Pittsburgh: Warhol and “Watson”; art and steel

When someone mentions Pittsburgh, we might think of Steelers or steel mills or steely resolve.
We might not think of world-class museums or medical centers. So the actors in “Watson” (shown here) — which CBS debuts Sunday, Jan. 26) were in for surprises.
Eve Harlow did know she wanted to see the mega-museum devoted to Pittsburgh native Andy Warhol. “I remember someone saying, ‘Oh, you should go to The Mattress Factory.’ My response was, ‘Oh, I didn’t know mattresses were such a big thing in Pittsburgh.’”
She soon found that this is a converted warehouse, filled with modern-art installations. “It’s amazing; I really love it.”
And there are no mattresses on display. Then again, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles doesn’t display any hammers.
The other part — modern medicine — is key to “Watson.” The show debuts at about 10 p.m. ET (7 p.m. PT) Sunday, after the AFC championship game. Three weeks later, it gets its regular spot at 9 p.m. Sundays.
It imagines Sherlock Homes lived in modern times. When he died, his friend Dr. Watson inherited a fortune and created a team to probe medical enigmas.
“We’re doc-tectives – doctors who are detectives,” said Morris Chestnut, who stars as Watson.
But in Pittsburgh? Some viewers won’t be surprised. “Three Rivers” ran for a season (2009-10) on CBS, centering on an organ-transplant unit there.
And Craig Sweeney, who created “Watson,” grew up around such a place. “That was my reality, from (ages) 1 to 18,” he said.
His mother was the chief administrator of the organ transplant department of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. There, transplant pioneer Thomas Starzi and others kept making medical history.
Sweeney saw “the enormous admiration she had for these people … She probably would have preferred for me to be a doctor, but this (show) is my chance to make up for that.”
Also detouring from medicine was Inga Schlingmann. She plays Sasha, an immunology specialist who was born in China and raised in Dallas.
Schlingmann was a pre-med student who spent an AmeriCorps year at a Brooklyn hospital, working with underserved women. That’s where she met her husband, then a third-year resident. “We get to talk about fun, cool things,” she said. “He’s an infectious disease doctor.”
This may be the only known use of “fun,” “cool” and “infectious disease” in the same paragraph. But it reflects her enthusiasm for the subject.
Others actors are more distant from medicine. “I can’t remember the last time I went to a doctor,” said Ritchie Coster, who plays Shinwell, formerly a criminal and now a Watson aide.
Chestnut has played skilled surgeons often, totaling 91 episodes of “Rosewood,” “The Resident” and “Nurse Jackie.” Still, he claims no accumulated knowledge. “I always tell my doctor: ‘Hey, I just play one on TV. Tell me what I need.’”
But for Sweeney, this has been a chance to return to his mother’s interest and to his home town. “Watson” is filmed in Vancouver, but the cast spent some time doing exterior scenes in Pittsburgh … which, it turns out, has a lot more than steel and Steelers.
In Pittsburgh, Andrew Carnegie’s foundation has funded a library and separate museums of art, science and natural history. It also funded the Warhol museum, a seven-story giant with 900 paintings.
There’s more in the city, including Heinz Hall and The Mattress Factory – places that apparently don’t have any ketchup or mattresses.