History

Everyone back after that week off? Good. Guess what? Doc has a dark, dark secret. I mean, dark, man. Like if this secret were to see the light of day, it would suck all available light sources within a six-mile radius. This dark secret, so dark, so profoundly without pigmentation and bright hues, is just...okay, sorry, sorry. I'm getting way ahead of myself. But, damn Doc, how did you go so long living with this terrible, black-as-a-black-hole secret for so long? How did you cover up the hole in your soul? Doc, so angelic, so wholesome, so...All right, I went and did it again. But, wow. Doc, you are a man of mystery and your dark secret only makes you that much more compelling and mysterious. Sort of.

Previously on Doc-based episodes of Third Watch: Doc broke a bunch of rules to help a gang member. He got into big trouble. Doc had words with Ty about being black and not being outraged on all the injustices around them. (Ty, for the record, said he didn't want to be lectured.) Doc and his main squeeze Dr. Morales got stopped by the police and then Doc got lectured by Morales about his savior-wannabe tendencies. He yelled back.

The episode opens with Doc in a yellow karate outfit on loan from the set of Kung Fu. He is looking all serene, very Tai Chi, as the words "il jang" spring up by way of introducing the segment. "Il jang" must mean "cheap set," because this looks like a monstrously fake dojo. "Heaven" then appears, by way of translation. Man, if this is Heaven, you need to book my ass to Hell and make it one-way. Doc starts doing these lame poses and punches as woodwind and drum machine combine to make a messy, psuedo-crap piece of music that could best be described as "Casio Mysticism." Doc punches. He kicks. He poses. For a minute, I think he's playing a Sega arcade dancing game. He brings his fists to the center...lowers them...and releases. Oh, I know what this is. He's performing Ti-Cheeze.

thing, Doc is back in the real world where it really is air that he is breathing. Going on the theme of Heaven and Hell, Doc is transported from his heavenly martial arts scene to being stuck in the ambulance with Carlos ("my other brain is a Pinto") the paramedic. Carlos has just spilled coffee all over himself and admonishes Doc to slow down. "We're on a Code 3 run," Doc explains. Carlos is mad because he spilled coffee on his notes for genetics class. Doc expresses skepticism that learning about fruit flies can make you a better doctor. Yeah, screw all that biology, chemistry, anatomy, and genetics junk, Carlos. Doctors only need to know how to go, "Mmm hmmmm..." and write unintelligibly. They arrive at a scene where the fire trucks have already arrived. Carlos refers to them as "The Bucket Boys," and Doc bitches that the firefighters arrived first to beef up their activity reports. This is all. Very. Fascinating. Yawn.

Doc gets out of the ambulance and is greeted by Alex Taylor, she of the former sexual-harassment history and now Bobby's lawsuit-waiting-to-happen. Jimmy, he of the big pecs, big grin and cheating penis, is also there. Alex explains that they were in the neighborhood on a false alarm. Doc brushes them away and says he and "WonderBrainBoy" Carlos can take it from here. In fact, Doc is pretty flippant about it.

Going up the stairs, Doc bitches even more that the reason The Bucket Boys arrive first is so they can say they're first on the scene and beef up their budgets to get more expensive toys. Doc knocks on a door where people inside are arguing in Spanish. He goes on about how the firefighters have five times the budget that EMS does. You know, first he goes on and on about how much real estate agents make and now he's going on about firefighter budgets. Why don't you just quit your job and become an accountant already, Doc? Carlos counters by saying that if he's in a fire, he wants the biggest, baddest toys his tax money can buy. Inside, the arguing is growing more heated. Doc gets fed up and yells "immigration!" in Spanish (trust me: It doesn't sound all that different). The fighting escalates even more and suddenly we're outside and a guy is thrown or jumped out of a window where he flops onto a canopy and then onto the street below. He lands on some Christmas trees. Jimmy calls Doc on the radio and says that "some guy just jumped out of the window."

At the hospital, this non-plot is summed up by Carlos saying, "How was I supposed to know the guy was going to jump?" He asks Doc to grab some Christmas cookies from the nurses' stash. A nurse at the desk asks Doc if Carlos has been stealing their cookies. This is about as interesting as watching paint dry on the wall of an insurance convention that's in recess due to a bout of mass narcolepsy. Come on, people, let's pick up the pace! Yokas makes a brief, but spectacular appearance to liven up the episode by bitching about -- what else? -- Bosco, who is chatting up a sports agent they arrested. She walks off, and my last hope that this might be a great episode is shot to hell. The nurse threatens Doc, saying she'll cut off Carlos's hand and feed it to the tropical fish if he steals any more cookies. The Third Watch writers were really on to something when they came up with the "stolen-cookie subplot." That's Emmy material, guys.

Doc is walking down the street and he is stopped by a woman who will spend the rest of the episode wearing no makeup, but it's okay because she's super actress Khandi Alexander (Newsradio, The Corner) and she doesn't need it. "Monte?" She calls after him. "Monte Parker?" Hee hee. Doc is "Monte." He recognizes her as a woman named Beverly. She says she's around the hospital because her father has colon cancer. That's funny because I get an assy itch whenever one of these single-character episodes focuses on Doc. She's been living in Detroit but is back in town to help out. "So you're a paramedic?" she asks. He says he has been for fifteen years. "I've been meaning to call," Beverly says. For, what, fifteen years? She asks if she can call him now. Doc says he'll call her. Oh, the brush-off. Yeah. You go, Doc. Beat those women back with a stick. Doc walks off right into the arms of stupidity as Carlos asks about the woman. "Woman I knew back in high school," Doc says. Carlos asks -- and these quote marks mean I'm quoting here -- "Did you get some of that back in the day?" Sigh...I want so desperately for Carlos to demonstrate that he has half a brain. But, alas...

Opening credits. Amy Carlson has been added on, I see. Good for her.

Based on those Radio Shack commercials, I maintain that Teri Hatcher is shriveling before our very eyes.

Another Ti-Cheeze sequence. "Yoot jang" means "water." Or rather, "Go get a glass of water from the fridge while this dumb sequence is going on. Doc yells this time. "Eeyuh!" I completely fail to get goosebumps. Fists. Center. Release. Yack.

In the ambulance, Carlos is continuing to question Doc about Beverly. He asks if there's a Little Doc running around. Doc implies that there isn't, and says that he hasn't seen Beverly since the two of them graduated from high school. Carlos starts babbling nonsense about how awkward it can be to run into an old girlfriend because you know what they look like naked. And the boyfriend they have now knows that you know what they know that you know about...you know what? It's not even worth it. To summarize: Shut up, Carlos.

Carlos and Doc arrive at an apartment where smoke is coming out of a stove. A mentally handicapped woman explains that she was trying to cook a turkey, but the fire had gone out and when she lit a match, it went "boom." Okay, first of all, a gas oven? Doc helps the woman, Darla, and makes sure she's okay. Her husband, Charlie, who is also mentally handicapped, announces, "I'm hungry!" Doc asks if anyone comes to help them out. Alex, Warrior Firefighter, horns in on the conversation. Doc tells Darla that he's going to take her to the hospital. Darla, who feels fine, says she hates hospitals and doctors. She argues that she doesn't want to go. Doc tries to entice her by offering Darla and Charlie a ride in the ambulance. Oh, please. Darla says she needs to make Charlie something to eat. Darla starts to yell and Alex butts in on Doc's business saying the woman only has minor burns. Carlos says, "Maybe she should stick to take-out." Alex laughs. Doc gets righteous and says that it isn't funny. He talks to them both outside. "These two people can't take care of themselves," he says. Alex argues. "Don't you have a fire to put out or something?" he retorts. Low blow, Doc. Alex asks Carlos what Doc's problem is and Carlos replies, "That's Monte Parker saving the world one patient at a time."

thing -- Carlos and Doc are walking through a university hall. It's weird to see Carlos in school because, well, he has no class. Thanks, Fat Albert -- I knew that joke would come in handy someday. Doc complains about how young all the students look. Carlos shows Doc his fruit flies. They are sterile or etherized or something. As they're talking, a woman comes up and sweetly says, "Hi Carlos." She's not a bimbo, so Carlos abruptly and rudely holds up a hand and says, "I can't talk right now." She goes away. The last vestige of a soul within Carlos also flits away. "Put my virgins down," Carlos tells Doc, randomly. The instructor walks in, calling Carlos, "the bus driver" and Carlos starts whining to him about needing more time for his project. The teacher is reluctant, but gives in to the sheer power of nagging that is Carlos. Doc takes a call on the radio. Turns out Carlos has bad test scores. Imagine the shift in mindset I'm having over my surprise in absorbing this information.

Outside at night, Carlos, Bobby and Kim are walking together for no reason other than to have an inane conversation about holiday shopping. Bobby and Kim seem to think it's funny that people shop at outlets and that Bobby's mom clips coupons. Hey, I clip coupons! Carlos pipes in that the outlets have good prices on irregular items. Kim makes fun of him. All of a sudden, Carlos and I are united in our hatred of Kim. Doc walks up behind them and Carlos points out that Beverly has just pulled up in her car. He gives Doc the old "Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink" and tells him not to do anything he wouldn't do. What exactly, Carlos, would that be? Setting fire to a school while reading the Bible, maybe?