Show of the week
In 2000, ABC News brought us inside Johns Hopkins's hospital and medical school in the superb Hopkins 24/7. Now the same producers are back with a six-part documentary series on people with tough jobs in the city of Boston. The ambitious project (taped mostly between March and May of 2001) makes for compelling, if occasionally frustrating, television.
Though police officers seem overrepresented here, Boston 24/7 is filled with characters worth knowing: a dedicated paramedic with only one hand; a nightside newspaper reporter who "lives to scoop" her competition; a boyish rookie prosecutor fighting discouragement over his winless streak in the courtroom.
It's only when the program focuses on Mayor Thomas Menino's office that the viewer may feel shortchanged. As Menino and his top aides clash with the firefighters' union, a state agency and the media, we seldom get more than the mayor's side of the story. In big-city politics that's never enough.
Bottom Line: Catches the Hub's heartbeat
