Atlus’ Trauma Center series hasn’t seen any action since 2010’s Trauma Team for Wii, much to fans’ dismay. Unfortunately, this full-length episode of the game’s failed live-action TV adaptation won’t make them feel any better.
An unofficial upload of the pilot episode for Trauma Team is now on YouTube, and it offers an unfinished look at what could have been. It’s still very much a work-in-progress — notice the extended periods of silence? — but the central premise is clear. The series would have followed four talented doctors, each with a unique medical skill, as they work together and treat patients in a makeshift clinic.
In one scene, they’re referred to as “medical vigilantes.” That’s the kind of quality writing one should expect going into this slog of an episode, which features every TV trope in the book. There’s the steamy makeout scene in a secret nook of the hospital, a fight between doctors who just can’t stand each other, slow-motion pacing around the operating table and everything else TV could do with less of.
Production on the Hollywood version of Trauma Team kicked off in the spring of 2010, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Instavision and Fat Dragon Films collaborated on the show, pitched as “Grey’s Anatomy meets The A-Team.” A trailer appeared on Fat Dragon Films’ Vimeo page four years ago, but we’ve heard or seen little of the project since.
Based on the episode above, it’s not hard to see why. Trauma Team had the benefit of fun gameplay to support its individual storylines, which wove together to form an overarching plot. Unlike the show, the game featured different doctors who united to beat the deadly Rosalia Virus, a fictional disease ravaging their clients.
Atlus has kept quiet about the future of the Trauma Center franchise since the Wii game’s release, but we can at least find relief in knowing that a crummy TV show like this one is not the direction the developer is going to take next.
