Three Rivers (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Three Rivers is a medical drama, which premiered on CBS on October 4, 2009 and aired Sundays at 9 pm Eastern Time/Pacific Time. The series was set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
at a fictional hospital specializing in transplants, with Alex O'Loughlin
starring as a famous transplant surgeon. On November 30, 2009, it was announced that CBS had pulled Three Rivers from the schedule, with no plans to return it. On January 9, 2010, CBS
Entertainment President Nina Tassler
confirmed that the series had been officially cancelled. On May 22, 2010, CBS announced that Three Rivers would return on June 5 to burn off
the remaining episodes.
surgeon
, whose good-natured personality and sarcastic wit makes him popular with his patients and colleagues. His co-workers include Dr. Miranda Foster, a surgical fellow
with a rebellious streak and fiery temper who strives to live up to her deceased father's excellent surgical reputation; Dr. David Lee, a womanizing surgical resident who has broken as many hearts as he has replaced; Ryan Abbott, the inexperienced new transplant coordinator who arranges the intricately choreographed process of quickly and carefully transporting organs from donor to patient; Dr. Sophia Jordon, the dedicated head of surgery who has no patience for anyone who has not sacrificed as much as she has for the job; and Pam Acosta, Andy's no-nonsense operating assistant and best friend. In this high stakes arena, in which every case is a race against the clock, these tenacious surgeons and medical professionals are the last hope for their patients.
drama ER coming to an end, CBS executives put out a call for a new medical show to fill the void. Carol Barbee
was introduced via Curtis Hanson
to a pitch by Steve Boman, a former transplant coordinator and Chicago
newspaper reporter, for a drama about a transplant hospital. Barbee decided to undertake the project telling it from three points of view of the donor, recipient, and doctor. The location for the show's setting in Pittsburgh was decided based on a determination that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)
was the world's leading transplant center with the coincidence that the dominant topographical feature of the city, the confluence
of the Allegheny
, Monongahela
, and Ohio
rivers, would provide an allegory to the show's three points of view. Barbee did her research for the show at The Cleveland Clinic with Dr. Gonzalo Gonzalez-Stawinski, who also tutored the show's lead star Alex O'Loughlin
. Dr. Robert Kormos, co-director of heart transplantation at UPMC, also provided input. Transplant pioneer Thomas Starzl
, who visited the set, is the inspiration for the fictional transplant pioneer who is revealed to be the father of character Dr. Miranda Foster.
The pilot for the Pittsburgh-set medical drama was filmed in Western Pennsylvania
in March and April 2009, using the closed Brownsville
Tri-County Hospital and the David L. Lawrence Convention Center
for hospital interior scenes. Post-pilot recasting resulted in actors Julia Ormond
and Joaquim de Almeida
departing and Alfre Woodard
and Amber Clayton joining the series. Ultimately, the pilot was dropped and a new episode was shot for the television premiere. A high-tech, more visually appealing hospital set for the ER and ICU
was built on soundstages 19 and 20 at Paramount Pictures
where interior scenes have thereafter been produced, although location shooting still occurred in Pittsburgh for exterior shots.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
at a fictional hospital specializing in transplants, with Alex O'Loughlin
Alex O'Loughlin
Alex O'Loughlin is an Australian actor, currently starring in CBS's Hawaii Five-0 as Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett. His best known earlier roles include Kevin Hiatt in The Shield, Mick St. John in Moonlight, Dr. Andy Yablonski in Three Rivers, and Stan in The Back-up Plan...
starring as a famous transplant surgeon. On November 30, 2009, it was announced that CBS had pulled Three Rivers from the schedule, with no plans to return it. On January 9, 2010, CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
Entertainment President Nina Tassler
Nina Tassler
Nina Tassler is an American television executive, a graduate of Boston University , and holds the position of President of CBS Entertainment since September 2004....
confirmed that the series had been officially cancelled. On May 22, 2010, CBS announced that Three Rivers would return on June 5 to burn off
Burning off
Burning off is the low-profile airing of otherwise-abandoned unaired television programs, usually by scheduling in far less important time slots or on less important sister stations...
the remaining episodes.
Premise
Three Rivers goes inside the emotionally complex lives of organ donors, the recipients and the surgeons at the preeminent transplant hospital in the country, where every moment counts. However, dealing with donor families in their darkest hour and managing the fears and concerns of apprehensive recipients takes much more than just a sharp scalpel. Leading the elite team is Dr. Andy Yablonski, the highly-skilled workaholic lead organ transplantOrgan transplant
Organ transplantation is the moving of an organ from one body to another or from a donor site on the patient's own body, for the purpose of replacing the recipient's damaged or absent organ. The emerging field of regenerative medicine is allowing scientists and engineers to create organs to be...
surgeon
Surgeon
In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...
, whose good-natured personality and sarcastic wit makes him popular with his patients and colleagues. His co-workers include Dr. Miranda Foster, a surgical fellow
Fellowship (medicine)
A fellowship is the period of medical training in the United States and Canada that a physician may undertake after completing a specialty training program . During this time , the physician is known as a fellow...
with a rebellious streak and fiery temper who strives to live up to her deceased father's excellent surgical reputation; Dr. David Lee, a womanizing surgical resident who has broken as many hearts as he has replaced; Ryan Abbott, the inexperienced new transplant coordinator who arranges the intricately choreographed process of quickly and carefully transporting organs from donor to patient; Dr. Sophia Jordon, the dedicated head of surgery who has no patience for anyone who has not sacrificed as much as she has for the job; and Pam Acosta, Andy's no-nonsense operating assistant and best friend. In this high stakes arena, in which every case is a race against the clock, these tenacious surgeons and medical professionals are the last hope for their patients.
Development
With the long running NBCNBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
drama ER coming to an end, CBS executives put out a call for a new medical show to fill the void. Carol Barbee
Carol Barbee
Carol Denise Barbee is an American television writer, actress and producer.-Biography:Barbee graduated from Central Cabarrus High School in Concord, North Carolina and attended Wake Forest University for Undergraduate School. She graduated from UCLA for Graduate School.She is married to actor...
was introduced via Curtis Hanson
Curtis Hanson
Curtis Lee Hanson is an American film director, film producer and screenwriter. His directing work includes The Hand That Rocks the Cradle , L.A...
to a pitch by Steve Boman, a former transplant coordinator and Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
newspaper reporter, for a drama about a transplant hospital. Barbee decided to undertake the project telling it from three points of view of the donor, recipient, and doctor. The location for the show's setting in Pittsburgh was decided based on a determination that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is an $9 billion integrated global nonprofit health enterprise that has 54,000 employees, 20 hospitals, 4,200 licensed beds, 400 outpatient sites and doctors’ offices, a 1.5 million-member health insurance division, as well as commercial and...
was the world's leading transplant center with the coincidence that the dominant topographical feature of the city, the confluence
Confluence
Confluence, in geography, describes the meeting of two or more bodies of water.Confluence may also refer to:* Confluence , a property of term rewriting systems...
of the Allegheny
Allegheny River
The Allegheny River is a principal tributary of the Ohio River; it is located in the Eastern United States. The Allegheny River joins with the Monongahela River to form the Ohio River at the "Point" of Point State Park in Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
, Monongahela
Monongahela River
The Monongahela River is a river on the Allegheny Plateau in north-central West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania in the United States...
, and Ohio
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
rivers, would provide an allegory to the show's three points of view. Barbee did her research for the show at The Cleveland Clinic with Dr. Gonzalo Gonzalez-Stawinski, who also tutored the show's lead star Alex O'Loughlin
Alex O'Loughlin
Alex O'Loughlin is an Australian actor, currently starring in CBS's Hawaii Five-0 as Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett. His best known earlier roles include Kevin Hiatt in The Shield, Mick St. John in Moonlight, Dr. Andy Yablonski in Three Rivers, and Stan in The Back-up Plan...
. Dr. Robert Kormos, co-director of heart transplantation at UPMC, also provided input. Transplant pioneer Thomas Starzl
Thomas Starzl
Thomas E. Starzl is an American physician, researcher, and is an expert on organ transplants. He performed the first human liver transplants, and has often been referred to as "the father of modern transplantation."-Life:...
, who visited the set, is the inspiration for the fictional transplant pioneer who is revealed to be the father of character Dr. Miranda Foster.
The pilot for the Pittsburgh-set medical drama was filmed in Western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania consists of the western third of the state of Pennsylvania in the United States. Pittsburgh is the largest city in the region, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic and cultural center. Erie, Altoona, and Johnstown are its...
in March and April 2009, using the closed Brownsville
Brownsville, Pennsylvania
Brownsville is a borough in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States, officially founded in 1785 located 35 miles south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River...
Tri-County Hospital and the David L. Lawrence Convention Center
David L. Lawrence Convention Center
The David L. Lawrence Convention Center is a convention, conference and exhibition building in downtown Pittsburgh in the U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The initial David L...
for hospital interior scenes. Post-pilot recasting resulted in actors Julia Ormond
Julia Ormond
Julia Karin Ormond is an English actress who has appeared in film and television and on stage.-Early life and education:...
and Joaquim de Almeida
Joaquim de Almeida
Joaquim António Portugal Baptista de Almeida is a Portuguese-born American actor. He began his acting doing some theater. During the 1980s, he started his film career appearing on the 1982 action film The Soldier, and later achieved recognition for playing Andrea Bonanno in the 1987 Italian film...
departing and Alfre Woodard
Alfre Woodard
Alfre Ette Woodard is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Grammy Awards, 17 times for Emmy Awards , and has also won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.She is known for her role in films such as Cross Creek, Miss...
and Amber Clayton joining the series. Ultimately, the pilot was dropped and a new episode was shot for the television premiere. A high-tech, more visually appealing hospital set for the ER and ICU
Intensive Care Unit
thumb|220px|ICU roomAn intensive-care unit , critical-care unit , intensive-therapy unit/intensive-treatment unit is a specialized department in a hospital that provides intensive-care medicine...
was built on soundstages 19 and 20 at Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
where interior scenes have thereafter been produced, although location shooting still occurred in Pittsburgh for exterior shots.
Characters
Below is the list of the main characters throughout the series:- Alex O'LoughlinAlex O'LoughlinAlex O'Loughlin is an Australian actor, currently starring in CBS's Hawaii Five-0 as Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett. His best known earlier roles include Kevin Hiatt in The Shield, Mick St. John in Moonlight, Dr. Andy Yablonski in Three Rivers, and Stan in The Back-up Plan...
as Dr. Andy Yablonski - Katherine MoennigKatherine MoennigKatherine Sian Moennig is an American actress known for her role as Shane McCutcheon on The L Word, as well as Jake Pratt on Young Americans. In 2009, she starred as Dr. Miranda Foster on CBS Three Rivers.- Personal life :Moennig was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Broadway dancer Mary Zahn...
as Dr. Miranda Foster - Daniel Henney as Dr. David Lee
- Christopher HankeChristopher HankeChristopher Jason Hanke , often credited as Christopher J. Hanke, is an American actor known for his roles on Broadway and television.- Early life :...
as Ryan Abbott - Alfre WoodardAlfre WoodardAlfre Ette Woodard is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Grammy Awards, 17 times for Emmy Awards , and has also won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.She is known for her role in films such as Cross Creek, Miss...
as Dr. Sophia Jordan - Julia OrmondJulia OrmondJulia Karin Ormond is an English actress who has appeared in film and television and on stage.-Early life and education:...
as Dr. Sophia Jordan, unaired pilot. - Justina MachadoJustina MachadoJustina Machado is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Vanessa Diaz in the HBO drama series Six Feet Under.-Early life:...
as Pam Acosta - Amber Clayton as Dr. Lisa Reed