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Transplant final season starts on NBC tonight [1]
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Date: 2025-05-22
Transplant is a Canadian TV show that I would have been completely unaware of if it hadn’t been that the coronavirus pandemic forced NBC to look for English language shows from outside America to fill in a hole in their primetime line-up.
It’s a show that resonates in America because it’s about the Canadian equivalent of the American dream for an immigrant from a war-torn country. Hamza Haq stars as Dr. Bashir Hamed, a Syrian doctor turned refugee who in Season 1 was barely making ends meet by working as a line cook at a Toronto restaurant.
Then an accident hurt several people, including Hamed himself, but also gave him an opportunity to practice medicine, bringing him to the notice of a hospital administrator. Hamed is not a transplant surgeon, but a general practitioner who can MacGyver medical tools out of whatever’s available.
Hamed couldn’t apply to work at the hospital in the normal way because he couldn’t prove that he graduated from medical school in Syria with his official transcripts, on account of having been labeled an enemy of the state.
Left to right: Dr. June Curtis (Ayisha Issa), Dr. Bashir Hamed (Hamza Haq), Dr. Theo Hunter (Jim Watson) and Dr. Magalie Leblanc (Laurence Leboeuf) in an episode of Transplant on NBC.
As enlightened as the Canadians are, that sort of thing makes them as nervous as Americans. Nor did it help matters that Bashir’s brother was wanted for questioning by law enforcement.
The show’s first season filled in the hole in NBC’s schedule caused by Chicago Med and New Amsterdam pausing production in 2020. NBC put a significant bit of advertising power behind Transplant’s first season. NBC seemed to advertise Transplant almost as much as Chicago Med.
As the coronavirus pandemic transitioned to an endemic, American TV production resumed, but NBC continued airing Transplant as the later seasons became available.
Last year I started half-watching Chicago Med. There have been a couple of storylines this season that I plan to write about. But I’ve never found that show as immediately interesting and engaging as Transplant. As for New Amsterdam, I barely watched and didn’t even notice when its series finale aired in 2022.
Here’s a little trailer for Season 4 of Transplant. If you don’t quite remember what happened in the first three seasons, or you didn’t watch, don’t worry, I think you’ll be absorbed into the story just the same.
x YouTube Video
Okay, so I’m not liking that angle that we can only hire one doctor for the fellowship, it might be as contrived as a similar storyline on The Good Wife. But everything else from the first three seasons of Transplant has struck me as authentic and organic.
Tonight NBC will air two episodes, at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern, respectively. According to TV Guide, in the 8 p.m. episode,
Bash and Mags work together to help a John and Jane Doe found in the woods; June sees her old mentor differently now that she is a fully qualified surgeon; a suspended Theo treats patients...
and in the 9 p.m. episode,
Bash races to save a man who gets trapped beneath the city streets by a sinkhole.
Not sure if I’ll get to watch the first episode tonight, on account of other events on my calendar, but I should be home to watch the second episode, for which I get the feeling it probably works pretty well as a stand-alone episode. Presumably all episodes are available to stream on Peacock.
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