Saving Hope

A sober, intelligent, placidly paced drama as only the Canadians can make.

Grey's Anatomy meets Ghost in this soppy supernatural hospital drama.

NBC's Saving Hope, another of those Canadian imports with which frugal networks pad out their summer schedules, plays like a very special episode of Grey's.

It's not bad so much as tired: sexual tension between doctors, mysterious ailments that are diagnosed at the last possible second, even the hoary old cliché about the patient who needs life-saving surgery that their religious beliefs forbid.

[Smallville's Erica Durance, Stargate SG-1's Michael Shanks and The Vampire Diaries' Daniel Gillies] should be a winning cast, but the writing and plodding execution are worthy of a quick DNR order.

Unlike "Awake," however, Saving Hope does not have Jason Isaacs, a nifty crisscrossing police procedural at its heart, or anything interesting to say about the various forms of reality.

The sloppy sentimentality is cheap and unearned, greasy camera lenses notwithstanding.