DO NO HARM. “Pilot.” NBC, 31 January 2013. Steven Pasquale as Dr. Jason Cole (chief of neurosurgery at Independence Memorial Hospital) and as Ian Price, his alternate personality; Alana de la Garza as Dr. Lena Solis, a neurologist at IMH and Dr. Cole’s love interest; Ruta Gedmintas as Olivia Flynn, Dr. Cole’s estranged former fiancé; Phylicia Rashad, as Dr. Vanessa Young, chief of surgery at IMH; Lin-Manuel Miranda as Dr. Ruben Marcado, a clinical pharmacologist at IMH and Dr. Cole’s friend. Directed by Michael Mayer. Can be purchased for streaming at Vudu. This first episode can be seen on YouTube here.

   Thanks once again to Wikipedia for providing not only the list of cast members, but who they are on this short-lived series. And by short-lived, I mean it. It lasted for all of two episodes before being yanked from NBC’s 2012-2013 mid-season schedule. (The remaining eleven episodes were burned off later that summer when no one’s watching anyway.)

   But, hey, this the pilot episode is not all that bad. It’s good enough to see why it was picked up as a series in the first place. It was obviously way ahead of its time. (An excuse you’ve probably heard before, I’m sure, and in this case it may even be true.)

   What it is, as you may have deduced from the credits above, if you looked closely enough, is yet another takeoff of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, variations of which will run from now to eternity, each one with a new creative twist. In this case the focus is on a Dr. Jason Cole, an extremely talented neurosurgeon who has a problem. At night, every night, he shares his body with his evil side, who takes over for exactly twelve hours.

   He’s been controlling the damage his other half can do, but the medication is starting to lose its effectiveness, and his alternate personality is starting to cause all kinds of problems, including the would-be new woman in his life, Dr. Lena Solis. She may, in fact, never speak to him again, while on another front his career is starting to hang by a thread.

   Well, what do you think? Is this the basis for a long-running TV series or not? It’s well-directed, and the acting, dialogue and photography are all fine. It must be the premise. From what I’ve told you, and from watching the trailer, can you be the judge? (I’m assuming that nobody reading this has ever seen the show, since by all accounts, no one did.)