Harden appeared in the Coen brothers’ Miller’s Crossing (1990)which is a 1930s mobster drama in which she first gained wide exposure.
She also appeared in The Imagemaker (1986), her first movie screen role, in which she played a stage manager. Harden appeared in several television programs, including Simon & Simon, Kojak, and CBS Summer Playhouse throughout the 1980s. on CBS.Her first film role was in a 1979 student-produced movie at the University of Texas.
They will revel in the gore and guts of it all, the thin lines between life and death, the misdiagnoses made right and those rare moments when Rorish bothers to lift her hardened visage into a smile.įor those who aren’t hospital drama junkies, “Code Black” is a hard sell and a series that would’ve been better off as a made-for-TV movie. Richard Webber from “Grey’s Anatomy.”ĭespite all of this, there are those who will appreciate “Code Black” for the by-the-numbers hospital drama that it is. As an added twist, guest star Kevin Dunn and cast member William Allen Young appear to be playing two different versions of Dr. Harden’s unfortunate typecasting is the least of the ailments afflicting “Code Black.” When blood isn’t flying everywhere and the doctors aren’t rushing from one disaster to the next, derivative characters bombard the screen with familiar tropes. By the time it’s revealed that Rorish actually cares about people other than those she’s fighting to save, i.e., the relatives of her patients or her coworkers, the need to see her as more than a robotic harpy with a sad background is lost.
It’s a archetype she’s perfected on everything from “Trophy Wife” to “How To Get Away with Murder.”Īlso Read: CBS News Communications Chief Kelli Halyard Bolts for Consumer Reportsīut because she has played a talented but obtrusive woman one too many times, seeing her do the same on “Code Black” just makes you want to turn the channel. Sometime after getting an Oscar nod for “Mystic River,” Harden became the quintessential ball buster in movies and shows alike. Rorish also has a sassy sidekick (Luis Guzman), who also happens to be the head nurse, and four fresh residents to berate and whip into shape. So of course Rorish - which rhymes with at least two unflattering words - has a tragic backstory and of course she has a colleague who doesn’t approve of her methods (Raza Jaffrey, “Homeland”).
Leanne Rorish (Oscar winning star Marcia Gay Harden), a brash rule breaker who is more interested in saving patients’ lives by any means necessary than making friends.
This code black way of life also sets the scene for Dr. It’s never a good sign when the title of a show has to be spelled out.ĬBS’ new hospital drama “Code Black,” which premieres Wednesday, not only opens with the explanation that “code black is hospital speak for an influx of patients so great, there aren’t enough resources to treat them” but to drive home the point, the term is yelled out at various times throughout the series.īecause, as we’re told in the intro, the fictional Angels Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles goes “code black” 300 times a year when most other hospitals “code black” five times a year.Īlso Read: 'UnReal's' Shiri Appleby to Guest Star on CBS' 'Code Black'