Code black is based on a documentary of Ryan McGarry, where nurses and doctors work extremely hard to save lives of their patients in the busiest, overfull and short-staffed emergency room in Los Angeles, California.
If the writers keep showing off Harden and Guzman so well, Code Black should have a good shot at survival. The premiere's emotional payoff offers another reason to hope.
There's potential in Code Black, but it's tempered by the realization that this is a series that's not breaking any new ground and sometimes revisiting old ground in all the expected ways.
It's fast-paced with lots of blood and lots of lives saved and lost, but there's really nothing here we haven't seen a hundred times before - and better.