Seeing that Richard Chamberlain passed away the other day, I immediately thought of his iconic television turn as the heartthrob medico in NBC's marvelous anthology drama series, Dr. Kildare, based loosely on author Max Brand's fictional character that appeared in magazines, books and most notably in a series of M-G-M mellers in the 1930s and 40s.
Chamberlain of course went on to work (quite well) on the stage, in the recording studios, in movies (everyone remembers his weasel in The Towering Inferno, but his psycho in Petulia tops that), and more television--particularly his run as the unofficial "king of the miniseries" in the 80s. But to many viewers of a certain age (no, it was before my time. Just), he'll always be the young, brash, idealistic Dr. Kildare.
A few years ago, Warner Bros.' Archive Collection of hard-to-find library and cult titles released all the seasons, and I was fortunate enough to receive Dr. Kildare: The Complete Second Season, Parts One and Two,
a 2-volume, 9-disc, 34-episode collection of the smash-hit NBC medical
drama's 1962-1963 sophomore season. Based on all those
fondly-remembered M-G-M medico-dramas with Lew Ayres and Lionel
Barrymore, here updated for TV viewers with newcomer Richard Chamberlain
and old pro Raymond Massey, Dr. Kildare was dismissed by quite a few so-called "serious" TV critics (there are
no such things...) as glossy, inconsequential soap opera, and no more.
However, "soap" never got in the way of good drama, with this second
season of the highly-rated anthology sporting a clear majority of
beautifully written, expertly produced, and socko-acted entries--yet
another "lost" example of superior vintage television.
Mammoth, bustling Blair General Hospital. At the center of this modern metropolitan citadel of healing sits Dr. Leonard Gillespie (Raymond Massey), Chief of Staff at Blair.
Brilliant, demanding, and fearsomely intimidating to those who only
see the surface, Gillespie also possesses the wisdom of the just and
kind--a tool of the heart that is as formidable as his scientific
abilities, and one that he uses quite often with young Dr. James Kildare
(Richard Chamberlain).
Kildare, an intern at Blair, shows all
the signs of becoming the most skilled internist Gillespie has ever
taught...that is, if eager, impetuous young Kildare can avoid the myriad
pitfalls that can waylay any young doctor who simply cares too much. Kildare isn't the only intern on Blair's
staff; from week to week one might see Drs. Simon Agurski, Yates
Atkinson, Thomas Gerson, John Kapish, and John Grant (Eddie Ryder, James
T. Callahan, Jud Taylor, Ken Berry, and Bill Bixby).
However, their often
flip attitude and casual job involvement is in sharp contrast to
Kildare's almost holy dedication to the science of medicine. Good
thing, too, because the varieties, complexities, and severity of the
illnesses that wind up at Blair, and specifically when Kildare is attending, are staggering.
When Dr. Kildare
premiered on NBC back in 1961, its production studio, M-G-M, was still a
relatively minor player among the Hollywood movie studios getting rich
quick by providing original programming to the television networks. So
naturally, when it was looking to make inroads on the "Big Three"'s
airwaves, Metro did just what pioneering Warner Bros. did in the
mid-1950s to play it safe: Metro went back to their library and looked
for once-popular titles that could be easily adapted for television.
One such property that seemed a natural was M-G-M's old Dr. Kildare and Dr. Gillespie
series of "B" medico-mysteries dramas, with Lew Ayres and Lionel
Barrymore, which were now proving just as popular in televised reruns as
they had been in movie theaters in the 1930s and 40s. Tweaking the formula a bit, the new TV Kildare
would find the once wheelchair-bound Dr. Gillespie now ambulatory, with
whining, screaming Dr. Gillespie's penchant for playing rather sadistic
head-games with young Kildare being eliminated.
This small-screen
Gillespie, embodied by imposing theater great, Raymond Massey, would now
be mellifluously stern and exact...yet never deliberately cruel to almost
surrogate son, Kildare. The Kildare character, forever learning the
ropes of not only the technical but emotional side of medicine, would
remain relatively the same: highly skilled, somewhat naive, earnest,
and kind-hearted
The
only major difference would be a reduction in the more direct line of
mentoring and accountability that Kildare faced with Gillespie in the
movies. On the big screen, young Kildare was Gillespie's personal pet assistant, who frequently worked outside the normal career progression of the other lowly interns. Here in the television Kildare,
young Dr. James Kildare is just another intern.
Of course Gillespie
sees greatness in Kildare, but Kildare will have to work his way through
the system like everyone else...nor will this Gillespie pull any
outrageous stunts, as the movie Gillespie would often do, to save
Kildare should he fail (having the TV Kildare go from ward to ward not
only provides a variety of new cases each week--from psychotic children
to drunken old bums to beautiful women with various fatal diseases--it
also frees up Kildare to chafe and rebel against other established
doctors and residents, leaving Gillespie as a watchful ally).
After
William Shatner and James Franciscus both declined the part, relative
unknown Richard Chamberlain was picked over dozens of other young
hopefuls for the role (Chamberlain--who sounds like a pretty interesting
guy in real life--surprisingly doesn't provide a lot of detail on this
or other aspects of the show in his fascinating autobiography, Shattered Love). When Dr. Kildare premiered in the fall of 1961, along with another new medico series on ABC--the somewhat grittier Ben Casey,
with Chamberlain's DNA opposite, burly, hairy Vince
Edwards--Chamberlain became a huge star (and despite his own
self-criticism, a fine, natural performer prior to his later, more
intensive acting training).
The two series started a mini-craze for
the then little-seen-on-TV medical drama (Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey weren't the first medical dramas on TV--1951's City Hospital, 1952's The Doctor, and particularly 1954's Medic, with Richard Boone, held those honors--they were just the first ones to crossover into major mainstream popularity).
What's ironic about the now-relatively unknown television version of Dr. Kildare
is that its lack of visibility on the small screen today is the
opposite of the situation that helped get the series originally
green-lighted in the first place: the popularity on the tube of the
old, re-run Dr. Kildare movies in the 1950s. No doubt there was a
decided reluctance in the pre-cable television syndication markets of
the 1970s and 80s to book old hour-long black and white dramas, so it's
not surprising that NBC's Dr. Kildare, a huge hit in the
Nielsen's during most of its 1961-1965 run (it finished 11th overall for
this second season), didn't subsequently acquire more substantial name
recognition outside its original group of viewers (as opposed to, for
example, half-hour color sitcoms, like The Brady Bunch and Gilligan's Island, which seemingly will play forever).
Add to that lack of visibility Dr. Kildare's
reputation by quite a few critics and historians as merely a glossy
"soap" (as opposed to a "serious" drama), and that's why I call Dr. Kildare
a "lost" show: up until its reappearance on DVD, it was difficult for
general audiences to check it out...in order to see how those
trivializing reviewers (read: "snobs") were wrong. And of course, these kinds of errors
of critical assessment are compounded over time, because so many new
writers about television history don't actually go back to the original
source material; they simply parrot back what their (hilariously)
self-important "pop culture" professors told them in college...which
usually consists of a highly-generalized timeline that states "good"
vintage TV began with live dramas and news shows, while dismissing and
belittling anything popular or mainstream that subsequently came along
that wasn't sufficiently subversive or revisionist or "edgy."
Much like
when I reviewed the often-maligned-but-excellent Peyton Place a few years ago (shame on Shout! Factory for discontinuing the DVDs of that fine series...), Dr. Kildare,
at least in this second season, routinely delivers up one
thought-provoking episode after another, sensitively written (with
actual beginnings, middles and ends to the stories, where you experience
something positive and life-affirming after watching them),
directed by some of the best people in television at the time, and
beautifully acted by top actors of the day. If that's a "soap
opera"...then by all means, let's have more of these forgotten,
dismissed soaps released on DVD.
The season opener, Gravida One,
scripted by E. Jack Neuman and directed by Elliot Silverstein, sets the mood and pace for the rest of the
season, as a busy couple of days at Blair bring death...and life
(the bustle created with the little 10-second "micro-stories" in the
hallways, coming and going without context or resolution, gives this
episode a thoroughly modern feel). There's a nice bit of contrast
between Gillespie's acceptance of an old friend suddenly and
inexplicably dying after surgery, and a devastated Kildare losing a
17-year-old girl to preeclampsia in O.B....while sardonic wise-ass
Patricia Barry doesn't want to keep her baby (Dr. Kildare must have had tobacco sponsorship; everyone is lighting up here...even the pregnant mothers).
The Burning Sky, as Warner Bros. helpfully points out in a pre-episode title card, was the only time Dr. Kildare
was filmed in color, for a special one-week NBC promotion of their
color programming. As cool as it looks in its saturated color, though,
quite frankly, the show works better in black and white (even though
color would definitely have helped in later syndication). An outdoor
entry (to leave behind all that pea green at the hospital, no doubt),
Chamberlain looks like he's having fun sneering with disgust at pompous,
candy-assed Robert Redford, who's a whiz with medical facts, but a
chickensh*t when the blood pours (looking at plump-faced Redford here,
it's hard to discern any potential for iconic sex symbol-dom on
his horizon).
Another future (TV) superstar, Carroll O'Connor, has one of
his many thankless pre-All in the Family roles here as a firefighter. Scripter Frank R. Pierce and director Paul Wendkos come up with a complex winner in The Visitors,
an even-handed look at what happens when a Communist oil prince comes
to Blair for treatment. The dialogue is thoughtful (ultimately, the
Commies get no pass here), but it's a stretch buying John Cassavettes'
overwrought performance. Theodore Bikel, never one of my favorites, is
even more broad and unconvincing as a crummy Commie quack, but veteran
character John Anderson scores, as usual, as a handicapped Korean war
vet.
Unfortunately, The Mask Makers, with Carolyn Jones turning
into a bitter, revenge-seeking, wasp-tongued temptress the minute she
has her nose bobbed, is a relatively shallow exercise compared to other
episodes this season, with normally whiny Mike Kellin about the best
thing here, as a concerned intern.
Guest Appearance
sports a nice, uncomfortable turn by stand-up comedian Jack Carter as
an egomaniac TV talk show host bent on destroying Kildare when Carter's
son unexpected dies after treatment from the young doctor. There's kind
of a low-grade A Face in the Crowd feel to this one, with an
intriguing, well-written subplot concerning Carter's wronged, right-hand
woman, Georgann Johnson (who's excellent). Gillespie sums up the
feeling that used to be common in formerly responsible America,
when he rips into legally vindictive Carter: "I can not sympathize with
an undeveloped personality which tells itself, 'Because I have been
hurt, somebody else must be at fault, somebody else must suffer with me.'" Beautiful: screw you, future victim culture.
Hastings' Farewell
is a devastating outing from Peggy and Lou Shaw, directed by Ralph
Sevensky. Harry Guardino (who knew he could be this good?) suffers from
aphasia...and loving wife Beverly Garland has had enough: she can't
cope with him anymore and is ready to put him in an institution. It's
up to Kildare, racing against the clock, to work with Guardino and prove
to everyone that his mind isn't gone (Gillespie offers, "In medicine,
there is no such word as, 'hopeless,'"). The use of home movies showing
a pre-head injured Guardino is effective, as is the terrifying
explanation of what aphasia patients actually experience (poor Bruce Willis...).
Breakdown
sports an equally compelling turn from Larry Parks as a suspicious,
jealous older resident bent on destroying Kildare, whom he thinks is
showing him up. Director Lawrence Dobkin, working from Betty Andrew's
suspenseful script, gets a remarkable performance out of Parks, with
those black marble eyes of his peering with bright psychosis.
Memorable.
Whenever I hear a racist complaint about a White actor
playing an ethnic character in one of these older outings, I always
wonder why the quality of the performance is mentioned second (if at
all). I don't have a problem with Law & Order's Steven Hill playing an Indian doctor in brownface--I have a problem with Law & Order's Steven Hill playing an Indian doctor in brownface poorly, as he does in the otherwise fine The Cobweb Chain,
an intriguing look at the cultural differences that impact him as he
works in an American hospital (Hill's attempt at Eurasian stoicism is
badly misjudged).
Director Elliott Silverstein, working from George Eckstein's tough script, is back with a winner in The Soul Killer,
a nervy, tense little number when ex-junkie Eileen Heckart gets current
junkie Suzanne Pleshette's number from minute one. Lots of twists and
turns in this one (including a rather suspenseful climax you don't see
coming), with Heckart and Pleshette (beautiful, as always, and so
underrated as an actress) scoring big with their complicated turns.
It's hilarious to see the normally staid Massey laugh in this one (watch
him try hard not to blow a scene, stifling a laugh caused by the
marvelous Cheerio Meredith as a mouthy cleaning woman), as well as
execute a 2-second twist at a "ribald" intern party for married Bill
Bixby and--I'm feeling faint...--Barbara Parkins.
Young Dr. Kildare
goes home (just like he did in the old movies) in the gripping An Ancient Office,
from scripter Theodore Apstein and director Don Medford. The perils of
utilizing local coroners who possess no medical training (quite common,
I believe, back then) is highlighted here, when Ed Begley, faced with a
crib death, gives an off-the-cuff, incorrect verdict that causes the
mother to attempt suicide. In the dense script, Begley faces
reelection, and he's not above trying to buy his way out of admitting
he's wrong...when he tries to bribe the grieving father with a job
(corruption in Dr. Jimmy's hometown!?). As always with that great
actor, Begley is remarkable essaying a character who goes from
reassuring and folksy, to suspicious and angry and manipulative, to
beaten and apologetic (this will be the only appearance of Henderson
Forsythe and Irene Hervey as Jimmy's parents, Dr. Stephen and Martha
Kildare).
One of the season's best. The Legacy has young Dr.
Kildare going to court where he has to choose between telling the truth
in a liability case (and thereby denying widow Olympia Dukakis an
insurance payout), or lying for her and her immigrant son. Gillespie
and Kildare have a nice discussion about the state of truth in today's
society ("Morals. Ethics. Nowadays they seem like elderly relatives
that we trot out on Sunday for family reunions when we're feeling
expansive." Marvelous), but it's tough to care about Dukakis' character
when she comes across as so aggressively irritating and unpleasant.
The series' producers made a big mistake letting Claire Trevor disappear after her one-off appearance as Director of Nursing Veronica Johnson, in The Bed I've Made. In this very funny, sweet outing, scripted by Jean Holloway and directed by Don Taylor, Dr. Gillespie meets his match in Blair's
new nursing head, falling quickly in love with her, although never
saying as much, as well as arguing with her all the time, before he
almost dies of pneumonia ("'Quarrels?' What a shabby little word
for such splendid rows!" he crows, before he hilariously whines, "Don't
argue with me! I've been sick!"). Trevor is perfect against Massey; what a pity nobody thought of keeping her on as a foil/romantic interest for Massey.
A Time to Every Purpose continues a recurrent theme in this season of Dr. Kildare--self-delusion
at all costs--as Betty Field (she knocks these kinds of characters out
of the park) plays an overprotective mother who simply can not bear to
tell her plain daughter she's lost an eye in a car accident. Judee
Morton does well as the put-upon teen, and Murray Hamilton has a nice
scene where his insensitive eye doctor character is coldly insulted by
an angry Gillespie.
If Love Is a Sad Song was the only Dr. Kildare
episode you ever watched...I could see you shaking your head and
blowing the show off as horribly dated. Dealing with the then-novel
idea of women surgeons (someone states there are only 37 operating at
that time in the U.S.), the episode proceeds to trot out every gender
bias in the world as it examines Kildare's and potential surgical
resident Diana Hyland's impossible love affair (you ain't just whistlin' Dixie,
Diana...). Whoppers include Kildare stating, "I don't know, something
happens when women go into medicine...they lose something," to a
fashion show in the hospital when they do a newspaper spread on Hyland,
to a discussion about "wasting time" training a woman when she's just
going to go off and get married and have kids. Oh well...at least you
get Chamberlain singing, Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo.
John Bloch delivers an engaging look at the ripple effect of malpractice suits in The Thing Speaks for Itself,
when Kildare is sued for "killing" a patient during a risky procedure.
Terrific cast in this one, including Fritz Weaver, George Macready (so
slimy as a sharpie lawyer), John Williams as a cowardly physician who's
been cowed by a previous lawsuit, and particularly Zohra Lampert as
Williams' troublesome patient (the more I see her in these random roles
she had in 60s and 70s television, the more impressed I am with her
skills; she's more alive on screen than just about any big-time
actress I can think of from that era). Massey has a nice bit at the
end, pleading for the right to practice medicine--and fail--without the
constant threat of lawsuits stymieing progress.
Whatever goodwill Jack Carter engendered from his first visit to Blair General this season, in Guest Appearance, is completely wiped out in the risible The Great Guy,
where Carter plays a world-famous clown who loses his leg to cancer.
Constance Ford, a class-act supporting player who could do a repressed,
angry, bitter bitch better than anyone (A Summer Place is her best), gets good mileage out of her fated, faithful wife character. However, Carter is atrocious, grotesquely overacting (his repulsive bedside plea, "Love me! Love me! Why doesn't anybody love
me?!" gets the only reaction it deserves: Massey watches impassively
before kindly pulling his head back in sympathy for Carter the actor).
Venerable Jane Dulo scores a nice little supporting turn here, though.
The Mosaic,
a snappy little medico-mystery outing from Jerry McNeely and director
David Lowell Rich, plays like a backdoor pilot for Tom Tyron's Dr.
William Ellis of the Health Department, as he tracks down a deadly
hepatitis outbreak at Blair. Terminally one-note Tyron overplays
the hail and hearty bit (watch him slap an unamused Chamberlain on the
back), while future god James Caan slowly dies from "Papa Bug."
Unknown Jena Engstrom pulls off the impossible in The Good Luck Charm: she almost
out-acts legend Gloria Swanson, playing a dying young woman who needs
to see Swanson's stage actress character just once before she kicks off
(lovers of Swanson get all the histrionics associated with her
image...as well as an absolutely superb bit of thesping at the girl's
deathbed; Swanson's emoting is mesmerizing).
Jail Ward, from
scripter Jerome B. Thomas and director Jack Arnold, is an exciting entry
with fascinating ethical overtones as Kildare keeps wounded cop killer
Henry Silva in Blair's jail ward (who knew they had one?) for
tests...while everyone else wants him carted off to real jail. Robert
Strauss is good as the ward's top cop (this would have made a cool
show), and James Franciscus (no doubt kicking himself for missing out on
Kildare's success) is in fine form as a cop who just might
kill Silva, vigilante-style. Interesting themes in this one, with the
story having the guts to keep Silva an unrepentant killer.
Gerald
Sanford's A Trip to Niagara is a tense tearjerker when chemo Dr.
John Larch (a fine utility actor you'll recognize from a hundred other
roles) realizes he's inadvertently received a dose of radiation that
will eventually blind him. A nervy brain operation offers a taut ending
for this good offering.
That marvelous Zohra Lampert is back in Alvin Boretz' A Place Among the Monuments,
an excellent outing where Kildare unfortunately learns the hard way
that doctors simply cannot be placed on pedestals (those pedestals
"crumble," Gillespie warns, and very few doctors "deserve it," he
offers). Familiar face Harold J. Stone is good, as always, as Lampert's
uncompromising--and terrified--father, while Lampert again scores with a
low-key, believable turn (her death in the episode again underscores
how Dr. Kildare strived to keep these stories realistic).
Scripter Betty Andrews delivers another winner with Face of Fear,
a solid, atmospheric outing for Robert Culp, who plays an intern who
believes he has hereditary insanity (it's really epilepsy, with temporal
lobe seizures). David Friedkin directs with an expressionistic eye
(Culps seizure scenes are scarily blank-toned), while guest star Mary
Astor, in just a few short scenes, scores big-time as a maiden aunt
haunted by Culp's disease.
John T. Dugan and John W. Bloch go the
Tennessee Williams route in Sister Mike, a marvelously acted
story about a poor Southern mother abusing her children out of
ignorance...and love--a tough sell on their part to begin with, that
then completely fails when we're shown the welts on the child's
back (poetry is never going to sell child abuse). The performances,
though, are stellar: effortless old pro Fay Bainter, the raw-nerved
Collin Wilcox Paxton (in an impossible role), and little Mary Badham,
who's remarkably precocious here.
Robert and Wanda Duncan script a
complex outing in A Very Infectious Disease, where visiting
Australian intern Dan O'Herlihy (in a fierce, nuanced turn) must face
the poisonous racism that infects him. Astoundingly, compared to what
would be facile invective in a similarly plotted drama today, his racism
isn't excused (Gillespie makes no bones about not tolerating it), but
he isn't demonized, either--he's otherwise a kind, skilled doctor who's
allowed to learn from his prejudice, and to be forgiven once he
renounces it ("That's the trouble with us enlightened primitives: we
always have to have something to blame on our own inadequacies,").
Criminally underrated Polly Bergen gets to show her considerable acting
chops in The Dark Side of the Mirror, a highly entertaining entry
from writer Dick Nelson and director Lamont Johnson, where Bergen plays
twins, one dying from kidney failure, the other a good-time girl who
doesn't want to be bothered with her sister's plight. I'm not sure I've
ever seen sexy-as-hell Bergen look this good before (those insanely
beautiful close-ups of her vie with those wowzer bikini shots), but more
importantly, she kills here in not one but two emotionally
complex performances that are as good as anything you're going to see
from that era on television. One of the season's best outings.
Director
Lamont Johnson (another unsung pro from the 60s and 70s who did fine
work year in and year out) is back with the dreamy, strange The Sleeping Princess,
scripted by Archie Tegland, where Kildare must pull hermit June Harding
(very good here) out of her daydreaming limbo to face the real world.
Lee Meriwether, looking D.D.G., has a funny bit as a nurse laughing at
the curative powers of Dr. Kildare's inherent sex appeal.
Ship's Doctor
feels like another backdoor pilot, this time for suave, terse Patrick
O'Neal, here playing cruise ship Dr. Robert Jones, with vacationing Dr.
Gillespie along for the ride...and Kildare, barely seen in this one,
stuck back at Blair (The Love Boat did it better...). A Tightrope Into Nowhere
gets back to the show's formula when Kildare must make a difficult
decision: should he take a dying father--a hopeless case--off life
support right now, as cold, impersonal bastard Dr. Edward Asner advises, or keep him going so
his troubled daughter Mary Murphy can have the time she obviously needs
to accept his inevitable death. No easy answers in this one...but
Gillespie does side with Kildare's ultimate decision (of course).
Jerry McNeely writes a faith-based episode, The Balance and the Crucible,
for guest star Peter Falk, who plays a doctor/minister who loses his
faith when his missionary wife is killed by South American natives.
Again, the series' overriding realism, married to an insistence on
showing stories that highlight the elevation of the human condition (a
disgusted Falk, feeling like a hypocrite, gives words of religious
comfort to a dying woman, only to find his own faith again), is on
display with this thoughtful entry.
One of the season's best, The Gift of the Koodjanuk,
finds Brian Keith (another woefully underrated performer) giving one of
his career-best turns as a scamming Irishman who breezes into Blair
as one of Kildare's "lost relatives," and proceeds to positively affect
the lives of everyone he meets. It's a charming, heart-tugging
performance from Keith, who was born to play this kind of
blarney-spouting free spirit, aided by a fine, frequently quotable
script from Walter Brough ("There's nothing more honest in the long run,
than a good, straight lie,").
An Island Like a Peacock, from Gerald Sanford, feels a little too close to the similar A Tightrope Into Nowhere,
with dying Forrest Tucker trying to come to some kind of truce with his
blind daughter, played equally well by Kathryn Hays (look quick for
Leonard Nimoy as her would-be boyfriend). Not much better is To Each His Own Prison
(terrific title, though...), which finds Ross Martin hamming it up
something terrible as a hopeless alcoholic who holds the key to an
embezzlement case. The plotting is rather routine, with Martin (who
always had a tendency to go over the top) not helping matters here.
Look fast for George Kennedy paying his dues as an orderly.
Much, much
better is A Hand Held Out in Darkness, an intriguing outing that
shifts from Kildare's baffling case of a catatonic Jane Doe (sweet,
talented little Vicki Cos), to Gillespie's hilariously demanding efforts
to have the hospital care for his sick grandchild (his daughter is
nowhere to be seen this season). Despite what critics and Chamberlain
himself asserted about his modest acting chops at this point in his
career, I find him to be a natural, skilled performer at this stage of
the game--watchful and listening--which particularly comes out when he's
working with younger actors, like the adorable Cos. A winner.
Finally, another season best comes in Adrian Spies' What's God to Julius?,
a beautiful entry that finds Jewish baker Martin Balsalm (one of the
best with this kind of role) dying of liver cancer, and wracked with
worry not about himself...but with what is going to happen to his
mentally challenged younger brother, Sorrell Booke (that's Boss Hogg to you and me). Notable, too, for
not shying away from but highlighting the brothers' Jewish faith (we
even get several scenes in Temple). An episode that will choke you up,
sensitively directed by Robert Gist, What's God to Julius? is the kind of Dr. Kildare
episode that best epitomizes the essentially positive, affirmative
outlook of the series: Balsalm's death isn't the end of the story, but
rather Booke's acceptance of his brother's death, and his own growing
independence, are just the beginning.

If this is just
a "soap opera"...then we need more soap operas on TV today. Unfairly
dismissed by snooty critics during its original run, and now just plain
forgotten due to lack of visibility, Dr. Kildare, at least in
this second season, delivers a wealth of intelligent, finely-wrought
dramas, beautifully packaged and delivered, episode after episode after
episode--can you imagine the sensitive, tortured geniuses of today's TV
having to come up with 34 hour-long high-quality episodes like these in one short season?