'Three Rivers' is earnestly good

"Three Rivers" isn't just the title of CBS's new medical drama. It's a description of the show.

Actually, it's two descriptions of the show.

The first is obvious. "Three Rivers" (Sunday, 8 p.m., Ch. 2) is set in Pittsburgh, where the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River join to form the Ohio River.

The second reference is to how "Three Rivers" scripts are structured.

"The setup of the show is to tell three stories that ultimately become one story," said Carol Barbee, the show's creator/executive producer.

The main focus of the show is the Three Rivers Regional Medical Center, a Pittsburgh hospital that is one of the world's leading transplant centers. And not just heart transplants, but all sorts of organ and tissue transplants.

But episodes won't begin there. Viewers will be taken to other locations — often other states — where somebody is about to be in need of a transplant. Elsewhere, somebody is about to become a donor.

"We'll always drop into two separate worlds and introduce you to two separate groups of people, and you won't know who is going to be the donor or who is going to be the recipient until something happens and they end up at Three Rivers," said Barbee, whose credits include "Judging Amy," "Jericho" and "Swingtown."

"It's about how random things happen in this world, about how you think you have all the time in the world, and you don't. You never know what's going to happen. And the lives that get brought together in our show — and, actually, in real life — they're brought together by random events."

Of course, the donors and recipients change from week to week. As with other traditional medical dramas, "Three Rivers" centers on the hospital staff.

And at the center of this hospital staff is Dr. Andy Yablonski (Alex O'Loughlin of "Moonlight"), a workaholic/all-around nice guy who's a brilliant transplant surgeon.

(CBS is determined to make him a star; "Three Rivers" just might do it.)

The regulars include Dr. Sophia Jordan (Alfre Woodard), the no-nonsense head of surgery; Dr. Miranda Foster (Katherine Moenning), who's a bit of a hot-tempered maverick; Dr. David Lee (Daniel Henney), who's a bit of a smart aleck/womanizer; Ryan Abbott (Christopher J. Hanke), the na?e, young transplant coordinator; and Pam Acosta (Justina Machado), Andy's operating assistant/best friend.