Pilots And Nurses And Bears, Oh My! – As the first episode of Skymed begins, we see a man hunting a bear in the woods only to be attacked by another bear. The Skymed team is sent in to help the man in question. Chopper (Praneet Akilla) and the others learn they’re expected to land in a quarry. Once they land, Crystal (Morgan Holmstrom) rushes over to Elroy and introduces herself. They see that the man is seriously injured. When Chopper sees the man’s four-wheeler, he decides to use it to transport the hunter out of the woods. They make it back to the plane which takes off moments later. The hunter is taken to Thompson, Manitoba. Hayley (Natasha Calis) goes to the airport while Lexi (Mercedes Morris) works nearby.

Hayley approaches her since someone forgot to pick her up from the bus depot. Lexi blames Brad before recognizing her as the new nurse Hayley Roberts. Mr. Air Canada Bodie (Aason Nadjiwan) arrives on a plane. He reminds them that he hasn’t even gotten the jobs yet. He tells Chopper that the sit-down was nothing and you primarily have to worry about the psych eval. Bodie says they asked him the suicide question countless ways and also asked if he would prefer to be a florist or poet. Bodie tells him he’ll take his left seat when he leaves. Chopper wants his room too since the heating vent works there. Weezer (Aaron Ashmore) tells him he had to temporarily commandeer his bed. He is asked what he did to tick off Lynn this time, but he doesn’t know.

When Hayley enters, Chopper tells Bodie that he has dibs on her. Weezer introduces himself while the others help Hayley with her belongings. He explains that everyone stays here because they’re on call 24/7 when they’re on duty. It is more efficient to keep everyone together. Weezer gives her a tour of the property. As Bodie enters his room, Madison (Emilia McCarthy) greets him half-naked with alcohol. She has been looking online and already found some great apartments for when he moves to Toronto. He says they need to talk. Hayley looks through her stuff and finds a referral form. She calls her dad who reveals he asked her doctor since she is going to need a specialist up there. Hayley denies that anything is wrong with her and ends the call saying she has an early day tomorrow.

At North House First Nation territory, Chopper shows Hayley where the airstrip and community are located. Jeremy arrives to take Hayley and Crystal to the nursing station where the patient is waiting for them. At the station, Crystal gives Emma (Rebecca Kwan) a magazine that she has been waiting for. Emma tells them about Ernest who is a 50-year-old with type 2 diabetes. He is going to Island Lake for dialysis. Crystal tells him that they’re breaking in a new flight nurse. She lets Hayley handle everything before the plane takes off. Hayley fails to strap the patient in so he nearly falls off the seat during takeoff. Crystal reminds her to always strap the patient in. At the Carnegie Hydro Dam, a man working gets sucked into the fan.

Bodie and the others learn that they’re deployed there for emergency pick-up and transport to Winnipeg. Crystal tells Hayley that it is time for the real deal. They check on the man who says his name is Steve (Ryan DeLong) and that they’re at the hydro dam. Crystal admits they could be dealing with unseen injuries such as internal injuries and fractures. They won’t know until they get him to Winnipeg for imaging. Crystal says they want him as stable as possible before putting him on the plane since everything will be much harder in the air. Lexi talks to a coworker about Bodie leaving and him becoming number four in line for a right seat. Brad (Matthew Kevin Anderson) tries to convince her to get a drink with him, but she refuses.

On the plane, Steve tells Hayley he wasn’t even supposed to work today until he picked up a shift. His kid’s birthday is next week and he wanted a bike. The machine begins beeping as Steve’s O2 sats drop. Crystal checks and notices decreased lung sound on the right side. He has a sucking chest wound and will need a chest tube. Otherwise, his penumo will tension and he’ll arrest. Crystal complains that Hayley didn’t flag this before they took off, but she thought it was superficial. Crystal orders her to get him on oxygen immediately as Hayley begins panicking about not having the proper equipment to help.

Crystal asks the pilots to divert to Thompson and have an ambulance meet them on the ground while reminding Hayley that things are different up here. They take him to the hospital moments later and the staff there takes over. Crystal admits it is their job to get him alive. Then, it becomes their problem. She is surprised to learn that Hayley worked in labor and delivery before she came up here. Hayley explains she worked at Sinai which is the most high-risk birthing center in the country. Crystal complains about getting stuck with someone like her although Hayley argues she is a good nurse. She believes it is a fun adventure for Hayley, but it is their lives and they take care of their own. When they return home, Weezer is cooking on the grill for Hayley’s welcome dinner. She goes inside because she is just too tired.

Weezer tells Crystal that he flew her to Winnipeg when he took her to nursing school and she cried the whole time. He argues the north helps people grow and she needs to give them room to go. Crystal complains about the number of Hayleys she has been forced to train and how they think they’ll make money and leave. She says they never stay and this one won’t either. Later, Weezer plays video games with Bodie who is more interested in working on getting the job with a major airline. He asks Weezer if he ever wanted to play in the big leagues, but Weezer doesn’t think anyone would hire a weirdo like him. Weezer says he likes to sit up here because he doesn’t want to mess with the BS corporate culture down south. Hayley gets a call from her dad and ignores it. Madison tries to contact Bodie, but he won’t answer her messages.

Jeremy wakes Crystal in the middle of the night because he had a hunting accident. She brings him inside and says they need to do this before anyone finds out. Crystal finds that his accident managed to hit anything important. Jeremy says she is growing her out again and it still smells like her. She admits she isn’t supposed to suture until she is a certified NP before telling him to see a doctor about antibiotics and a tetanus shot. He isn’t going to do that. She asks if he stole some of the stuff from the dogs he works for, but he says he told the wrong people no. He claims he is trying to help the community although she doesn’t think anyone needs his kind of help. He reminds her that she left when he stayed. She knows because he has been complaining about it for years.

She tells him that North House is her home where her family is too. Hayley walks in and catches Crystal working on Jeremy. Crystal tells Jeremy that Hayley better be cool. The next day, Chopper tries to flirt with Hayley while they load the plane. They leave when the fuel truck comes as Tristan (Kheon Clarke) comes over to give Hayley advice. Moments later, they head out to the Deep Lake First Nation. They meet with a pregnant girl named Cherie who doesn’t want to get on the plane. She doesn’t want to go to Winnipeg like she did last time because she ended up sitting in a nasty motel for weeks. Hayley reminds her that they met at the bus station and tells her about delivering babies in Toronto. Cherie agrees to let Hayley check her out here. The nurse, Camille, tells Tristan that Cherie has to get on the plane.

Tristan took her there three weeks ago, but she somehow came back. Hayley offers to help Cherie have her baby here if she goes to Thompson to get checked after. Camille and Tristan try to talk Hayley out of it, but she argues they don’t have enough time. Crystal talks to Trevor about the bear attack. Trevor believes she could be more than a nurse practitioner since she is smart with tons of field experience. He says his buddy works in a program that supports Indigenous students in med school. Trevor says it is a big world out there and he thinks she’d set it on fire. Chopper asks Bodie if he should take Hayley to the dump to see the bears.

Bodie tells him he is a catch so he should chill on the bears. Cherie successfully gives birth to her baby with help from Hayley. She tells Tristan that they’ll have to cut the cord in two minutes. Cherie wants the placenta so she can wrap it. She wants to put it in a tree to root the baby in the land. As Lexi loads one of the cargo planes, Brad tells her to make room for another box because the sched didn’t make it up to North House yesterday. She won’t be able to use the straps if she loads anymore. Brad says she doesn’t need to use all the straps though. He reminds her that these communities depend on their supplies and can’t afford to be cut off because she doesn’t know how to pack a plane properly. Lexi doesn’t want to violate Aviation Authority rules.

He tells her all the boxes go in the plane or she’ll go. When Chopper returns with the others, he excitedly tells Crystal about Hayley delivering a baby with her hands. Crystal says they all won’t be pregnant. Hayley follows her to ask why she doesn’t like her when she doesn’t even know her. Crystal says she knows she doesn’t belong up here because they need a real nurse. Hayley suggests she is worried she knows what a stab wound looks like and the fact that it should be reported to the police. Hayley tells her she can keep a secret. Nowak (Thomas Elms) jokes around with Bodie outside before he has to leave on a call. Lexi contacts Nowak to tell him to come to the hangar right away. He meets with her and learns how Brad tried to force her to overload a plane.

She worries she is going to have to leave and start over again. All she ever wanted from the first time she sat in the glider in cadets was to fly, but she just threw it away. She suspects he is going to tell her that she should’ve kept her mouth shut, but he isn’t going to say that. Emma talks to her boyfriend about working overtime because she wants a big wedding. She has to rush out when she learns there has been an accident on the airstrip. Crystal and Hayley receive a flight operations alert emergency so one of the fleet has gone down. Once they arrive, Emma tells them that the pilot is pinned because the cargo slipped forward. Emma is tasked with going to the radio and telling Winnipeg to get ready for them. They rush to the plane to try to help Weezer.

He wakes up and admits he can’t move before warning them it isn’t safe to come in since the master is still on. Chopper warns Bodie that the systems are still running and there is a ruptured tank so it may start a fire. Jeremy and others arrive with fire extinguishers while they work to try to get Weezer out as quickly as possible. Nowak tells Lexi what happened over the radio. Hayley brings Crystal fluids while she tries to keep Weezer awake by talking to him about his fight with Lynn. He admits he was lucky to find a woman like her even though he put her through so much. He says the North makes you grow up so the land raised him before he falls asleep. Crystal tells them to get him out now. Bodie begins bashing the door to get inside. Then, they start removing cargo and Tristan goes in to pull him out. A neck brace is put on while Hayley grabs the backboard.

They put Weezer on it and take him away. Crystal curses when she sees Jeremy pulls a container out of the plane. The plane blows up once everyone is safely away from it. Bodie leaves Chopper responsible for putting the plane to bed. Later, he catches up with Hayley who says Weezer is going into surgery and they’ll know something in a couple of hours. Crystal is calling his wife. They sit on a bench as Bodie says he came up to Thompson with 250 hours, a commercial license, and no clue. He thought about going home for the first few weeks but met Weezer and it changed everything. Bodie can’t imagine ever flying again if Weezer can’t walk because it’d feel like a part of him had died. Hayley believes Weezer will find a way. She says the thing that could kill you might already be inside of you, but you keep going anyway.

They have to live as much life as they can while they can. They kiss before having sex elsewhere. Lexi gets a call from Captain Pierce (Jeff Teravainen) who tells her to meet him tomorrow. Crystal and the other return home to tell everyone that Weezer is out of surgery and he can wiggle his toes even though his back is broken. Chopper wonders if it was a pilot error, but Nowak says he likely didn’t know the plane was overloaded. Chopper gets upset when he sees Bodie and Hayley together. Bodie follows him inside to apologize for messing up. Bodie reveals he got a PFO letter saying he didn’t get the job. He suggests they just didn’t like him. He didn’t want anyone to know until he had figured something else out. Chopper agrees to keep it secret from everyone else. Back outside, Crystal thanks Hayley for taking care of Weezer.

Hayley reminds her that they take care of their own. When Madison approaches Bodie in the morning, he tells her they’re not getting back together. She gives him a pregnant test confirming she is pregnant. Lexi meets with Pierce who thinks it was an equipment malfunction after Brad and his team looked at the crash. There is an opening in the right seat and Lexi is getting it despite three people being ahead of her. Brad recommended her.

 

SkyMed Review

The first episode of SkyMed was truly a mixed bag with beautiful scenery and decent performances, but a lot of cliches and stuff viewers have already seen hundreds of times before. It is hard to separate this from the countless medical shows out there. The flight scenes are good and really showcase the beauty of the local area. The biggest issue is that SkyMed feels more like a teenage drama than a high-paced medical drama in which lives are on the line.

The drama is more infantile than anything. It is dumbed down to the point that it feels like the characters couldn’t possibly be professionals. We even get a sex scene in the first episode even though the characters have only known each other for a day or so. SkyMed will be enjoyable for people who like typically medical dramas with a slight twist.

Those looking for something a little deeper should probably look elsewhere. The first episode scores a 5.5 out of 10. Recaps of SkyMed can be found on Reel Mockery here. Want to support our independent website? Learn how to do so here.