I couldn't help but watch Chasing Life, a new TV series on ABC Family about a young journalist with cancer. The show has significant weaknesses. But what's striking about this program is that from day one, you have the sense that April Carver - an attractive, bright 20-something woman with leukemia - will 'survive' her disease.
How different this is from Love Story, which opened in theaters before Christmas in 1970. Back then, you didn't have to read Erich Segal's novel to know in advance that the movie's gentle, cancer-ridden protagonist would die. Cancer, thirty-four years ago, ran as pure tragedy.
Seeing Chasing Life, now, you get the feeling that April 'fits' cancer into her home, friendships and career - her life, but it won't destroy her. Of course I can't predict the outcome of her case. I haven't seen next year's season. But like any viewer, I know people who've had acute leukemia and lived for decades after.
This ordinary TV show reflects huge progress in cancer treatment since 1970. It's easy to imagine that April will live and continue her fanciful career at the 'Boston Post.' Rather, if she were to succumb to the leukemia, that would be a surprise ending.
What's wrong with this show? I could dwell on annoying characters, like April's mom, a psychoanalyst who makes so many errors in coping with her life and work, apart from her daughter's malignant diagnosis, that I'm incredulous of her existence, even on TV. Or the dreamy-hallucinating sequences, particularly while April's in the hospital and she's speaking with her dead father. And there's far too much 'I'm gonna fight this' language, which sounds very 1990s; it's un-PC in many modern cancer circles.
But I'll focus on the medical flaws. First off, there's a medical ethics problem. April is treated by her uncle George, said to be a leading Boston oncologist. This goes on for weeks in a city replete with medical subspecialists. George orders his niece's diagnostic tests (without telling her, at first), performs her bone marrow aspirate and biopsy, arranges for her blood transfusion, and withholds information about possible side effects of treatment (infertility) at April's mom's request.
All wrong. Most of the way through the season, he finally hands off April's treatment to another oncologist. The program's glossing over treatment by a close relative is off-putting. There's too little (nothing) said on this, and it's too late.
Second, there's a leukemia treatment problem. April takes her time absorbing the diagnosis of AML, which is a fast-growing form of cancer. This leisurely approach to a life-threatening acute illness might be reasonable, and survivable, for a day or two or maybe three, or a week. But, to the producers' credit, this series depicts April throwing or spitting up blood early on, presumably from low platelets. She gets a transfusion before her biopsy, weeks before treatment starts, because she's pale, tired and short of breath from anemia. Her AML case must be fairly advanced, because she has symptoms revealing a compromised bone marrow. Nothing to sit on.
It's not much of a spoiler to say that April has a secret half-sister, who appears in episode one by the father's grave. Soon after, there's an in-family search for a bone marrow match. We'll see how that's handled in the next season, if an allogeneic (from another person) transplant is needed, and whether the producers somehow realize that a half-sibling is unlikely to be a perfect match.
Either way, I'm eager to see how April fares. Will she survive after treatment? (Probably, but only after ups and downs, and multiple doses of ABC Family style life-lessons.) Will the boyfriend come back? What will happen between April's mother and George? What about the younger sister, Brenna, who met a girl and is tentatively exploring her adolescent feelings? Will April's best friend land her dream job?
It's a soap opera, for sure. As it turns out, Chasing Life was adapted from an earlier Mexican TV show, Terminales, which seems to have lasted just one season, 2008 - 2009.
The first season of Chasing Life ended last week. You can catch it, still, on the ABC Family website and possibly in reruns, besides on Hulu and elsewhere. ABC has planned a Christmas special and more episodes for 2015.
Time will tell what happens in April's life, and with her leukemia. What's amazing, really, is that she's not doomed.
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