Open Heart is a 2015 Canadian teen Medical Detective Drama series airing on YTV in Canada and TeenNick in the United States. It lasted one season.
16 year-old Dylan Blake is part of the Blake family, who for years have been associated with Open Heart Memorial Hospital. Her grandparents were founders, her mother and sister are both doctors there, and when she was born there without breathing it was the staff that saved her life. It's also the last place her father Richard was seen before he vanished without a trace.
The disappearance weighs heavily on Dylan, driving her down a bad path of drugs and robberies. After a heist gone wrong leaves her and a dying friend abandoned by the rest of the crew, she's forced to drive to the hospital (in the car she stole from the house she broke into) and is subsequently arrested. Three months later she's sentenced to community service at Open Heart Memorial, which neither she or her mother or sister are too keen on.
To complicate things further, her father's case has been closed due to insufficient leads. This isn't good enough for Dylan, and she begins a quest to sleuth out what really happened to her dad using both the skills she gained from her life of crime and her close connection with her father that the rest of the family didn't have. Aided by fellow volunteers Mikayla and Wes, hampered by obnoxious volunteer supervisor Jared and the near-constant presence of her own family, she searches through the mysteries of the hospital in order to find the truth. Unbeknownst to her, there may be more to her father's disappearance than what her grandparents are letting on.
The series is very similar to Veronica Mars, with the deadpan protagonist and the teen detective aspect. It also has a tie-in app, Open Heart: Unlocked, which allows you to access real-time texts, photos, and blog posts from Dylan's phone both during and between episodes.
Not to be confused with the visual novel of the same name.
- Abandoned Hospital: The old psych wing of Open Heart Memorial, which was abandoned because it was cheaper to construct a new one instead of renovating the old one. It contains a lot of caution tape, discarded wheelchairs and medical supplies, and a corpse.
- Amateur Sleuth: Dylan becomes one as she starts investigating her father’s disappearance.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Dylan with Teddy, although she may not be too fond of him after he ditches her with the dying Rayna. She ultimately severs all ties with him after he roughs up Wes.
- Asian and Nerdy: Seth, who makes a level-up joke when London delivers him a patient’s urine sample and sarcastically says “mission complete”.
- The B Grade: Subverted. Wes comments that even with a 96% average he’s going to have a lot of difficulty getting medical scholarships, but he’s still proud of it and works it into his conversation with Dylan in order to impress her.
- Bland-Name Product: Dylan has a pinblr, which seems to be a combination of Pinterest and Tumblr.
- Broken Pedestal: London towards Dr. K after finding out that he's dating her mom. It gets better, though.
- Brutal Honesty: London spends the entire first episode being unsure of how to answer any of her mom’s questions in the OR before having an epiphany near the end and speaking her mind. Which is to say, she tells her mom that the procedure she used with the patient was far too risky, and she only did it because she saw another family about to lose their father and projected her own life onto the situation.Jane: I brought him back.
London: This time. - Call-Forward: In one flashback, Dylan helps her dad find his keys in the mass of newspaper clippings he’s investigating. He jokes that it was a test to see if she could be a detective. Now that he’s disappeared, she seems to have taken that advice to heart.
- Chekhov's Gun: Mikayla is seen eating a bunch of peanuts at the beginning of episode 5. Later she kisses Jared, which causes him to have an allergic reaction.
- Could Say It, But...: Detective Goodis does this to help Dylan get ahold of the security tape from the day her dad disappeared.
- Delinquent: Dylan starts out as one, along with her crew, but starts changing her ways as the series begins. Mostly.
- Disappeared Dad: Richard Blake, who’s disappearance drives most of the plot.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Mikayla doesn't like people treating her like an ill girl when they find out about her cancer.
- Driving Question: Why did Richard Blake disappear? Who’s the woman in the ugly coat?
- Gadget Watches: Not too high-tech, but Dylan gave her dad a watch for Christmas that has a secret compartment only they know about.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: The app dates items based on the time they were uploaded in real life, not in the show's timeline. The series is meant to start in the summer of 2014 or 2015, but the video Dylan took of the security footage is dated Jan 20, 2015 - same day as the premier.
- Genki Girl: Mikayla, who’s super excited to help Dylan sleuth out the truth behind her dad’s disappearance.
- Honey Trap: Dylan tries to flirt with Jared in order to distract him. It doesn’t work; he’s really intense about his supply closet getting stocked.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Hud can be an ass sometimes, but he is a good doctor and wouldn't put petty arguments over getting his patients treated.
- It's for a Book: When Dylan walks in on her father frantically searching through newspaper clippings and “looking for patterns”, he claims it’s for his novel.
- Logging onto the Fourth Wall: The tie-in app, which allows you to access texts from the characters, photos, and access Dylan’s pinblr account.
- Mean Boss: Jared, though not technically boss as he’s the volunteer supervisor.
- Motor Mouth: London when she has to clear her head. She says saying everything she’s thinking about helps her straighten out her thoughts.
- Peek-a-Boo Corpse: Dylan and Wes find one in the abandoned Psych ward hidden in a filing cabinet.
- Plot Coupon: In the first three episodes we had the security camera, the watch, and the numbers, which all seemed to point towards the discovery of Dr. Yin's body. In episode four, Dylan finds her dad's storage locker and the pictures of the graffiti soldier.
- Room Full of Crazy: Richard had one in a storage locker, which was mostly filled with drawings of a graffiti soldier. Justified, though, since he was a paranoid schizophrenic who was hiding the severity of his illness from his family.
- Second Love: Jane and Dom, now that Jane's husband has been gone for 6 months.
- Serious Business: The volunteer program for Jared. Especially his supply closet.
- Shipper on Deck: Mikayla for Dylan and Wes. Inverted with Dylan and Wes with regards to Mikayla and Jared getting together, which they think is a terrible idea.
