Last night Chasing Life resumed on ABC Family. The good news is that April Carver (Italia Ricci) is out of the hospital and in remission. The bad news is that there’s a good chance her leukemia will come back. If that happens, April will need a bone marrow transplant.
So says April’s oncologist, before the opening credits. And then the show moves along: April visits one of her boyfriends, the governor’s son Leo (Scott Michael Foster). He’s been in a coma for months after cancer surgery. Will he wake up?
Back at home, the family is crazy as ever. April’s mom Sara (Mary Page Keller), a psychoanalyst, continues her shady romance with George (Steven Weber), the same man who was April’s first oncologist and is April’s dead father’s brother. Yes, the therapist has irrepressible feelings for her dead husband’s brother.
Meanwhile April’s cute younger sister Brenna (Haley Ramm) can’t get over her romance with a lovely classmate whose wealthy parents disapprove of their relationship.
And so the world turns, for April with leukemia in Boston.
With this new segment, Chasing Life enters the second half of its first season, scheduled for Monday nights on the Disney-owned ABC Family channel. The series began last June with 10 episodes. The program drew good ratings, particularly among teens and women between the ages of 18 and 34 years. It’s been renewed for a second season.
In December a “Christmas special” featured Ed Asner as April’s paternal grandfather. When he visited his granddaughter in the hospital he used enough cancer “battle” language that, nearing the episode's end, April called him out on it. He got a bit emotional, which was almost real.
Despite all its gloss and shenanigans, Chasing Life draws attention to serious matters affecting cancer patients. Life and looming death play in, of course. But so do practical matters like work, appearances, chemobrain and feeling exhausted.
When April returns to report at the Boston Post she meets her slick new boss. You might expect he would express support for the upbeat cancer patient returning to work. Or that he’d reveal doubt of her capability to carry out tough assignments after leukemia treatment. Or say something awkward. But he chooses none of the above: he’s indifferent to her serious medical condition.
If I had to pick a single concern about Chasing Life, I’d say it’s the half-dreamy quality of its depiction of having cancer. April’s single-bedded hospital room looks clean and fresh. Yes, she has a central catheter and gets sick, but it doesn’t seem unpleasant as the too common experience of throwing up in an understaffed hospital where you might be pressing repeatedly on a call button before anyone steps in to assist.
April is bright, attractive, talented and passionate about her career. Her likeability sustains TV ratings and, at a deeper level, may elicit more sympathy. If the average woman glances wistfully toward an ex-lover at work, nothing happens. Here, something might occur when they pass in the stairwell…She’s a character many enjoy watching and rooting for.
The pretty portrait hints at a deeper issue , which is that most people with cancer aren’t chipper and slender as April. This matters not because of the TV show: It’s that she who is educated and articulate is the kind of patient to whom some doctors might give more attention and better care. Imagine this story succeeding if the cancer patient were a heavy, irritable mother of two toddlers trying to hold on to her job as a supermarket cashier. That’s harder.
Worth noting is the emerging role of April’s physician Dr. Susan Hamburg portrayed by Merrin Dungey. With imperfectly combed hair, the doctor looks at her patient in the eyes, speaks clearly and admits uncertainty. She’s convincingly human and persuasive as an oncologist – reminding me of a few excellent physicians I’ve known in the post-Marcus Welby era.
