'Miracle Workers' (ABC)
Starring on reality TV ain't brain surgery. Unless, of course, it is.
"Miracle Workers," which only lasted for five episodes, was "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" with bed pans: Seriously sick people—in dire need of expensive medical procedures—would be rescued by the show's cadre of medical professionals, who would whisk their subjects through some of modern medicine's most innovative, exotic treatments. And ABC would foot the medical bill.
OK, so ABC's motives probably weren't antiseptically pure. Some might argue that the network exploited some very ill people to goose its ratings. But don't tell that to the handful of folks whose lives were truly changed through the show.
"Even if the show does no rating," Stephen McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment, told The New York Times shortly before the show debuted, "we help a lot of people. In a day and age of mean-spirited, bug-eating shows, we've done something good."
