AllMovie

Critical List divides its four-hour running time between a big city hospital and a courtroom where the hospital heads are battling numerous malpractice suits. Medical director Lloyd Bridges is obliged to juggle the travails at the hospital with his own deteriorating marriage. Prosecutor Buddy Ebsen seems obsessed with bring medicos to justice; his reasons are deep and complex. Prosecutor's assistant Barbara Parkins compromises her objectivity of entering into a romance with Bridges. And head doctor Robert Wagner has a colorful past that he'd like to keep buried. The story concludes with a major health-fund scandal that threatens Bridges' appointment as the first Secretary of National Health. Advertised as a "world premiere movie", Critical List was actually two TV-series pilot films strung together. Both were based on novels by Marshall Goldberg MD.