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synopsis
Developed an directed by actor and producer Peter Berg, “Wonderland” is a short-lived and controversial 2000 ABC television drama. It takes an unflinching look at the doctors of Rivervue, a fictional New York psychiatric hospital, as they try to balance their personal crises and those of the patients they treat.
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role
Billy Burke played Dr. Abe Matthews who in the course of the 8 episodes battled a sexual addiction. “I’d known Pete Berg a little bit [they worked together on Dill Scallion – Berg played the producer Nate Clumson], I saw he was doing a show, and he asked me to come in and read,” Billy told Will Harris many years later during an interview for AV Club. “For him, it was a role that had a lot of basis in his own sort of psychosis and history. He’d been living at Bellevue Hospital in New York for a long time, researching this show and writing this show, and the script was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever read. So, really, I not only could relate to the character himself, because here’s this guy who’s working in the field of psychiatry and psychology, yet he’s got so much of his own mania going on, so much of his own pathos. All of the characters did, for that matter. But that show really addressed a world that we don’t look at very often—the world of psychiatry—not only the execution of the medical side of it but also how it affects the patients and the doctors who treat these people. We were all really, really proud of that show. It was a very well-done and ahead-of-its-time piece of television.”
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credits Bob D'Amico
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IMPORTANT: The show contains content that may be unsuitable for young viewers. Parental discretion is advised.
Ep. 1 “Pilot”
Dr. Garrity must deal with having released a patient who went on to shoot five people in Times Square. Dr. Matthews, whose own marriage is troubled, must counsel a man who has become suicidal because his wife is leaving him.
Ep. 2 “20/20 Hindsight”
As Garrity is hounded by the media, a peer review panel censures her for misdiagnosing Rickle, the Times Square gunman, and Banger fights to put the man in treatment rather than in prison.
Ep. 3 “Spell Check”
Hatcher tries to save the lives of two stockbroker brothers. Garrity tries to help a disturbed man who jumps off a bridge every year on his birthday. Banger discovers that his ex-wife wants sole custody of their children.
Ep. 4 “Full Moon”
Abe takes a patient’s pills and finds himself in an altered state. A new patient is admitted after he convinces his wife to cut off his foot in order to look like a war hero. Banger and Tammy go out to dinner to discuss their divorce.
Ep. 5 “The Raw and the Cooked”
Matthews tries to help a self-destructive stand-up comedian. Harrison fears that Garrity is in denial about the possible damage to her unborn child. Hatcher has to call for backup when treating a woman with unfulfillable sexual desires.
Ep. 6 “Wilt Chamberlain 3.0”
A Kosovo family suffers post-traumatic stress disorder and are in denial about the daughter’s brutal rape. Miles is in a life-threatening car accident. Banger helps an armed robber come to a decision about taking a plea bargain.
Ep. 7 “Personality Plus”
A man with multiple personalities has kidnapped his diabetic son, and Banger has only hours to discern the boy’s whereabouts before he’ll die. (Guest Star: Giancarlo Esposito)
Ep. 8 “Hello Goodbye: Finale”
Banger and Neil examine a murderer who wants to be deemed unfit to stand trial; Miles deals with a guy who leans; while at a “half-way house” with Abe, Lyla gives birth.
