COMMENT: Code Black

Damn you, ABC!

From America's Funniest Home Videos to Extreme Makeover: Home Edition to Desperate Housewives, ABC slowly but surely took possession of my Sunday nights last season, to the point where our entire night is now structured around watching as much of those shows as we can. We eat during AHV, bathe the kids during EM, iron clothes during DW...and always turn the TV off before we can be tempted into Grey's Anatomy.

Then the Super Bowl came, and two little words kept me in front of the TV when the game was finished: Code Black.

The commercials for the Super Bowl episode of Grey's Anatomy had piqued my interest, largely thanks to the mystery of Code Black, and whether or not it meant there was a patient with a bomb. Turns out that's exactly what it meant, as a WWII aficionado accidentally shoots himself with some homemade ordnance which plants itself inside his chest...unexploded.

It's a tense, well-directed episode (by Peter Horton of thirtysomething fame!) that ends on the kind of cliffhanger that not only happily forces you back next week, but hooks you for the long-term, too. Prior to Sunday, I'd never watched an episode of Grey's Anatomy, only very loosely familiar with it from the commercials that run during the shows preceding it. Now, I'm hooked, and am going to check into whether a Season One DVD exists!

The episode didn't simply rely on its "Code Black" plot point, instead delivering a compelling cast of characters and giving each one just enough of the spotlight to get a sense of who's who without any awkward exposition. It's a perfect lesson in constructing the mythical "jump on point", something the average comic book writer seems to know little about these days.

I unexpectedly caught the repeat this evening and watched the whole thing again, this time making my wife watch, too. Sundays are officially shot to hell now!

See how that works?

Fabian Nicieza's New Thunderbolts immediately springs to mind as a recent example of a series I checked out mid-run for a plot hook - the New Avengers crossover - and stuck with because of his knack for strong characterization and his ability to make each issue accessible enough to pique my interest in what came before. As a result, I went back and bought both TPBs and added the series to my pull list.

It can be done.