RAFFERTY (1977) – FORGOTTEN TELEVISION

RAFFERTY (1977) – Before House there was Rafferty! The great Patrick McGoohan, still praised for his multiple creative contributions to the 1967 series The Prisoner, seemed to have found another show ideally suited to his unique talents.

McGoohan starred as Dr. Sid Rafferty, who had just retired as a colonel from the Army Medical Corps after 20 years of service. Rafferty was now an MD in the civilian world, and though he was impressing many with his masterful diagnostic skills, his gruff, cranky demeanor and impatience with lesser minds led to clashes with hospital administrators.

Rafferty was less shrill than Jack Klugman’s Quincy, but still ventured into broader issues. During the program’s brief 13-episode run Sid Rafferty and his colleagues dealt with frivolous malpractice suits, rape, and short sightedness in the medical system.

On the down side, Rafferty also tended to have some very strange goings-on during some multi-story episodes. A family who keeps a child in a cage? Really?

McGoohan hated the show, frustrated that he did not have the kind of creative input that he was used to having back in his Prisoner days. He clashed with the network suits as well as some directors.

Another problem is that the public didn’t seem ready for a “difficult genius” physician long before House or Dr. Cox. Viewers had been subjected to decades of MDs with calm, soothing bedside manners and a volatile personality seemed incompatible with a career in medicine. (Quincy doesn’t count since, as a coroner, all his patients were dead.)  

A more conventional aspect of Rafferty was the way that McGoohan was a mentor to a younger, handsome doctor, Daniel Gentry, played by John Getz. This added a proto-Trapper John MD element, with Sid Rafferty as a sort of Trapper John to Dan Gentry’s Gonzo. Or throw in a Dr. Kildare comparison if you prefer. 

Millie Slavin portrayed Nurse Vera Wales, a capable practitioner who seemed to harbor an interest in the cantankerous Dr. Rafferty despite his brusque nature.

In the end what should have been a reasonably long run for Rafferty ended instead with it residing in the trash bin with countless other 13-episode programs that failed to be picked up for more. 

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