For every hour of programming, you have 40 minutes of the banal home life of the doctor, 15 minutes of establishing shots, and 5 minutes of actual content. I zipped through a whole season in about two hours, and I could have done it in less.
Do you remember the episode of Friends where Monica put Phoebe in charge of cups? And Phoebe went nuts making everything out of cups? Well, I think they told some film student he could do the transitions and establishing scenes, and in an attempt at seizing the spotlight he produced a ridiculous amount of them. Between each scene is 5 minutes of storefronts and the same damn statue over and over again with the occasional fancy wipe. This is beyond tedious.
Yet that seems interesting in comparison to the home scenes. Thrill while the wife discusses a remodel! Sit on the edge of your seat when the doctor is late for Tae Kwon Do! Absorb yourself in the 70th identical discussion about how much time he spends with his family! You get the picture. I don't know why anyone would sit through this part of the show. They are uninteresting people leading uninteresting lives.
When you finally get to the surgery, there are some pretty good parts. They had an expert discuss the cultural reason an anonymous Muslim woman is getting a hymen restoration. There are plenty of patients with botched surgeries and the innovative techniques the doctors use to fix them (it's more difficult than a regular procedure). You also get to see how people come to obsess over their perceived imperfections, how models/actresses can't get work when they're beautiful but flawed, and the tremendous relief of fixing a physical deformity that has haunted the patient for years.
Do you remember the episode of Friends where Monica put Phoebe in charge of cups? And Phoebe went nuts making everything out of cups? Well, I think they told some film student he could do the transitions and establishing scenes, and in an attempt at seizing the spotlight he produced a ridiculous amount of them. Between each scene is 5 minutes of storefronts and the same damn statue over and over again with the occasional fancy wipe. This is beyond tedious.
Yet that seems interesting in comparison to the home scenes. Thrill while the wife discusses a remodel! Sit on the edge of your seat when the doctor is late for Tae Kwon Do! Absorb yourself in the 70th identical discussion about how much time he spends with his family! You get the picture. I don't know why anyone would sit through this part of the show. They are uninteresting people leading uninteresting lives.
When you finally get to the surgery, there are some pretty good parts. They had an expert discuss the cultural reason an anonymous Muslim woman is getting a hymen restoration. There are plenty of patients with botched surgeries and the innovative techniques the doctors use to fix them (it's more difficult than a regular procedure). You also get to see how people come to obsess over their perceived imperfections, how models/actresses can't get work when they're beautiful but flawed, and the tremendous relief of fixing a physical deformity that has haunted the patient for years.