Miracles Of The ER is a Taiwanese medical drama on Netflix that doesn’t try to mess with the formula that makes medical shows so popular. Neither did The Pitt, to be honest. But that show is immensely popular and has won armfuls of Emmys because it takes a tested formula and executes it very well. Is that the case with Miracles of the ER?

Opening Shot: The chaotic emergency department at Yang-Da Hospital.

The Gist: Three first-year residents are starting at Yang-Da during this typically busy day. Tang Hsi (Chan Tzu-hsuan) and Chiang Tung-yen (Payne Peng) were trained at Yang-Da and have come with high marks and expectations. Lin Geng-ming (Kent Tsai), on the other hand, is an outsider and was an average medical student; he comes in late wearing a t-shirt that says “Are You Okay?” He was handpicked for his position by Chou Cheng-chun (Wallace Huo), one of the deputy chiefs of the department, who wants to change the culture there. He also helped develop a signal button that staff members can press to get help if patients get violent.

Lin assists another senior attending, He Yu-hua (Cheryl Yang), with an elderly folk singer who was injured in an accident, but puts him in a coma when he botches the intubation. Tang then helps He insert a REBOA into the aorta of an injured construction worker. Chou, going against protocol, performs an emergency thoracotomy on a patient that seems to be circling the drain, and the wait for a surgical consult would be fatal.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Miracles Of The ER, written by Huang Ching-tsu, is a bit of a cross between, well, ER and The Pitt.

Our Take: Miracles Of The ER is a pretty typical medical drama; it doesn’t seem like it’s going to go the Doc or Grey’s Anatomy route of exploring relationships along with the medical mysteries that enter their respective hospitals. No, it’s going to be more about the cases that come through the ER, but it will delve a bit into the hospital’s procedure and culture, which is something that leans more towards the ER end of the spectrum instead of the more nuts-and-bolts style of The Pitt (though there lots of closeups of bloody body parts and open surgical cavities, just like the current Emmy champ).

The character archetypes are all there: The maverick senior physician, the tough-minded attending, the go-getter neophyte residents, the resident that might wash out but also has more skills than even he might realize, and officious administrators who are always worried about being sued. As we’ve seen in recent years, that combo can still work if you have solid writing and good acting. After the first episode, we’re pretty confident that Miracles Of The ER will have both.

Performance Worth Watching: Wallace Huo is effectively brooding as Chou Cheng-jun, who seems to be the only patients-first deputy chief in the ER.

Parting Shot: Chou tells Lin that he might not be cut out for the ER if he lets things get to him like the mistakes that happened on his first day.

Our Call: STREAM IT. There’s nothing special about Miracles Of The ER, but it’s well done and does enough to introduce its main characters to keep viewers interested.

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.