Stream It Or Skip It: ‘SkyMed’ On Paramount+, A Series About Young And Hot Nurses And Pilots In A Medical Airlift Service In Northern Manitoba

It seems that we can’t get enough of Young and Hot people saving lives, can we? Whether it’s a show set in a hospital, or a police department or fire station, the Younger and Hotter the people in those uniforms are, the better. A new series produced for the CBC and Paramount+ takes this concept to literal new heights.

SKYMED: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: The forest in northern Manitoba. A hunter shoots a bear but he doesn’t see the other bear charging him from behind until it’s too late.

The Gist: Meanwhile, in the tiny town of Thompson, Hayley (Natasha Calis) is about to start her first day for the area’s SkyMed unit, where nurses are flying paramedics, who treat emergency situations in remote locations so they can be flown on cargo planes to the local hospital in Thompson or to Winnipeg for more complicated cases.

While on call, the SkyMed nurses, ground crew and pilots all stay in a large house where the most veteran pilot, Weezer (Aaron Ashmore), recalls the “dustups, hook ups, breakups, drunk-ups… throw-ups” that used to happen when he lived there — he’s crashing in the house after a dispute with his wife. Also there is Bodie (Aason Nadjiwon), a pilot who is angling for a job with Air Canada; Chopper (Praneet Akilla), who gets tongue-tied around Hayley; Crystal (Morgan Holmstrom), a nurse from the indigenous territory in the area who is studying to be a nurse practiitioner and is particularly hard on Hayley; Lexi (Mercedes Morris), who is trying to break the glass ceiling at the air service and get in a first officer’s chair; Nowak (Thomas Elms) and Tristan (Kheon Clarke).

The group take care of the mauled hunter, as well as a dam worker that gets sucked into a fan. Hayley helps an indigenous woman give birth on her home soil instead of doing the usual protocol of going to Winnipeg. Crystal takes care of Jeremy (Braeden Clarke), her old friend from the res, when he claims he had a “hunting accident,” but it looks like a stab wound. Lexi quits when asked to overload a plane taking supplies to the northern communities, and the entire team chips in when the overloaded plane goes down, with Weezer in the cockpit.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Grey’s Anatomy or Station 19 in the sky. SkyMed could also be called 9-1-1: Manitoba.

Our Take: Created by Julie Puckrin (Transplant), SkyMed is pretty standard network-level procedural fare, but at least it has the unique backdrop of northern Manitoba and the equally unique setting of an airplane-based medivac service that serves such remote territory.

The show has a ton of characters to service, and only Hayley, Bodie, Crystal and Weezer get any kind of time to make their characters more than just standard procedural tropes. Weezer is the guy everyone looks up to, Bodie has ambitions beyond SkyMed, Crystal is ambivalent about breaking loose from her hometown, and Hayley is holding a health secret that prompted her to escape to the north from her cushy time as a maternity nurse in Toronto.

Everyone else is more of a sketch, especially Chopper, Tristan and Nowak. We’re assuming that as we see more rescues we’ll get to know some of these folks better, but for now there just isn’t enough time to make everyone in the cast a three-dimensional character.

There are some inanities in the first episode, like a hookup that comes out of nowhere and a random pregnancy. But the cast is generally likable, and the dialogue is mostly not stupid (which is always something to watch out for during these kinds of shows). Between that, the scenery, and the occasional First Nations issues that pop up as storylines, ResMed is a light watch that may not leave a lasting impression when it’s over, but it also won’t feel like a waste of time.

Sex and Skin: We talked about the hookup that came out of nowhere, right? Well, we see the two people who hook up having very network-safe sex.

Parting Shot: Lexi is given a first officer’s seat after Weezer’s crash. She stares back at the airline’s boss in disbelief.

Sleeper Star: Mercedes Morris does a lot with Lexi’s brief screen time. We know she’s fierce, we know that she’s ambitious, and we know that she’s principled. Her friendship with Nowak is still a bit of a mystery, but she’s one of the characters we’d like to keep following.

Most Pilot-y Line: Tristan and Chopper are amazed at how Hayley delivered the baby at the First Nations clinic. The girl’s family offered moose meat as a gift. “Saving the day and bringing home the bacon. Best flight nurse ever,” says Chopper, one of the many dumb lines that made Chopper our least favorite character.

Our Call: STREAM IT. SkyMed is nothing revolutionary, but it doesn’t make us cringe, either. For a show of this type, that’s saying a whole lot.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.