Medical Investigation

Neal McDonough and Kelli Williams ("The Practice") return to series television as members of a mobile medical team from the National Institutes of Health who are summoned in a heartbeat to scope out -- and hopefully snuff out -- outbreaks of unexplained and fearful diseases. When people are suffering from a mysterious and deadly illness, which turns them blue, the team must work to put the pieces together to find the source of this potentially deadly epidemic. The series also stars Troy Winbush ("John Q."), Christopher Gorham ("Jake 2.0") and Anna Belknap ("The Handler") as part of the elite team.

The NIH team hurtles toward St. Louis when four middle-school teens fall ill to encephalitis. Meanwhile, after Connor and Natalie conduct inconclusive tests, they shock the parents when they ask for a brain biopsy to detect if the problem resulted from a sexually transmitted disease. Eva investigates a different path when a friend suggests that the girls were poisoned by a jealous rival -- even as new cases are reported. In addition, Natalie feels helpless to provide comfort for a long-suffering patient (guest star Shea Whigham) who is participating in a clinical trial.

The U.S. Army summons Dr. Connor when four veterans of the recent Gulf War fall victim to a lethal pulmonary disease that has Connor, a veteran of the first Iraqi war, suspecting Gulf War syndrome -- until he must connect their illnesses to several elderly members of a convalescent home who are dying from the same symptoms. Unfortunately, the swirl of activity only widens the gulf between Connor and his isolated family.

When vacationing guests at a tropical family resort began dropping due to respiratory problems, Dr. Connor choppers in to assess the fast-spreading disease that has many contrary symptoms, forcing him to quarantine the entire island -- a bold decision that spells bad publicity for the anxious hotel company. Meanwhile, Dr. Durant stays behind in nearby Miami to run extensive lab tests and help the desperate Connor narrow the odds of finding the source of the deadly contagion.

When many children in a remote town fall ill to deadly muscle inflammation and joint pain, Dr. Connor and his NIH team quickly fan out and soon suspect that an economically crucial chemical plant's toxins are the likely source until Natalie discovers a common background -- all the kids were conceived through in-vitro fertilization. The case diverts the medical investigators to a local human embryo clinic run by a brilliant but obstructive doctor (guest star Susanna Thompson) with a hidden secret.

When several tough college football players fall victim to a mysterious nerve disease, Dr. Connor and Dr. Durant initially consider multiple sclerosis but when campus sorority sisters also become ill, the NIH team must hustle to find the missing link before a horde of alumni arrive for the homecoming game. During their probe, they suspect some murky information is being held back by the students -- crucial clues that might lead them to steroids or designer drugs.

After a bride-to-be becomes violently ill at her bridal shower in Philadelphia, Dr. Connor and his NIH team glove up and suspect a lethal form of anthrax is in play as more patients pile up -- and unless they quickly connect the dots to the source, a local newspaper will publish a news story that could terrorize the entire city. As Connor, Dr. Durant and their crew get vaccinated, they suspect the victims somehow came into contact with tainted animal products, and a sickly Nigerian man could provide their best clue.

A remote West Virginia hamlet becomes ground zero for a deadly mutating and contagious virus that has claimed 10 percent of the town's citzens. Dr. Connor suspects a dead animal carcass could be the genesis -- and time is running out to find the common link when more patients flood the town's tiny hospital. But to explain how the lethal contagion began, Connor and Dr. Durant might have to look both above and below ground.

When a 10-year-old girl is found deathly ill from lack of healthy bone marrow, Dr. Connor and the NIH team work feverishly to keep her alive long enough to find a family member who would make a worthy marrow donor. Unfortunately, her adoptive parents just died days before, so Eva makes it her personal mission to find the adrift child's biological mother. But the case's urgency intensifies when others in the same area fall ill from the identical aplastic anemia while Eva struggles to convince the girl's reluctant real mom (as Cyndi, guest star Catherine Wadkins) to help save the abandoned daughter she wants to forget.

Scrutinizing plastic surgery in a puzzler about a deadly bacteria infecting an adult-film ingenue, an overweight housewife and a vain male bodybuilder.

Patients at a Maryland hospital face an outbreak of a horrifying "flesh-eating" disease that spreads quickly and continues to kill as Dr. Connor and his elite team desperately thrash around looking for a common cause that could affect so many. Meanwhile a mother frets over her athletic young daughter (as Danielle, guest star Shannon Woodward) who faces a leg amputation. As Dr. Durant conducts tests comparing the patients' blood, Connor buys time with high-powered antibiotics and tries to think outside the box in pin-pointing its unlikely source.

After a surfer and a female volleyball player fall ill to a deadly mysterious disease in a seaside town, Dr. Connor and his rapid-response team fly in and soon begin to wonder if the increasing number of human victims are related to the deaths of nearby seals -- which could result in a sanctioned slaughter of the mammals. But an idealistic local doctor (as Karen, guest star Marguerite MacIntyre) fights to protect the seals and forms an appreciative bond with the unmarried Connor -- until she too begins to show frightening symptoms of the spreading sickness.

After most of one family on a Montana camping trip are mysteriously stricken with fever and skin rashes, Dr. Connor and Dr. Durant soon make a startling discovery -- the victims suffer from smallpox, a deadly disease thought to be eradicated. The FBI moves to track a rogue scientist suspected of unleashing the virus. As the dragnet for the dangerous biochemist and his mobile RV lab continues, Dr. Connor's team finds a dead Native American who was infected as well as shot. At the hospital, Dr. Durant bonds with the family's otherwise healthy but frightened little girl (as Brooke, guest star Laura Marano).

Dr. Connor and his elite medical experts chopper into a frozen Arctic scientific station to probe a deadly brain affliction that climaxes when its victims fall into dementia. As a whiteout snow storm strands some of the team on the tiny base camp, Powell begins to display the same frightening symptoms. As a weakening Powell conceals the news from his family back home, Connor is sure that the source is a bacterial or fungal infection -- but the window of time to prove his theory is rapidly evaporating.

Evidence of a strange plague is found near Baltimore as Dr. Connor, Dr. Durant and the response team arrive and discover a deadly link between infected police officers and a fugitive that adds a more chilling dimension to their investigation. When two children also display symptoms of the resistant contagion, Connor and Frank desperately work backwards to connect the dots and limit the contamination while curing those already sick.

Dr. Connor splits the response team in two to respond to separate emergencies. Connor dispatches Miles to check out a suspicious series of miscarriages at a military base hospital while he and Dr. Durant confront a cluster of spontaneous paralysis among people who worked near the former World Trade Center until September 11, 2001. One of them, a hard-driving workaholic (as Meredith, guest star Lola Glaudini), strikes a sympathetic chord with Durant who is stymied when she tries to forge a sisterly bond -- until the doctor discovers her uptight patient requires anti-depressants.

As the drama that began on "Third Watch" continues, the rest of the team joins Conner and Natalie in New York as they race against the clock to determine what the deadly virus is that has landed paramedic Carlos Nieto and the robbery suspect that he was attending to in the ICU. Conner teams up with Detective Faith Yokas to search for the robber's accomplice, whom they hope will lead them to the source of the disease. Meanwhile, Eva tries to console Holly as she waits to learn if Carlos is going to live or die. As more infected people arrive at the hospital, the team must race against time to track the source of the mysterious illness before more patients die.

When a Congressman, a lobbyist and a Capitol police officer are stricken with a mysterious disease, Dr. Connor and his NIH team fear a terrorist plot, until the leader of a prostitution ring becomes the fourth victim. An uncovered list of "clients" turns up a "Who's Who" list of leading Washington figures, forcing the team to walk a fine line between politics and protocol to contain what seems to be a deadly STD. Meanwhile NIH Director, Dr. Ewing and Eva fight to keep the story out of the headlines. As the death toll increases and a blood test yields unexpected results, Connor's team must search for clues in the unlikeliest of places.

In the first part of the season finale, Dr. Connor and his team confront their greatest challenge when they enter a violent Central American country to combat a mysterious disease. Their efforts are further endangered by a massive new earthquake -- and a murderous jungle insurrection that has Connor, Miles and Frank held hostage. Elsewhere, Dr. Durant struggles to salvage lives in a wrecked clinic and isolate the deadly contagion while Eva tries to help an isolated and terrified boy.

In the concluding half of the season finale, Dr. Connor and Frank are taken prisoner by rebels in a Central American country wracked by a meningitis outbreak and a deadly earthquake -- but the pair convinces the squad's leader (as Baracas, guest star Jesse Borrego) that his missing sons are trapped with Dr. McCabe in a ruined mission. As they work together and hope to arrive in time, Dr. Durant and Dr. Ewing fight a swelling meningitis epidemic that threatens a young mother and baby while much-needed supplies are hijacked. In addition, a sympathetic Eva can't ignore a forlorn boy who lost his parents in the temblor.