Attaching the name 'Shonda Rhimes' to a Doctor show instantly raises expectations, and perhaps causes a little bemusement as well; hasn't Rhimes done enough Doctor shows? To be sure, Off The Map is a huge departure from Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice in terms of its production ambitions, trading the sound stages of LA for on-location filming in Hawaii - but at the end of the day, it's still that tried and true formula of hunky and svelte young doctors jumbled with statesmen like elders in a sexual and emotional metling pot fraught with not-so-subtle innuendo and characters that ooze with pathos infused back-stories.
Sure sounds like a riff on the old Rhimes formula, but Off The Map is actually created by Jenna Bans - who no doubt contributed to the Rhimes aura through her own work on Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice.
The good news is, Off The Map works. It doesn't take much thought to figure out why Rhimes returns to this genre a third time: she has the formula nailed, and whether you consider Bans a protege or cohort of Rhimes she clearly has decoded the Grey's Anatomy DNA sequence here.
Fans of LOST will be taking to the message boards to divine the various locations re-used in Off The Map - hey, wasn't that the clearing where they found Henry Gale's balloon? - and if you've never watched LOST, or been to Hawaii, then the first effect of Off The Map will be the awesome natural beauty of Hawaii. That damn island has the most photogenic foliage around and the first time you lay eyes on the eroded foothills of the Kuloa Valley you'll long to see the marvel in person.
Off The Map took more than LOST's locations. The one thing that Off The Map has that Grey's and Private Practice don't generally have is a sense of adventure. The series stars Caroline Dhavernas , Zach Gilford and Mamie Gummer as young doctors who sign up for a Doctors Without Borders program in the tropics, and soon find jungle medicine to be more challenging than they thought. Stay tuned for our full-fledged review and recap.
Off the Map is shot on the island of Oahu not the The Big Island of Hawaii