They're all in over their heads, and on their own, with no one to rely on but each other.
Skymed is a Canadian Medical Drama set in a remote portion of northern Manitoba. Weaving together intense character journeys and high-stakes medical rescues, the series follows the triumphs, heartbreaks and tribulations of budding medevac medics and medevac pilots flying air ambulances.The series premiered on July 10, 2022 on CBC Television and was aired in the US on Paramount+. The show was renewed for a second season a few months later.
Only major spoilers from season 1 are tagged.
Tropes:
- Cell Phones Are Useless: Played straight and averted. A few situations present in the first season when cellphones aren't helpful, for instance, when Chopper notices a signal that leads to a dead hiker who had no cell service or when the team goes to survival training and have their cells taken away only for Bodie to encounter a bear trap and need aid.
- Code Silver: Season 2 episode 5 of the same name finds Hayley and Crystal taken hostage by a young woman wanting her mother to have a liver transplant. Crystal gets shot but it is a straight through injury.
- Deadly Gas: Chopper, Bodie and Crystal respond to a call of a possible cardiac event. A young worker accidently released hydrogen sulfide into the room. After reaching the patient Crystal passes out and needs to be rescued as well.
- Descent into Addiction: Hayley during season 2. She abuses her pain meds after her mastectomy and even gets Crystal to write her a new script risking her career.
- Instant Drama, Just Add Tracheotomy: When Hayley and Emma go for a night out, they save a fellow bar-goer by using a steel straw (and a blade) to create a trach.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Bodie and Chopper decide to have fun doing a "barrel roll" of their plane. They're shocked a friend posts video of it but figure since their faces aren't seen "no one will know it's us." Cue Wheezer announcing the planes are grounded because he recognized their voices and the plane used.
- Mama Bear: Crystal (this is also in her official character description)
- Office Romance: Hayley and Bodie, Crystal and Dr. Sung, Chopper and Emma, Nowak and Tristan - and that's just in the first season!
- One of Our Own: Crystal's sentiment of "we take care of our own" is taken literally in the first episode when Wheezer becomes the person in need of rescue after a plane crash. She also says it again when she accompanies Hayley to her mastectomy.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Bodie and Chopper indulge in some daredevil tactics on an empty plane. When Wheezer finds out, he first has to ground all the planes to check for stress damage from an unauthorized maneuver, which costs them business and puts patients at risk. He chews the pair out for jeopardizing any future contracts the company needs and revokes their flight privileges.
- Team Dad: Wheezer is this to the Skymed team. He cares about them all and gives them advice, so it's no surprise when he becomes chief pilot at the end of season 1.
- Teen Pregnancy: Crystal pre series. Jeremy was the father.
- Trauma Button: Happens a few times:
- When Tristan saves a potential jumper, he goes catatonic and it's revealed that his brother died from a fall as a kid.
- Nowak has a panic attack when a light is shined at him in an ER, triggering a flashback to his car crash.
- Hayley looks like she's going to break down every time the word cancer comes up.
- We Have to Get the Bullet Out!: Played with. After Brad says this to Crystal, she argues that it's safer to leave the bullet in, but Brad points out that all gunshot wounds need to be reported and that leaving the bullet in could cause questions later.
- You Did Everything You Could: When Hayley loses her first patient, she's basically told this.
