By EMS1 staff
SAN FRANCISCO — NBC’s “Trauma”, reviled by the EMS community following its debut last year, is back in production and will return to the network’s prime time schedule.
The network had cancelled the show in October, later reversing its decision and requesting new episodes.
With the revival, the show’s producers are using the feedback provided by the EMS community to improve the show. The series’ creator, Dario Scardapane, expanded on some of those changes in an interview with the New York Daily News, including the decision to place a deeper focus on the characters and less emphasis on catastrophes and explosions.
“I think our DNA and ‘Emergency’s’ DNA are very, very close, and I was at first really, really shocked by the paramedic backlash,” Scardapane told the newspaper. “And in a sick way, I kinda got into it to find a way to learn how to do the show better.”
In addition, the second return episode will include a guest appearance by Kevin Tighe, who starred as a paramedic in the 1972 series “Emergency!”, according to the Daily News, a calculated move by Scardapane to connect ‘Trauma’ with the seminal paramedic series.
Debuting last fall, the paramedic drama created controversy in the EMS community when many responders felt the show unfavorably portrayed EMS professionals as partaking in lurid, sensational and unprofessional acts.
IAFC’s EMS Section chair Gary Ludwig called the show “an injustice to the many professionals who work in emergency medical services,” at the time of the series’ launch.
Scardapane told the Contra Costa Times he had originally written the finale for Episode 13, changed it to Episode 16 and now finds himself writing it for Episode 20, which is the current length set for production.
Read the full interview with Scardapane at NYDailyNews.com