Off The Map is a new medical drama on ABC about doctors working at a clinic in the middle of a South American jungle.  Three new arrivals (Gilford, Gummer, & Dhavernas) join the already hardened veteran doctors (Lefevre, George, Cruz, & Henderson) to escape from their old lives and help practice medicine where there is no modern convenience and they are often forced to think outside the box to save the lives of their patients.

Caroline Dhavernas is back.

Whenever ABC talked about this show, from Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes, they were very insistent that this was not simply Grey’s Anatomy in the jungle.  Except that’s pretty much exactly what it is.  But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  I mean every episode so far has played itself out very much like it would were it that other show.  But it’s a little less heavy.  Even though it tries to be dramatic, it’s far less soapy.

The really important thing about this show is it’s cast.  First off I have to talk about how great it is to see Caroline Dhavernas back on my TV.  She was the lead in the wonderful but unfortunately short lived Wonderfalls and then pretty much disappeared doing very small parts in mostly small projects.  But she’s a real talent and she brings a lot to this show.  I’m also happy to see Zach Gilford, best known as Matt Saracen from Friday Night Lights, on here.  He too is a serious talent (who deserved an Emmy for his FNL work) who’s playing a very different character here.  Rachelle Lefevre is probably most recognizable from being in Twilight and New Moon.  She’s shown some real potential in her many, many other roles though.  She’s also some wonderful eye candy. Speaking of which, really this whole cast is beautiful people.  The girls are all attractive for a male audience and for the females (who the show is aimed at) the male cast are all equally as attractive.

But enough about the pretty people.  There’s the various medical cases which I actually find interesting here.  The doctors being forced to work with what they have, which is essentially just their minds and not being able to fall back on modern technology is interesting and engaging.  Also the stories that can come out of the environment are interesting and not things we see much on most medical shows which are usually set in big cities.

Overall there’s a good amount of interesting stuff here to check out.  I hope the show does avoid becoming a giant soap opera.