, Ga., test and license tour guides. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter signed the 2008 law amid complaints that tour operators dotting Independence Mall were spinning twisted yarns about the city's history. After a trial last year, U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois ruled the case premature because budget cuts had buried the initiative. The guides appealed, seeking clarity on the larger issue. McNamara argued Tuesday that his clients need some guidance on when, or if, their jobs might be on the line. "It's impossible for tour guides to make plans," he said. The three-judge panel mostly steered away from the free-speech issue. "There's no hope they're coming to get you in the foreseeable future, at least according to Judge DuBois," 3rd U.S. Circuit Judge Maryanne Trump Barry said. The city has said the exam would require only "minimum competency," and that anything less threatens the city's image and tourism industry. Nonetheless, no test appears on the horizon. "It's not happening. This is our practical reality," Deputy City Solicitor Elise M. Bruhl said Tuesday. The judges did not indicate when they would rule. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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