TV REVIEW : ‘Human Factor’ Needs Surgery

“The Human Factor” is a malpracticing CBS medical series that’s an echo-echo-echo-echo-echo of an echo. Premiering at 9 tonight on Channels 2 and 8, the hour drama is a pastiche of the past: Young doctors somehow bumble along, learning their craft under a crusty but paternalistic senior physician who’s stern with them but really loves them.

This latest hospital father figure is Dr. Alec McMurtry (John Mahoney), a do-gooding, all-knowing, McMushy hero who teaches a class about treating patients with kindness (“the human factor”). Tonight, his ethical, self-righteous barometer zooming to 10 on the Richter scale, McMurtry campaigns to save the life of a seriously ill young boy whose parents reject traditional medicine and believe he can be cured solely through prayer.

“I took an oath,” the mother says. “So did I,” McMurtry says.

This duel of oaths ends predictably, as does the brief romance between one of McMurtry’s students, the brilliant but headstrong Matt Robbin (Kurt Deutsch), and a doomed patient. What’s important is that young Matt grows from the experience.

Just as terminal is a future episode whose muddled message about sex discrimination in the workplace is undermined by a spate of over-the-top characters, led by a female physician who is resented by her colleagues merely because she has the personality of an evil, ratted-up witch. Talk about heavy-handed surgery: This is a case of operating on a topical issue with a spiked club.

“St. Elsewhere,” where are you?

--HOWARD ROSENBERG