TV REVIEW

Combat Hospital: war as entertainment

Combat Hospital
Created by Daniel Petrie Jr. & Douglas Steinberg
Reviewed by Darren Edgar

Combat Hospital is a television drama series, which debuted June 21 on Global. Set in Kandahar, Afghanistan, the show claims to present accurately the horrors of war witnessed in a medical facility. Unfortunately, it does no such thing.

Doctors and nurses in a war setting see the most horrific of injuries, yet the most graphic scenes of Combat Hospital are surprisingly cleaned up. While the female characters talk about a desperate need of health services for Afghan women, nothing ever comes of this.

So much for showing the horrors of war.

The show is set in 2006, a time when Canada’s military role in Afghanistan was escalating and Canadian Forces were taking a lead role in the NATO-led operation. However, the show is being produced at a time when our military’s role is supposed to be diminishing, eventually to a full withdrawal of combat troops. This still leaves a thousand Canadian troops in non-combat training roles, and comes after three extensions of the deadline to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan.

The point of Combat Hospital is to normalize Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, making it more palatable for citizens by presenting it as bloodless, even sexy and entertaining. The characters miss the most basic of questions: “Why are we here? What is our role in this mission we keep hearing about? Is it ever going to end?”

There is no indication that the producers or writers have given any thought to these issues, nor do they attempt to address the Canadian military’s complicity in worsening the lives of Afghan people.

This show just doesn’t jibe with the majority of Canadians who oppose the war, and is an insult to the bloodshed and lives lost in a country ravaged by decades of imperialism. Combat Hospital misses a golden opportunity to engage its viewers in the issues surrounding this illegal war.