That's not the actual history of "HawthoRNe" (8 p.m. Central Tuesday, TNT; half a star); it was commissioned and made recently for TNT, by all accounts.
Yet the show, which stars Jada Pinkett Smith as a dedicated, overworked nurse, has the painfully earnest, painfully obvious aura of something that was made by people who've never seen an episode of "ER," "House" or any of the canny star vehicles that cable channels have cooked up in recent years for top-notch actresses (not least of which is Showtime's "Nurse Jackie," which covers similar terrain with much more intelligence and clear-eyed heart).Oh "HawthoRNe." Your "artistic" spelling did not signal anything good, but this show is so much worse than the cutesy moniker would indicate. The dialogue is full of clunky exposition, the characters are paper-thin and the plot can be predicted with uncanny accuracy. Even the synthesizer-based soundtrack, which is distractingly tinny and annoying, sounds like something from a mid-'80s network procedural.
Pinkett Smith is an engaging actress, but even her formidable energy can't liven up this sodden drama. If anything, the ferociously earnest "HawthoRNe" tends to bury all the qualities that make Pinkett Smith an interesting actress.
