Low key made-for-TV effort looks like a pilot episode for a series that never eventuated with Mike Farrell as the sometimes challenging, but committed vet of a small, high demand veterinary clinic where intern Jonathan Scarfe comes to take on his first work assignment. Trouble is, the clinic is being threatened with closure for maintenance standard breaches, and Scarfe is supposed to be relocating with his girlfriend whose got a job in another city. Predictably, the various story lines intersect at the film's climax.
Scarfe and Farrell develop an almost father and son like relationship, the kind where one is passively challenged to surpass the other's limited expectations, but given the chance to succeed or fold. Attractive former teen leading lady Ione Skye has the role of the sexy female vet with whom Scarfe would surely end up in one of those on-again, off-again relationships, had the TV movie spawned a series. Bruce Davison is also on hand as the concerned father of an injured cat.
It's an urban "All Creatures Great and Small" fused with "ER", that probably could have made a minor impression with families had it become a series. Canadian locations and acting are serviceable, while screenwriter Charles Martin Smith ("American Graffiti) holds the soap for a couple of sentimental TV moments, disappointments, mild action and the usual hope and destiny conclusion.
