Medical Center of Love
Medical Center of Love was a popular soap opera set in a medical center in Los Angeles. It glamorized the morally bankrupt lifestyles of its main characters, all of whom were played by unrealistically beautiful actors. The storylines tended to be extremely convoluted, to the point where the writers seemed to be making up new developments as they went along.
The show's lead characters were a handsome young man named Derek and the amnesia-prone actress Holly Donahue. However, it had a wide supporting cast, although few to none of whom were what they seemed. To accommodate easy story resolutions, many of them kept surprisingly detailed diaries of their actions. Holly in particular had a long history of crimes behind her, such as poisoning a rival actress, embezzling money from her uncle and rigging the Oscars. However, her recurring amnesia meant that most of the time — specifically, when it was convenient to the plot — she could not remember committing them.
One of the foremost stories in the show is the romance of Derek and Holly. After three months of dancing around the issue, Derek finally seemed ready to ask for her hand in marriage. (Specifically, this occurred after he rescued her from Mr. Alena Mayfield, who had disguised himself as a Los Angeles police officer to avenge his wife, and exposed her brother Trevor, who had been selling all of her secrets to the press for the past eleven years.) However, this was only a plan to earn her trust, get the combination to her safe and steal her jewelry, just in time to be written out of the show by being sent on a top-secret mission to Bolivia for at least three years.
All of this was experienced by Erica Clark, who regularly watched the series at 3:00 PM before her parents came home. Jason Whittaker, disapproving, programmed the Room of Consequence to let her live the life of one of the characters. After going through the soap opera life firsthand, Erica recognized the show for what it was: a dressing-up of self-centered, untrustworthy and generally bad characters. She decided to stop watching it, and recommended a similar program for her friend (and fellow fan) Kim Peterson.
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Notes
- It could be partially based on "Big Hospital", which was Ramona Quimby's favorite TV show in Ramona Forever.
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