BLACK BOX

** (out of ****)

From what I’ve heard, bipolar disorder is a pretty serious thing. It can ruin entire relationships and families. It’s essentially built-in drama, which makes it surprising that it doesn’t appear on television more often. This might be because the people behind the scenes aren’t as evil as we think they are, and know that it’s not something that should be exploited for plots. Or maybe they’re just lazy, and don’t want to put on the kid gloves necessary in order to handle such a topic. Luckily, ABC (of course) doesn’t have these pathetic standards. They scoff at the thought of wearing kid gloves for any reason, and have never met a reason for soap that they didn’t like.

Black Box takes into the world of neurosurgeon Catherine Black(Box). The world of neurosurgery isn’t that exciting, so the show creators made her bi-polar. You’re thinking that working on brains all day messed her own brain up, as bi-polar disorder is contagious, but it’s the other way around. She became a neurosurgeon because she was born with bi-polar disorder, and wanted to help other people. In order to keep her job however – we’re told she’s pretty good at it – she has to hide her disorder from everyone at the hospital. It appears to be possible to hide it as long as she stays on her meds, which she hates doing. Coming off of her meds allows her to do fun things like fuck limo drivers and almost fall off of balconies. She becomes 1980’s Jenny from Forrest Gump. Life, and her mother’s genes, have granted her this ability to get a natural high whenever she wants, as long as she doesn’t take drugs. Who are you to tell her she can’t? Also her niece is her daughter but doesn’t know it.

At no point in the show are we asked to take this disorder seriously. It’s either mined for dumb melodrama, like in Catherine’s flashbacks to her mother’s suffering, or treated like a super power. Instead of showing us that thinking of bipolar disorder as a Jekyll and Hyde situation is overly simplistic, it turns up the volume on that comparison. By day, Catherine is a loser-conformist, doing nothing but lame neurosurgery, but by night she’s a superhero, with the power of freedom and flight. It all turns into House for the Hallmark Channel. Catherine Blackbox is a great doctor/person because of AND despite her affliction. We as a TV viewing nation are used to watching the same thing over again, and we’ll be watching versions of House for the rest of our lives. We have no choice but to accept it. What we don’t have to accept, however, is it being this stinky.

– Ryan Haley