‘The Grinder’ Is Back (Sort of) in Rob Lowe’s ‘Code Black’ Premiere

Do you miss The Grinder? I do. Hold that thought.

A code black, as CBS’s Code Black dutifully reminds viewers at the beginning of each episode, is “an influx of patients so great, there aren’t enough resources to treat them.” L.A.’s Angels Memorial Hospital has 300 of those a year which is, like, almost every day. In the Season 2 premiere, it’s shark week, i.e., IT’S SHARK WEEK.

Enter Colonel Ethan Willis. He’s from the Defense Department. He’s a doctor. He’s Rob Lowe. And he’s still The Grinder but not really but The Grinder (as Donald Trump would say). He’s Mr. Dr. Colonel Rob Lowe.

(Annnnd he’s channeling Caruso circa CSI: Miami! Cue Roger Daltrey … YEAHHHHHHHHH!)

His hair’s a little weird — business on the sides, party on the top like Sideshow Bob but better — but he’s 100 percent The Grinder. And not the actor who played The Grinder in last season’s brilliant-but-cancelled FOX comedy The Grinder but the ridiculously cool lawyer on the legal drama The Grinder that was the show within the show.

This season Mr. Dr. Colonel Rob Lowe joins CBS’s middling-hit hospital drama Code Black, which averaged a respectable 7 million viewers last season as the sort of hospital drama that takes itself seriously so you don’t have to. It’s basically The Grinder — the show within the show — in a hospital, so the casting makes perfect sense.

In his first scene in Monday night’s premiere, Mr. Dr. Colonel Rob Lowe actually does the rip-off-his-sunglasses thing. Without irony. On a helicopter. The rescue chopper lands on the beach at the scene of a terrible accident. It’s time to save some shark bait.

Mr. Dr. Colonel Rob Lowe uses a new technique that, as he says, is “like shooting cream into a Twinkie.” He learned it at the Defense Department. “You can’t tourniquet an abdomen.” So true. The delicious (I’m guessing) foam oozes out of the victim’s shark bites. Life saved. Back the the helicopter. The Grinder rests.

But wait, there’s more.

As Mr. Dr. Colonel Rob Lowe and entourage are leaving the beach on their Angels Memorial chopper, somebody falls out. I’m not joking — out of the helicopter. Mr. Dr. Colonel Rob Lowe jumps out of the chopper and into the Pacific Ocean to swim to the beach to save whoever fell out of the chopper. Aaaaaand scene.

If you’re a Rob Lowe fan or looking for some so-bad-it’s-good TV, check out The Grinder Code Black.

[Where to stream Code Black]

Scott Porch writes about the streaming-media industry for Decider and is also a contributing writer for Playboy and Signature. You can follow him on Twitter @ScottPorch.