TELEVIEWS / 'GM' gives new lineup shot in arm

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Noriyuki Higashiyama, the veteran Johnny's Jimusho star, was my last hope. I was hoping that, as super-diagnostician Dr. Hideo Goto in GM: Odore Doctor (Sundays, 9 p.m., TBS), he could identify the malady that has infected the Japanese TV drama world and offer a partial remedy. He didn't disappoint. A dose of the dancing doctor is the best TV prescription available this summer.

Dr. Goto has no panacea for what ails Japanese TV, but he certainly has his gloved fingers on the problems in the Japanese medical world. Code Blue scriptwriter Hiroshi Hayashi has created a scenario of considerable originality and depth with a very realistic feel about it. This is quite an accomplishment, considering the storyline is occasionally interrupted when Dr. Goto begins to dance, channeling Michael Jackson and Gene Kelly. The dance scenes seemed superfluous at first, but serve to remind us that even those at the top of their careers can still have plenty of silly quirks and unfulfilled dreams.

To give the production further authenticity, TBS has hired a Chiba University general medicine (GM) professor as technical adviser. The idea is to provide an overall approach to diagnosis and treatment rather than forcing patients to choose a specialist--the "senmon baka" approach, as Dr. Goto calls it--that often leaves them hopping from one department to the next in search of a cure.

The more comprehensive general practice model is still new to Japan, but it holds a strong attraction for young intern Momoko Komukai (Mikako Tabe), who is impressed by Dr. Goto's skills when they administer some inflight emergency medical care together.

Higashiyama's early years as a member of the 1980s pop group Shonentai have been cleverly written into the script. He tells Momoko he resembles the 1980s star and, like him, once pursued a dancing career.

His debut fizzled, but now he's found a production company willing to give him a second chance and he's come home to pursue it. Unfortunately, he's been abroad so long he isn't aware of the plague of "furikomi" (bank deposit) scams that has hit Japan. He becomes a victim of one himself when he puts 100 million yen into the account of the guy who promised him a second debut. However, this does leave him available to help when Momoko calls about a patient in dire need of a second opinion.

Her internship is not at all what she had planned. She's assigned to a general medicine department that has become the last stop for a motley crew of disillusioned, dysfunctional and incompetent medical practitioners. It's a place where the reality is "don't make waves, make money" and don't contradict the first opinions of vaunted professors, especially those for whom hospital director Dr. Oyama (Shinya Owada) has served as go-between at their weddings.

Dr. Himuro (Kippei Shiina) has just been named the new head of this sickly general medicine department. He has long forgotten what his dreams were. The graduate of a third-rate medical school, he married the director's daughter and was on the fast track to promotion until she caught him cheating with three women. Now divorced, the director banishes him to general medicine, where he's expected to last less than three months. This is also the prognosis his first patient in the department has been given.

Dr. Himuro's staff includes: Dr Urushibara (Katsuhisa Namase), the proverbial apple polisher who spends his time researching everyone's background and interpersonal relationships. He's the one who googles Goto and discovers he's a medical world superstar. Dr. Ushiroda (Hisashi Yoshizawa) is an anime-loving computer nerd with communication problems who has to put all his comments in writing. Dr. Rena Machiya (Eiko Koike) was once a competent ER specialist, but a malpractice case has sent her to general medicine. They are all revived when Dr. Goto dances into their lives and gives a correct second opinion that saves the patient's life and Himuro's career and pride. Now attracting a lot of attention from pretty nurses, he goes happily skipping down the hall. But Dr. Goto has no reason to stay on. Desperate, Momoko points to the skipping doctor and tells the gullible Goto that Himuro too was once a dancer and the rest of the staff have talent too. She convinces him to stay and form a new musical group with them.

The rest of us will have to be satisfied with this pleasing summer fantasy as our odds of finding such a super doctor are probably only slightly better than the odds of winning the summer jumbo Takarakuji lottery. But then again, everyone dreams of winning big someday. Hope is what keeps us all going--doctors, patients, dancers and gamblers alike. GM is definitely an easy pill to swallow that you can safely self-prescribe.