TV: Inconceivable

Inconceivable is set in a fertility clinic that does lots of surrogacy work, so it was inevitable that we'd eventually get a white parents/black baby story; the fact that we get those shocked parents less than two minutes into the first episode suggests, though, that there may not be a lot of creativity in the show's writing.

Ming-Na and Jonathan Cake star as the clinic's doctors, Rachel and Malcolm; he's the arrogant Brit who charms his way out of every problem, and she's the conscientious one who worries that he's eventually going to cause a problem charm can't solve. The supporting cast includes Joelle Carter as the nurse/bimbo who's having an affair with Malcolm, Mary Catherine Garrison as the naive receptionist, and David Noroña as the clinic's lawyer.

Alfre Woodard, as the clinic's psychiatrist, was also meant to be a part of the cast, but was written out when she wound up on Desperate Housewives instead. The scenes in which it's made clear that Woodard will wind up taking the fall for the black/white mixup were clearly late additions to the episode, as were the scenes introducing Angie Harmon as the doctor who'll be joining the clinic, a character added to take Woodard's place.

The best performance in the first episode doesn't come from any of the regulars, though; it comes from Jonathan Slavin, as the boyfriend of Noroña's lawyer character; their own child is about to be born, and Slavin is so paranoid that their surrogate isn't taking proper care of herself that he's stealing her garbage and following her to the supermarket ("Do you have any idea how much mercury there is in tuna?"). He provides a much needed shot of humor in a show that tends to take itself too seriously.

If the show focused more strongly on the medical stories, it might have a shot, but it's already heading down the office-romance-soap-opera path that eventually made ER unwatchable. Still, the cast isn't bad, and it's not as if there's a ton of competition in the Friday/10 pm timeslot.