San Francisco — If you tune in to tonight’s premiere of ABC’s medical drama, “Off the Map,” you’ll probably want to come back for at least one more episode because the first show spends a great lot of time having the characters tell you who they are, where they are from and what it is about their pasts they are trying to escape by packing up for the remote South American jungle where various native roots, berries and leaves routinely stand in for real medicine. Toss in favorite colors and zodiac signs and you have a computer dating application.

“Off the Map” was whipped up by the folks who created “Grey’s Anatomy” and many of the elements that have made that medical show so successful have been transplanted to San Miguel. In other words, “Off the Map” is kind of like “Grey’s Anatomy” meets “Survivor.”

The premiere episode finds a trio of young medics arriving in San Miguel expecting some kind of Club Med with bedpans. The newcomers are Lily Brenner (Caroline Dhavernas), who wants to ease the pain of a recent loss by losing herself in her work; Tommy Fuller ( Zach Gilford), a party boy who drank his way through med school; and Mina Minard (Mamie Gummer), whose by-the-book approach to medicine caused her to make a serious mistake back in the states and who is looking for redemption.

The newbies have little time to meet the veterans at Clinica Cruz del Sur before they get thrown into the chaos of trying to treat tourists and natives alike with very few supplies and a whole lot of sometimes implausible ingenuity. No anesthesia handy for the guy with the stingray barb in his leg? Punch him in the puss and knock him out. Patient needs blood to stay alive and you’re stuck in the middle of the jungle? Climb a tree, cut down a few coconuts and hook up a coconut water IV. Fred Flintstone wasn’t this imaginative.

The clinic is run by the dedicated but brooding Dr. McDreamy-ish Ben Keeton (Martin Henderson), who is haunted by something in his past that will be revealed in the second episode. Among the other staff veterans are Dr. Otis Cole (Jason George), who’s had a drug problem, and smart, attractive Zita Alvarez (Valerie Cruz). The staff also included Ryan Clark (Rachelle Lefevre) who is leaving the clinic in a huff at the start of the first episode but, we suspect, not for long.

Within the first two shows, the docs have to cut a man’s arm flesh to disconnect him from a zip line wire above the jungle, convince a native that the only way to keep his kids from dying of tuberculosis is to give them antibiotics and treat an old woman for what seems to be a cold but is in fact asthma that almost kills her. In reality, though, the focus is on telling us about the characters and there are times when the writers’ zeal in this regard is almost comical. When a tree falls on a young Mexican tourist in the jungle and the guy would be writhing in agony if only he could move, Tommy Fuller seems think he’s talking either to a priest or a college admissions officer: “My parents told me to go to college and study hard and I just partied,” he said.

Nice to know. Oh, and do you think maybe you could nudge this massive tree just a wee bit to the left? No, my left, not your left.

The characters may be formulaic types, but the actors are appealing enough for us to see the possibility of a long run for the show. (Gilford is the heartthrob from “Friday Night Lights” and if Gummer looks a bit familiar, it may be because she resembles her mom, Meryl Streep). The real challenge for the writers is to use the show’s formula without becoming so enslaved to it that they fail to allow the characters to move beyond being clichés. We already know that Tommy Fuller is destined to become the jungle’s resident stud while, at the same time, finding he has much more mettle as a doctor than he’s given himself credit for in the past. Similarly, we can guess Mina will continue to worry about screwing up but, at the same time, develop into a good doctor by allowing herself to put the book aside and pay attention to the patients themselves. Lily will probably face up her personal loss and become increasingly drawn to Ben who, in turn, will wrestle with his own loss and his feelings for at least one other female doctor.

“Off the Map” stands a fairly decent chance of catching on if it just follows its various formulas. It stands a slimmer chance of becoming even better than that if it doesn’t.

‘Off the Map’

When: 10 tonight

Where: ABC