Three Rivers | |
---|---|
Genre | Medical drama |
Developed by | Carol Barbee |
Written by | Carol Barbee |
Starring |
Alex O'Loughlin Katherine Moennig Daniel Henney Justina Machado Christopher Hanke Amber Clayton Alfre Woodard |
Composer(s) | Richard Marvin |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 13 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Carol Barbee David Amann Ted Gold |
Production company(s) | Fixed Mark Productions CBS Productions |
Distributor | CBS Television Distribution |
Release | |
Original network | CBS |
Picture format |
480i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV) |
Original release | October 4, 2009 | – July 3, 2010
Three Rivers is an American television medical drama that aired on CBS from October 4, 2009, to July 3, 2010, and starred Alex O'Loughlin in the role of an infamous transplant surgeon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On November 30, 2009, after just eight episodes of the season had aired Sunday at 9:00 pm (EST), CBS announced that Three Rivers had been pulled from its schedule with no plans to have it returned, and the series was later officially cancelled. However, the remaining unaired episodes were burned off Saturdays at 8:00 pm (EST).
With the long running NBC drama ER coming to an end, CBS executives put out a call for a new medical show to fill the void. Carol Barbee was introduced via Curtis Hanson to a pitch by Steve Boman, a former transplant coordinator and Chicago newspaper reporter, for a drama about a transplant hospital. Barbee decided to undertake the project telling it from three points of view of the donor, recipient, and doctor. The location for the show's setting in Pittsburgh was decided based on a determination that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) was the world's leading transplant center with the coincidence that the dominant topographical feature of the city, the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers, would provide an allegory to the show's three points of view. Barbee did her research for the show at The Cleveland Clinic with Dr. Gonzalo Gonzalez-Stawinski, who also tutored the show's lead star Alex O'Loughlin. Dr. Robert Kormos, co-director of heart transplantation at UPMC, also provided input. Transplant pioneer Thomas Starzl, who visited the set, is the inspiration for the fictional transplant pioneer who is revealed to be the father of character Dr. Miranda Foster.