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“Transplant” ended its first season on NBC in traditional hospital-drama fashion — with a game-changing cliffhanger impacting several lead characters.
That was in December 2020. The Canadian-produced series returns for Season 2 Sunday (March 6) at 10 p.m. and picks up right after the closing moments of the Season 1 finale, when surgeon Dr. Bashir “Bash” Hamed (series star Hamza Haq) was shocked by a visitor from his past — and gruff-but-beloved medical chief Dr. Jed Bishop (John Hannah), whose life Bash saved in the series premiere, suffered a serious stroke that left him unconscious.
“I signed on to the show to do one season, and I fully expected the story arc would take one road or another and be a one-season play,” the Scottish-born Hannah, 59, told The Post. “However, quite early on, in Episode 4 or 5, they approached me about expanding the role and I was very happy to do it.
“Now, having woken up [from the stroke] and being as bullish as he is, Bishop manages to take back control of the hospital. One of the great things about the show is that, as in real life, you may have plans but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s how they play out — and there’s a lot that goes on in Bishop’s life this season.”
In a somewhat ironic twist, “Transplant,” which originates on CTV in Canada — it’s one of the network’s top-two dramas — landed on NBC in the fall of 2020 after the network’s regularly scheduled shows were shuttered due to COVID.
“The first season was filmed pre-COVID and there was a great debate about how to embrace that this season,” Hannah said. “We decided not to [make it part of the storyline] and to stick to the original plan and do the stories the writers wanted to tell.
“Ultimately, I think that’s the right choice,” he said. “We’re entertainment and escapism … but when we finally got going in late February of 2021, the COVID protocols were very strongly in place.”
Hannah said he thinks that “Transplant” has struck a chord because of its storyline revolving around Bash, a trauma surgeon in his war-torn homeland of Syria who lands in Toronto as a refugee and joins Bishop’s medical staff at York Memorial Hospital. (The series is filmed in Montreal.) Bash lives with his much-younger sister, Amira (Sirena Gulamgaus); his co-workers include, most notably, Dr. Magalie “Mags” LeBlanc (Laurence Laboeuf), Dr. June Curtis (Ayisha Issa), Dr. Theo Hunter (Jim Watson) and head nurse Claire Malone (Torri Higginson), who’s in a romance with Bishop.
“I think the refugee story really struck a chord with people,” said Hannah, who played Dr. Holden Radcliffe in “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” “Regardless of how people feel about that, it’s a reality and I think we’re looking at another potential exodus [with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine]. It’s something we are all very much aware of and I think the show has managed to present a different side to it that people perhaps are not aware of.
“The first season was very much [Bash’s] journey and how he gets to know these people and how those relationships develop,” he said. “That continues for him and for the other characters, who are all dealing and struggling with life-and-death issues … and I think that gives them this curious bond.”
“Transplant” is not Hannah’s first time playing a TV doctor; he co-starred opposite William Fichtner on the 2002 ABC medical series “MDs” and, prior to that, played the lead role as forensic pathologist Dr. Iain McCallum in the ITV series “McCallum.”
“I should be better at snapping on the rubber [doctors’] gloves but they’re never easy,” he said. “Even real doctors struggle with them.”
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