'3 Lbs.' is too heavy

Nobody ever said making television shows is brain surgery. And nobody ever said a show about brain surgery would be entertaining.

And entertaining, unfortunately, is something the new CBS series "3 Lbs." is not.

It seems like there might be a good show in there someplace, but they haven't been able to find it. And that's incredibly unfortunate, because the talents of Stanley Tucci — one of the best actors working today — are pretty much wasted.

The title "3 Lbs." refers to the average weight of a human brain. And the brain is what the show is all about.

Tucci stars as Dr. Doug Hanson — one of the world's leading neurosurgeons who seems utterly lacking in humanity. He views the brain as "wires in a box" and himself as the premiere technician, capable of fixing malfunctions others cannot. But he's also about as interesting as a circuit board. And he seems about as human.

At the other end of the spectrum is Dr. Jonathan Seger (Mark Feurstein), who's sort of the new kid in town. In tonight's premiere (9 p.m., Ch. 2), he arrives all fresh-faced and eager to begin his fellowship with the legendary Dr. Hanson.

Seger is a touchy-feely kind of guy when it comes to relating to patients. He can't operate without knowing something about the patient; Hanson couldn't possibly appear less interested in knowing what's behind those wires in a box.

Much of what we see could be the stuff of a fascinating documentary. Watch an episode and you'll come away knowing more about how the brain works than you did before it started.

"These things are all grounded in truth," series creator/executive producer Peter Ocko said in a conference call with TV critics. "There is not a story that we tell ... that is not documented in fact. And, for me, one of the challenges of the show is to really convince the audience that we're not making this up. A lot of times it seems like science fiction."

But "3 Lbs." is a prime-time drama on CBS, not a documentary on the Discovery Channel. There's nothing wrong with a drama that features procedures on the cutting edge of medical science, but the characters who are performing those procedures are more important than the procedures themselves.

Or they should be.

Take a look at the three successful medical dramas on the air already. ABC's "Grey's' Anatomy," NBC's "ER" and Fox's "House" all feature whiz-bang medical marvels. And that doctor magic is a big part of the shows' foundations.

But viewers come away from those shows talking about Meredith and McDreamy or Kovic and Abby or House and Cuddy.