by Marcia Purse
On March 30 and April 6, 2000, the ABC-TV series Wonderland briefly aired in the United States before being yanked - some said cancelled, others said "for retooling" (it was cancelled). This show was described by ABC as "a gripping, fast-paced drama about doctors who work in the psychiatric and emergency units at Rivervue Hospital." (Some media outlets, including the Chicago Sun-Times, said that Rivervue is a psychiatric hospital, which was not the case.)
Nine mental health organizations, including NAMI, NDMDA, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, and the National Mental Health Association, formed a coalition calling this series "a public health hazard" because the show's portrayal of life under psychiatric hospitalization might discourage people from seeking treatment. The new Mental Health Coalition Against Stigma in Hollywood went on to say, "We do not deny the realism of some of what the show presents, but we reject its theme, which is one of no hope." And the American Psychiatric Association sent a media advisory to TV critics pointing out that only a small percentage of people with severe mental illnesses are at risk for becoming violent.
NAMI previewed the first two episodes with a focus group of 12 adults, five of whom had some kind of personal experience with serious mental illness. After viewing the first episode, only four of the original 12 wanted to see the second. All stated that they did not actually like the show enough to continue watching it regularly. The five with experience of mental illness were all upset by the show. One person with a history of psychiatric hospitalization left the group to get emergency counseling.
My perspective is that of someone who has a mental illness but has never undergone psychiatric hospitalization. I did not like Wonderland - but not for any of the reasons given by the Coalition. I didn't like it because of its style. ABC calls it "documentary style." Well, I wouldn't watch a documentary that was this loud and jarring for very long.
The opening episode had three plots:
- A schizophrenic patient (Leland Orser) shot five people in Times Square, and then, when security in the emergency room got careless, stabbed pregnant Dr. Lyla Garrity (Michelle Forbes) in the abdomen, endangering her baby. It turns out that the shooter had come into the hospital a few days earlier, and Garrity herself had refused to admit him because he didn't seem all that sick to her.
- Dr. Abe Matthews (Billy Burke) counseled a dangerously depressed man (Jay O. Sanders).
- Dr. Robert Banger (Ted Levine) was himself interviewed by two psychologists as part of a custody battle for his children.
The violent storyline regarding the shooter received heavy criticism. It is true that the majority of those with serious illnesses like schizophrenia never become violent. However, there have been several recent highly publicized cases where discharged and/or untreated mental patients have committed murders, and it is necessary for the American public to examine its attitudes toward the mental health care system. There are thousands upon thousands of mentally ill people on the streets or in jails because the system has failed them. Some of these will become violent. If the extreme cases can get better help, then we would hope that so can all the others.
I thought the handling of Dr. Matthews' work with the suicidally depressed patient was beautifully done, especially when Matthews slowly unwrapped the bandages around the man's wrists, talking all the time about how most cuts are not deep enough to be dangerous but are more signals that help is needed ... "You cut deep," he finished. Gently he offered help that was, with a tremendous emotional release from the patient, accepted. This certainly did not seem to me to fit in with the coalition's description of the show as offering no hope - yet that description came specifically from the five members of NAMI's focus group who had experience with mental illness. They saw something that I did not - or they missed what I felt was a profoundly hopeful sequence.
Based on this single episode, I didn't think the show was as guilty as critics claim of stereotyping the mentally ill. But I am also aware that I "tuned out" the minor characters of other patients because their babbling was so annoying. I mostly had no idea what they said, what was wrong with them, or how they were being treated. I was also spending a fair amount of mental energy trying to figure out where I had seen Michelle Forbes (Garrity) before (finally I remembered she was Ensign Ro on Star Trek: The Next Generation).
