When World Colitis

CAN the CBS network save its minority-friendly show from the brink of cancellation by scheduling a two-part, consecutive-night, back-to-back City of Angels double whammy starring gruff, yet craggy special guest Ossie Davis?

CAN Super-Suave Dapper Administrator Man Ron Harris amuse and frighten us at the same time with his sneaky, murderous shenanigans?

CAN Dr. Ben Turner (Blair Underpants, as his friends call him) work in a hospital that employs his current lover (Dr. "Va-va-va-Vivica" Price) as well as his former flame (Dr. Syphax)?

CAN it be that silly and often wuss-like Dr. Williams is crazy enough to ask Dr. Turner's old flame out on a date? Or could it be that he is the only sane person in an insane hospital drama?

Find out the answers to these and other damning questions on the first of a two-part City of Angels Recap-o-Rama!

Previously on "The Show that White Folks Love to Avoid Judging by the Ratings in Relation to its Lead-in, JAG": The ancient, yet fossil-like Dr. Fleischman was shown again pouring a vat of lubricant into his glove to perform a rectal exam. Yum. Future catfighters Dr. Lilian Price and Dr. Ana Syphax made nice before realizing that they were giving sweet love to the same man. Syphax broke up with Ben Turner when he realized he was still in love with Dr. Price.

The episode opens with the lame, Bruce Hornsby-inspired piano music that has replaced the previously unique, if not exactly inspired, gospel vocals. We fly over the Los Angeles cityscape (Most polite motto: "No, please allow us to pop a cap in your ass.") before settling on Turner and Price getting ready to board an elevator. They make steamy plans for that night despite a looming deadline he has on a medical writing assignment. Maybe he secretly writes recaps for ER to try to impress Wing Chun. Ana Syphax boards the elevator wearing a pastel green shirt and froofy Muppet hair. There is an awkward moment for the three of them. Dr. Fleischman asks them to hold the elevator as he scurries over, leaning precariously on his cane. Price says to Syphax, "That's a lovely necklace." Syphax responds awkwardly, "It was a, uh, gift." Dr. Turner wishes he could be anywhere else, like maybe Hell. Turner says to Fleischman, "Take your time," which he mishears as "Change of a dime?" The man is old. Got it. I'll jot that in my Day Runner under "Things to Remember." The elevator door closes on Fleischman's white coat and all of a sudden he is being pulled up the elevator door. He screams and everybody panics. It's because he's old, remember? I consult my Day Runner and it says, "Fleischman: He's old."

Turner and Price try to help as Fleischman turns purple. Price tells Ana to push the red button, but there is confusion. A nerdy guy in the back reveals he's claustrophobic and starts to freak out. Ana makes little snarky comments like, "Maybe we should call a doctor." Price asks, "Was that directed at me?" Turner tries to be a man and says, "Ladies, let's not be petty," and they both give him a dirty look and ask, "PETTY!?" Turner wishes he could be somewhere more pleasant, like maybe a slaughterhouse in the Ukraine. The man in the back screams, "Let me out of here!" and Fleischman, who is close to being rescued, says, "Come again?" Because he's old, remember? Ha ha! My trusty Day Runner. Never write a recap without it.

Cut to opening credits and commercials. The fun's just begun.

We're in Ron Harris's office (The International House of Wood Paneling) where Turner is arguing to try to keep Dr. Fleischman on staff against Harris's wishes. Harris says he had to call a museum to get the doctor's personnel records. Ooh, burn. Harris wonders why they're paying non-productive staff members. Turner argues that Fleischman doesn't perform surgery anymore and in his day was a great contributor to surgery not only at the hospital but the world at large. Harris counters with stuff about salaries and calls the man an old geezer. Give it fifteen years, Ron. We'll see who's the old geezer then. Price looks uncomfortable, as if she'd rather be anywhere else, like maybe in the elevator with Syphax. Harris says he admires Turner's compassion (yeah, right), but gets Turner to admit that Fleischman just isn't contributing anything worth earning a salary. Harris says they'll throw the guy a big party. Then he does something nice by offering to do the firing himself. Turner and Price say they appreciate that. Ron stops Turner at the door to tell him, "We're doing the right thing." There's no foreshadowing music here, but there should be.

At the front desk where nurse Walker is back from her car flip and emergency baby delivery from a few weeks back, Ossie Davis walks in wearing a king's outfit complete with a crown that looks like a hardened version of the one you can get at Burger King. "Good day, good day, to all my loyal subjects!" he bellows. Heathen, who's watching along, says, "This is gonna be so embarrassing." He stumbles along, spouting pseudo iambic pentameter and settles on Walker, "How, pray tell, is thy babe?" Oh god. Please stop it. He rambles about his "royal parts" and she finally says, "You gonna have to speak plain English, your majesty." Never mind that she's not exactly a professor of English herself. Ossie hands his scepter to some poor guy, lifts up his pant leg and reveals a shin that's missing a big chunk of skin. Everybody moans and leans back, presumably from the smell and not from awe of his royal wound. "Put it down!" Walker yells.

We cut to a Whitney Houston video where she isn't throwing a tantrum or smuggling drugs. Savannah, a pretty young girl, is in bed crying because she doesn't want the doctors to perform life-saving surgery. Her colon is shot and she needs a stoma installed as an avenue to rid her body of waste. She starts crying when Turner and Syphax tell her this. "I wanna be that," Savannah says, pointing to a video on TV showing singer Mya. She wants to look anorexic and have a nose ring? Turns out she wants to be a model. She asks Syphax how many models have a tunnel going through them and carry around bags of their own mess. Well, Naomi Campbell seems to make a mess wherever she goes, but maybe that's not exactly the same thing. Syphax and the girl's mom try to comfort Savannah as we fade to black and white.

Back at Angels of Mercy, Dr. Jackson is taking a look at King Ossie, who has everything from diabetes to congestive heart failure to emphysema. He is the very picture of poor health. Ossie says he takes thorazine to keep his schizophrenia under control, but that he prefers craziness to the sanity that passes for this world. Deep, yet profound. An assistant brings out the King's medical records, which would fill a filing cabinet. Ossie bellows something about being the rightful, yet illegitimate heir to the throne of England. I thought John Goodman already had dibs on this as King Ralph. Other patients pause to watch, and one guy to them gets really into Ossie's spiel. Ossie uses the phrase, "Scurrilous knaves," and seems to mean it. He implies that every black man in the ER might be a king seeing as how this old King of England spread his seed around with lots of Nubian servant girls. Jackson tries to get back to the medical issues. The guy to them says he wants to hear the rest: "I ain't been this close to royalty since the last time I played poker." Jackson draws the curtain and tells the King that his leg looks pre-gangrenous and he may need an operation. No, no, no, King Ossie says: "The royal person must remain intact!" If I could make up this dialogue, I would, honestly. Jackson looks amused, as if schizophrenia is extremely entertaining. I wonder if Ossie is going to make Jackson pull his royal finger.

In Ron Harris's Office of Horrors, Harris is leading Dr. Fleischman to a chair while speaking very loudly. Fleischman says that certain voices give him trouble, but Harris's is just fine. No need to yell. Then, the second, he mishears Harris and thinks that the administrator wants to know the time. It's because he's old, in case you forgot. Fleischman tells Harris that he's doing a great job running the hospital, which old Ron seems to like hearing. Harris talks about the hospital's budget and then he does a horrible, sneaky, slimy thing. ["Harris? 'Sneaky'? That I cannot believe." -- Wing Chun] He tells Fleischman that Dr. Turner has decided to terminate his contract, effective immediately. Ron adds that he tried to fight Turner on it, but to no avail. Ron. How could you? Fleischman calls Turner "a hell of a surgeon" when he should be calling Harris "one hell of a bastard" and seems sad, but respectful of Turner's wishes. Ron adds insult to injury by saying Turner's not as compassionate as maybe he should be. In Hell, the Devil whips out Ron Harris's department-store-sized file and adds a few more annotations to the list. On his way out, Fleischman notices a picture of some important-looking people. Harris says that these were the people that saved the hospital in the late 6'0s. Fleischman says he was one of them. Nice moment, but Fleischman is, at last count, still old and fired.

Across the hospital in Dr. Price's office, Ana Syphax walks in looking pretty peeved. Price asks Ana to sit, but she prefers standing and wants to be called Dr. Syphax, seeing as how "Ana" is reserved for her friends. Meow. They exchange a look so dirty, it has to be purchased in a brown paper bag. Price says she wants to talk Woman to Woman about their situation. Hmm, sounds to me like only one of these women has a current "situation" that involves human-to-human contact. Price says, let's talk some Ben. Ana laughs ruefully, accusing Price of gloating. Price counters, "Let's be friends." Ana points out, quite correctly, that if they were friends, Price wouldn't have gone after Ben Turner or any other Kufi-adorned surgeon Ana might be dating. Ana says she doesn't want to hear it. She just wants to do her job and Price should stay out of her way. Price still wants to make peace. "What you should have tried was a little restraint," Ana Syphax answers, and leaves, smartly. Now, who could show restraint around a shirt-less Blair Underwood? Certainly not Dr. Price.

In the cafeteria, a sluggish yet slow Dr. Fleischman approaches Dr. Turner at his little table. He says he'd like to work trauma call, or do anything to keep a job at the hospital. Turner looks sad and says that Fleischman has already paid those dues. Fleischman says he's already buried his wife and his only son and the hospital is all he has left. Turner says he's welcome at all the conferences, to which Fleischman responds, "Don't treat me like I'm old." I take an eraser to what I wrote earlier in the Day Runner. "This place is my life," he says. Then he reveals the bombshell: Harris said Turner fired him. Just then, Turner's pager goes off and he has to leave, but he tries to assure Fleischman that this is a complete shock. "You're calling me a complete schmuck?" Fleischman asks. Turner comes back and tries to make it right, saying he has to go, but they'll talk later. "You're letting me go?" Fleischman asks. Oh dear. Fleischman is left standing in the lunch room with his arms out. He fades to black and white, but not because he's old. Heather and I both go, "Awwwww," and wonder what Ron Harris hath wrought.

Dave Thomas is in a commercial playing on a chat room. Have to say, the Monterey Chicken Sandwich makes me :).

The Bruce Hornsby piano is now accompanied by a mid-tempo beat. Strangely, it's growing on me. In surgery, the would-be model is having her colon thingy installed. They start talking about her, saying how pretty she is and what a shame it is that she'll soon be carrying around her own filfth. "We can reconnect in a couple of years," says Turner, wearing a Kufi hat that looks like it came off someone riding a Harley Davidson. A couple of years is a lifetime to a child, Dr. Weiss says out of nowhere, and then he goes on to tell the most interesting story he's told since he left the Beastie Boys. After some hesistation, he shares the story of how he had gynecomastia, which means breasts, from the age of 11 to 15. He couldn't shower in gym or go to the beach. It was pure agony, he says, and he was teased mercilessly. Weiss is of the school that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is a crock. It may make you sexier, but not stronger. "Kids can be crazy cruel," he says.

Outside, Turner finds Ron Harris and confonts him about the Fleischman situation. "It was harder than I'd anticipated," Harris says, trying to be all suave about his backstabbing. Turner gets mad, but not as mad as you'd expect, and says that this has to be made right. Harris gives him his wish and then some. He says Turner can reinstate Fleischman as long as Turner keeps an eye on him. Turner says, "You damn right," and tells Harris he's going to scream to the hospital that Fleischman is tenured for life. Anybody who's knows anything about TV drama, however, knows that that kind of tenure will last for about another three minutes because Fleischman is not only old, he's probably dead somewhere by now. Didn't these guys see The Shawshank Redemption?

Turner enters the doctors' lounge looking for Max Fleischman and finds him curled up and presumably asleep on an ugly green sofa. Turner grabs his Kufi hat and throws it carelessly aside. Shouldn't he have a manequin head for that, or something? Turner and another doctor watch him and talk about how they don't want to end up old and with no hobbies like poor Fleischman.

In the locker room, Doctors Weiss, Williams and Jackson are getting dressed. Jackson brings up Weiss's teen breasts. They commend him for his heart and then present him with a big Bertha bra. When Weiss opens his locker, some rubber gloves made to look like breasts pop out. Kids may be cruel, but they've got nothing on MDs.

In the pediatrics room, Williams is skulking about, stalking poor Ana Syphax, who has no idea he's about to ask her out on a date. Williams, who has gotten back some of the wussishness that marred his earlier appearances, stutters and pauses, trying to have a normal conversation, and failing miserably. The other nurses leave so he can embarrass himself in peace. He straight up asks her out. Nothing specific. Just out. I write, "Dr. Williams: Desperate and flustered" in my Day Runner right under: "Dr. Fleischman: Presumed deceased." Technically she's his supervisor, but Williams points out that there are no rules at the hospital about fraternization. He points out that there's no way she'll get to know him at the hospital on a personal level. Williams says he bets Ana is a great salsa dancer. She looks very uncomfortable, as if she'd rather be salsa dancing with Mussolini, but he persists. She points out that Dr. Turner, her old flame, didn't like to dance and they never used to go. He tells her if she goes, he'll take her home by midnight so she'll be around for her early rounds. He then creepily reads out her whole life history, which he probably scrounged off the damn Internet. Instead of being horrified, she's amused and a little flattered. I'll have to remember that technique. Ultimately, though, she turns him down. Williams is a little deflated, the way Weiss's breasts eventually were. As she walks away, Heathen yells to Dr. Williams, "Show her your ass!"