Stream It Or Skip It: ‘SkyMed’ Season 3 on Paramount+, About a Canadian Air Rescue Team Whose Personal Lives Are Even More Complicated Than Their Jobs

Sometimes a show isn’t trying to do any more than just be entertaining. Heck, Ryan Murphy has made that a good side hustle over the past number of years, with fluffy network series like the 9-1-1 franchise and Doctor Odyssey. SkyMed, a joint production of the CBC and Paramount+, is exactly one of those kinds of shows. Except the first responders in this series work in air ambulanes.

SKYMED SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A couple are in a camper in the middle of the woods. The woman thinks she hears a bear, but the husband thinks it’s just wind. They go out to look and a tree falls on the husband.

The Gist: The SkyMed team in the remote town of Thompson, Manitoba, is undergoing a few changes. A new head nurse is due to arrive at any time, and the squad gets a new pilot, TJ (Anthony Grant), who has an extensive history flying in and out of war zones. Hayley (Natasha Calis) is newly sober, and spending a lot of time with Wheezer (Aaron Ashmore), but just as friends, something that Crystal (Morgan Holmstrom) points out to her.

Chopper (Praneet Akilla) is stuck in a weather delay at the Winnipeg airport; he just got a promotion to captain with SkyMed and he’s reading a self-help book that he hopes will give him advice to help him be more of a leader. He sees a well-dress woman at the airport bar with the same book and they get to talking; she’s also headed to Thompson, where a fall festival is going on. They jokingly give each other spy names and end up sleeping together.

Tristian (Kheon Clarke) comes back from his leave and tells Nowak (Thomas Elms), still rehabbing from an injury, that the two of them need to take things slowly. Nowak, however, is offered his dream job, but wants to turn it down in order to make things work with Tristian, which puts Tristian in a spot he never wanted to be in.

The new head nurse, Marianne Feriera (Nicola Correia-Damude) shows up during a bingo fracas at the local bar (long story), and let’s just say she and Chopper recognize each other. She’s very exacting and by the book, but she learns quickly that being a nurse for SkyMed is different than working in a Toronto emergency room.

Crystal tells Hayley she might still have feelings for Jeremy (Braeden Clarke), but appreciates when his current girlfriend Rosie (Joelle Farrow) makes an effort to get to know her, citing the fact that Crystal has always been an important part of Jeremy’s life.

Just as the SkyMed team is about to blow off steam at the crew quarters, though, Wheezer shows up with some tragic news.

Photo: Pief Weyman/Paramount+

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? SkyMed is Grey’s Anatomy, but in the air. We also said when the show debuted, it could be called 9-1-1: Manitoba, given some of the outlandish rescues the crew performs.

Our Take:

SkyMed, created by Julie Puckrin, is unashamedly what it is, which is a medical drama where the cases are extreme and everyone seems to have deep romantic feelings for each other. As with the first couple of seasons, the only thing that really sets it apart from shows we’ve seen about doctors, paramedics, fire fighters, etc., is that the rescues are done by plane in remote corners of northern Manitoba.

Is the show predictable AF? Absolutely. When Chopper sleeps with the well-dressed woman he met at the airport, we all knew who that woman was. When Jeremy pulls his ambulance over on an icy road to help a driver who crashed into a tree, you know that things won’t turn out well. The episode has all sorts of clunky foreshadowing that points out whatever twists are coming way before they happen.

But, like in Season 1, there’s nothing about the show that’s so incredibly stupid that you throw up your hands in frustration. The rescues include the aforementioned husband who was pinned by a fallen tree, a guy who’s neck is impaled on a long rod (Chopper comes through in a big way here), and a guy whose dog helped stanch the bleeding when a woodchipper blade caught him in the side. They’re all fairly inconsequential to the episode; we don’t even really find out what happens to the people they help. They’re all just there to illustrate how crazy things can get up north.

Photo: Pief Weyman/Paramount+

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode, but there will be CBC-approved activity in subsequent episodes.

Most Pilot-y Line: Wheezer seems far too eager to see the finale of Love Is Blind: Brazil. He even says “everyone is going to have seen it.” Really? Everyone?

Our Call: STREAM IT. SkyMed is one of those shows that you put on when you just want to see pretty people romancing each other and doing their risky jobs, and it serves that purpose very well.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.