‘The Big C’ is Failing
Watching the Big C feels like a chore lately.
It reminds me of the feeling I used to get when I had to see and examine a patient in the hospital, under my care for some administrative non-reason, who didn’t need to be in the hospital IMO, and whose hospital presence took time my time away from patients who needed my attention. But because I was responsible, I’d go and see her every day just the same, and listen and examine, make notes and occasional suggestions.
The show is terrible. There, I said it on the Internet.
In the most recent episode, Cathy (the melanoma patient who’s said to be responding to a treatment about which viewers know nothing) runs into her oncologist at the pool where she symptom-freely coaches a swim team. The doctor, portrayed by Alan Alda, has a young wife who talks openly about sex with her husband and invites Cathy to a meal in their home.
So Cathy’s two for two for eating meals with her oncologists – one in each of the Big C’s seasons so far. Pretty much any cancer patient can tell you that’s highly unusual. Most people have trouble getting to see their doctors in the office for sufficient time, no less in their homes or in restaurants.
Second problem: the doctor’s wife speaks quite crudely about her husband’s talents in the bedroom. Really I wouldn’t care, except that as much as I’ve worked with and known some older male physicians and their wives, and seen some stuff, I’ve never, ever, heard a doctor’s wife, or a drunk doctor’s wife, or a doctor’s wife who’s drunk, speak so crudely about her husband’s sexual skills to a patient. I’m sure it’s happened, but not very often.
And if the show’s directors are so comfortable covering sex, and tampons (last episode), and urine (pee in the pool, did they really have to include that?) and death (there’s a bit of a morbid thread emerging), they could talk about THE BIG C, i.e. Cathy’s melanoma.
If you cover all of the above, why not some jaundice, emesis (med-speak for throwing up), leukopenia (low white cells) or fatigue, or something having to do with cancer, treatments and side effects, or informed decision-making?
This program is a lost opportunity to, in a light-hearted and well-acted way, help people (1) understand what it’s like to go on a clinical trial, (2) live with advanced cancer, and (3) deal with a family during cancer treatments. It’s struck out.
(first sports metaphor on ML; probably the last -)
I’ll follow until the end of the season. Maybe it’ll turn around, but I doubt it.
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