I turned it off halfway through. I watch the show for character plots, not unmitigated gore. Apparently the show was supposed to be an insightful commentary on the parallels between the county hospital and the battlefield hospital, but it couldn’t have been more heavy handed. The hand of the writers was too bloody obvious for the parallelism to be clever.
A big thumbs down.
Aww, I loved this episode. I was painfully identifying with the mother of the burned girl, oddly enough. I live in America and have a 12 yo boy but didn’t identify with the boy with meningitis’s Mom at all, go figure.
Granted, I expect the writers to beat every point into the ground, that’s what they do. We haven’t seen nuance in years, although I like to think the early years of the show were a bit better at it.
What pissed me off is not mentioning Gallant for months, Neela’s crushing on Luka and never cross-referencing her crushing on Michael even when she was being gossipy and confessional with Abby about cow-orker crushes, then suddenly tonight we have them writing for months and having this relationship and Susan and Pratt asking after him. Wouldn’t have hurt to throw in a few references in the last coupla episodes at least, some build-up instead of just ‘oh, hey, let’s work in a West Wing-esque preaching storyline, we can use that Gallant guy!’ all of a sudden. That was dumb and could have so easily been handled better it bothered me that they didn’t even bother.
Third EXCELLENT episode in a row. Especially the last segment. Thrilling.
What is happening ot my snarky horrible show? It’s getting good again.
How did that woman lose her arms? I heard something about a machine, but didn’t get what it was.
They should have let Gallant hump on the pretty Captain. Or let Neela get laid. I feel cheated.
She said it was a saddle-stitch machine. Presumably, she worked at a printer with a bindery.
I don’t remember what they look like (since it’s been years since I worked at a printer and I didn’t work in the bindery), but I don’t know how one would cut her arms off, unless it had some sort of guillotine-cutter part to it. A guillotine-cutter would make VERY short work of arms. I doubt it would even blink at cutting through bone.
I thought they said baling maching maybe, some sort of big ol’ industrial thing anyway.
I presume Gallant is gonna hook up with Neela during his 72-hour pass. 
Mrs. RumMunkey (who works in publishing) tells me it was indeed a book binding machine.
Who was the actress that played the “pretty captain” in the Iraq army hospital? She looked familiar, but I can’t find her name.
This bugged me too, until just a second ago. Whenever I saw her, I thought of a New York accent for some reason, and it just hit me. She played the PAA on NYPD Blue for a little while. The one with the “dancing” career who ended up dying. I’m looking now to figure who she was.
Ah… found her. Delores Mayo was the character, played by Lola Glaudini.
Another good episode, a little heavy handed writing at times, but overall an excellent episode. They went a little too far with the parallel worlds with both Leela and Gallant accepting the offer for companionship then backing away (though Gallant never really had the chance).
I thought when he took off for Iraq to protect Leela that came out of nowhere as well, so them having a long-distance longing is just as out of left field. Looking forward to the reunion, any idea of when it is going to air?
Leela is turning into my favorite character on the show. I think this is the first show in a long time with no Abby.
Neela, not Leela.
I like Abby but I think Neela has been alot more interesting lately since being more into her job. She’s cuter than Abby too.
Anyone catch what that injured soldier said about Rumsfeld? I believe it was in the first segment with Gallant.
Something like “you go to war with the Secretary of Defense you have, not the one you want”.
Gallant said he was at a CASH unit. Obviously, that’s like a MASH unit (Mobile Army SUrgical Hospital), only not mobile.
Anyone know what the “C” stands for? Centralized, maybe?
What is the name of the surgeon that flirted with Abby last week (I missed what he said at the restaraunt) and then held up the severed arms of the patient this week? He has longish curly hair.
In the original concept of ER, Carter was supposed to be the central character - remember, he was the brand new and learning at the time. Maybe they are trying to recreate that with Neela. It was nice to see someone with medical training deciding, even if at the last minute, not to have sex with a stranger. As far as Galant and the lady doctor not having sex, what did you expect? They probably don’t know how - they’re officers.
Dubenko