Television: Too sterile for impatient viewers?

A McDreamy surgeon tries to salvage his marriage. An ambitious resident salivates at the chance to jam a tube into a patient's chest. A bombshell doctor immersed in ER carnage pines for love outside hospital walls.

No, it's not a summer session of "Grey's Anatomy." This is "Hopkins," a six-part documentary series, that, for better or worse, is true reality TV -- raw, surprising and, occasionally, routine as a Pap smear.

ABC News producer Terence Wrong first took us behind the scenes at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital eight years ago in "Hopkins 24/7," but you don't have to be familiar with the original to check out this ambitious update that chronicles the lives of a top-notch medical staff and the patients who worship them. Unfortunately, what you may need is a dose of NoDoz to get you through the tedious parts.

First, the positive results of our examination.

Wrong spotlights more than a dozen fascinating characters who are just as complex and compelling as any sleep-deprived intern on "ER." Alfredo Quinones-Hinjosa, a renowned brain surgeon who came to the United States illegally 22 years ago, is a no-nonsense perfectionist who celebrates the success of a tricky procedure by pumping his fists as if he just sank the winning putt at Pebble Beach. Promising cardiothoracic surgeon Brian Bethea exudes confidence in the OR, but turns to cafeteria Jell-O when talking about his strained marriage to his longtime sweetheart. Peyton Penrod, a toddler, faces certain death unless he receives a heart transplant, a predicament that triggers waves of emotion and grief from the family that daytime soaps could only dream of capturing.

The cameras, which ran for more than 1,500 hours over four months, capture vivid drama: Bethea accidentally shatters a wine bottle on the driveway and, while picking up the shards, chooses that moment to explain to his daughter why he and Mommy might be splitting up. As a brain-tumor patient creates a paper rose out of a napkin, he opens up about how he's been abandoned by his kids. Earl Ingemann, a wildly popular 19-year-old Bermudian, wins over the staff with his wisecracks and dreams of being a porn star as he waits for a new heart.

There are also riveting scenes not designed for queasy stomachs, such as the closeup of a newborn having his sputtering heart shocked into a normal rhythm or the sight of a doctor treating open lungs in a transplant as if he were seasoning a fish fillet.

But if you think the entire six hours consists of a string of these "wow" moments, you're in for a huge disappointment.

"Hopkins" has long, mundane scenes without any twists. When one doctor checks out a condo, a wrecking ball doesn't suddenly come crashing through the wall. When a stabbing victim is wheeled in, we don't find that he has a bomb attached to his belt. When two interns share a laugh, they don't rush into the broom closet and play their own version of "Doctor."

This is real life, and for a lot of viewers that will translate to "real boring."

Truth is, genuine reality TV requires patience, a trait I'm afraid we've been weaned from in recent years. We've been OD'ing so long on attention-deficit shows such as "The Hills" and "The Bachelor" that we don't know real "reality TV" when it's staring us in the face.

When television does take a chance on programming that doesn't rely on one temper tantrum after another -- the "Frontline" 2006 doc series "Country Boys," about poverty in Appalachia, comes to mind -- critics whistle and applaud, but hardly anyone sits through the whole thing, not when there's a chance to see Nicole Richie freak out when she touches a cow.

For that reason, "Hopkins," with all its good intentions, will barely register a blip in the ratings. Of course, if Wrong and his fellow producers were looking for popularity, they would have invested in a much more promising medical special: "Kim Kardashian Has a Boo-Boo."

njustin@startribune.com • 612-673-7431