Coma Information

Coma is an American television mini-series based on the 1977 novel of the same title by Robin Cook and from the 1978 movie by the same name. The four-hour medical thriller was originally broadcast on A&E on September 3"4, 2012.

The series was directed by Mikael Salomon and produced by Ridley Scott and his brother Tony Scott, the same group of men who adapted The Andromeda Strain as a miniseries for A&E in 2008. The film is dedicated to Tony Scott, who died in August 2012, only weeks before its broadcast premiere.

Cast

• Lauren Ambrose as Susan Wheeler, Medical School Student trainee at Peach Tree Memorial Hospital
• Steven Pasquale as Dr. Mark Bellows, Chief Surgical Resident at Peach Tree Memorial Hospital
• Geena Davis as Dr. Agnetta Lindquist, Head of Psychiatry at Peach Tree Memorial Hospital
• James Woods as Dr. Theodore Stark, Chief of Surgery at Peach Tree Memorial Hospital
• Ellen Burstyn as Mrs. Emerson, Head of Operations at the Jefferson Institute
• Richard Dreyfuss as Professor Hillside, Professor at Atlanta University
• James Rebhorn as Oren
• Joe Morton as Dr. Nelson, head of Anestheseology at Peach Tree Memorial Hosptal
• Michael Weston as Peter Arno
• Joseph Mazzello as Geoffrey Fairweather
• Erin Beute as Liza
• Cal Johnson as Coma Victim #1
• Burgess Jenkins as Sean Berman
• Ron Clinton Smith as Maguire
• Wilbur Fitzgerald as Police Captain
• Mike Pniewski as Detective Jackson

Plot

Susan Wheeler (Lauren Ambrose) is a medical student starting her first year of training at the Peach Tree Memorial Hospital, built by her deceased grandfather. There she meets Dr. Mark Bellows (Steven Pasquale), Chief Surgical Resident, an doctor in a relationship with Head of Psychiatry Dr. Agnetta Lindquist (Geena Davis). Susan discovers that an unusually high number of surgeries at the hospital have been ending in comas. These coma patients are being transferred to the mysterious Jefferson Institute, a hospital designed to take care of coma patients. It's run by Mrs. Emerson (Ellen Burstyn), who refers to the patients as "her babies". With the help of Dr. Bellows (and soon Dr. Theodore Stark (James Woods), Chief of Surgery), Susan investigates the comas, and before long, strange things begin to happen seemingly to stop her investigation: her roommate, who works at the hospital and who helped her access confidential files, is suddenly fired; the hospital board tries to have her expelled from school; and she discovers cameras in her house. She is also stalked by Peter Arno (Michael Weston), who turns out to be a patient of Dr. Lindquist's and seems to be stalking Susan at Lindquist's behest. During one encounter with Susan, Peter puts a burlap sack over her head and tells her that, if she doesn't stop looking into the comas, she'll end up at Jefferson too.

Soon after a rare tour at the Jefferson, during which Susan wanders off path and discovers inhumane practices such as suspending patients by metal rods inserted into their bones, she contacts Dr. Stark with evidence, but he is in a car accident that renders him comatose before he can expose the conspiracy. Susan and Dr. Bellows, who began suspecting Dr. Lindquist's role in the conspiracy and broke off their relationship, together find out that various hospital staff and doctors have been getting large amounts of money from Jefferson. They further discover that each patient who ended up in a coma was operated on in the same room, which was pumped full of carbon monoxide via a pipe from the basement; this would render the patient brain dead without anyone noticing. Peter tries to kill Susan as she tries to collect evidence, but when he fails, he slits his own throat in a body cooler.

Susan is eventually captured and delivered to Jefferson, where they plan to put her into a coma. Susan breaks free, though severely sedated, and tries to escape through the hospital, hallucinating that she is underwater. As she flees, she finds out the complete truth - the Jefferson Institute is a human experimentation lab and organ farm. Jefferson has Peach Tree Memorial purposely induce comas on patients predisposed to certain diseases and then uses the bodies in various ways, ranging from harvesting organs from the patients directly to inducing pregnancy to use the fetuses for parts or umbilical stem cells to using them as human test subjects. Finally she encounters Professor Hillside, her medical school professor, who tells her that he and Susan's late grandfather Dr. Wheeler are the masterminds of the Jefferson Institute, making the Jefferson Institute their legacy. Susan cries, distraught that this barbarism is being carried out in the name of medical advancement.

Meanwhile, Dr. Bellows and police Detective Jackson (who has been investigating the stalking of Susan and the death of Peter Arno) both end up at the house of Dr. Stark. There they find most of the doctors gathered for Dr. Stark's memorial; Stark died during surgery a few hours prior. While there, Dr. Nelson, head of anesthesiology and a part of the conspiracy, is seemingly overcome by guilt and tells the detective and Dr. Bellows that they can find Susan at the Jefferson Institute. The police and Dr. Bellows soon enter the institute and witness for themselves the horror. They arrest Professor Hillside and Dr. Bellows discovers Susan, who stabbed Mrs. Emerson to death with a syringe in self-defense and escaped through a drain.

The miniseries ends with Susan awake in a hospital with Dr. Bellows by her side. She tells him she had "a terrible dream...I dreamt I was underwater and I couldn't get out". Dr. Bellows tells her "it was just a dream" and then receives a text message with a picture of Dr. Lindquist, asking him to join her at a hospital in China. Dr. Bellows looks at Susan and repeats, "it was just a dream."

Production

Coma was filmed in Atlanta, Georgia, in December 2011.

Reception

Ratings

The first two hours, which originally aired on September 3, 2012, were watched by 1.82 million viewers and received a 0.5 rating among viewers aged 18"49. The final two hours, which originally aired on September 4, 2012 were watched by 1.52 million viewers and received a 0.5 18"49 rating.

Critical reception

The miniseries received a 56 out of 100 aggregate score, based on 16 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews" reception at Metacritic. Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly gave it a B grade, but added: "Alas, there are enough reminders of real life "? including an early suicide "? to dampen the fun of this guilty pleasure." Verne Gay of Newsday also gave it a B and stated "the plot's ridiculous, but the film's mostly fun, while the pleasure of watching Ellen Burstyn play a homicidal wacko is not to be denied anyone." David Hinckley of the New York Daily News stated: "This Coma is different enough from the 1978 movie to have its own appeal, and the cast keeps things interesting even during plot lulls." Linda Stasi of the New York Post called the miniseries "very lame" and "dopey", adding: "The mystery is pretty much laid out like a coma patient from the beginning [and] ruins whatever suspense you might otherwise have built up."

DVD release

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the miniseries on DVD on October 30, 2012.