Manic Depression is an interesting condition. You live for the high of the Manic phase and can’t stop thinking about suicide during the down of the depression phase. But the high is so damned good you are willing to risk death to get there again.
Black Box is about a Doctor who is crazy. She has bipolar disease, the most recent name given to the madness formally known as Manic Depression. Just as there is no longer Asperger’s Syndrome, there is no manic depression. Not that the name really matters.
The first episode of Black Box is pretty manic, depressive, and a bit schizophrenic. They managed to dump every crazy person cliche they could find into the first hour. Now we can look forward to the next episode with the hope that they will have to come up with some fresh ideas.
We kind of like the idea of highly functioning, but mentally impaired people. Sherlock Holmes proudly proclaims that he is a sociopath. The American Sherlock is an alcoholic. Characters like Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates continue to intrigue. And of course, we have the Poster Children of madness paraded in front of us in Black Box-Van Vogh, Hemingway, and Plath. Real world creative geniuses who had to suffer the barbaric treatments of their times and found death a better alternative. Curiously, our nutty Dr. Catherine Black in Black Box mentions Herman Melville in the company of the usual suspects of mad geniuses, only, I don’t recall anyone ever saying Melville was insane. Herman Melville had every reason to be depressed, but I think it was a sadness born from the life he lived, not the mind he possessed.
I found that I didn’t like the good Dr. Catherine Black in Black Box. She is a vile and evil woman and becomes more vile and evil when she skips her meds-even for one day. Of course, as she screws random strangers and has delusions of flying, she also saves the life of some poor boy with a brain tumor and makes a dying woman happy for her remaining days. I found it impossible to believe this mad woman could function well enough to perform these tasks. In fact, she acts like a dimwitted ninny every time we see her treating patients.
I like the idea of a show about someone with bipolar disorder, but maybe if she had been a writer or a painter or some other type of creative, it would have made a bit more sense.
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