Even though "Three Rivers" won't debut until tonight, two sets of viewers are already keenly aware of the show: Organ donors/recipients/advocates and Alex O'Loughlin groupies.
O'Loughlin starred in the cult vampire series "Moonlight," which was canceled by CBS after a single season in May 2008. Shortly after that, CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler suggested fan outcry over the cancellation was more "actor-centric" than it was disappointment in the end of the series. So it wasn't surprising that CBS would want to be back in business with O'Loughlin.
(There is some division in the O'Loughlin online fan community, a split between those who will watch the actor in anything and those who resent "Three Rivers" because it's not a "Moonlight" revival.)
Fan-created Web sites have already sprung up for "Three Rivers" -- including ThreeRiversFans.com and ThreeRiversBlogspot.blogspot.com -- and when the show shot scenes in Pittsburgh in mid-August O'Loughlin fans Amy Villalba of Baltimore and Faye DiGiovanni of Philadelphia made the drive to watch production.
"Three Rivers" has also garnered advance interest from people touched by organ transplants -- donors, recipients and doctors. Beth Rohach of West Mifflin is one of the people involved with the Fans of "Three Rivers" Organ Donation Campaign (www.fanstrdonorcampaign.com), a clearinghouse of information about organ donation programs, including links to the national campaign to Donate Life (http://donatelife.net/CommitToDonation).
Rohach, who's also an O'Loughlin fan, works for UPMC as a home care nurse and previously worked as a nurse in the liver transplant step-down unit of UPMC Presbyterian Hospital.
"Hopefully more people will become aware of these organ donation sites and how they can sign up to be a donor," she said.
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