Black Box

ABC's Black Box  attempts to tackle the subject of mental illness, and gives us a flawed hero, Catherine Black (Kelly Reilly) a famous neurologist who secretly has bipolar disorder, with which to do it.

The show centers about Catherine Black, both her career and her personal life. In her career she is a brilliant neurologist and the show parades across her path a series of people with mental illnesses. In the pilot episode it was a man with schizophrenia who ultimately turns out to have a brain tumor that is causing it, which is removed and he returns to normal. We also see things like Exploding Head Syndrome, Capgras Syndrome, and more. It's like watching an episode of House, but entirely focused on brain and mental illnesses.

Meanwhile, Black's personal life it also shown as she struggles with accepting that she could have a real relationship with her boyfriend who has proposed, and the new surgeon she is attracted to but also may be a psychopath (mental state, not like he kills people). There is also her brother Josh, his wife Regan and their daughter Esme, who it is revealed is actually Catherine's daughter. And through it all Catherine fights her own bipolar disorder.

Black Box is interesting, and well made. But there is one problem.

In an increasingly common move, Black Box was ordered straight to series for 13 episodes. And luckily despite low rating ABC aired all 13. However, the network has yet to announce the fate of the show. It was getting beat by all of its competition, so signed point toward not. Time will tell. And if you do decide to watch the show, which from the ratings you probably haven't, be warned that it has a cliff hanger ending, one that may never get resolved.