Why so much hype?

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

PANIC IN ECHO PARK basically features an heroic black doctor (Dorian Harewood) going up against white corruption in Los Angeles when he discovers who was really behind water in a local downtown building becoming polluted leading to a contagion at his hospital. This TV movie also has a "fight the powers that be" theme underlying it. Not bad of its type.

Good showcase for the grievously underappreciated Dorian Harewood as a young doctor fighting entrenched power to uncover and defeat an epidemic in a poor neighborhood. You can guess how most of this goes: the young, handsome doctor is loved by those around him, he realizes there's an epidemic, he has to go around making increasingly impassioned speeches to bureaucrats and older superiors who discount his theories, etc. And don't forget the happy ending with everyone smiling at each other. It's a lot like many episodes of "Quincy" (except for the handsome part) and many other movies from the Seventies, but this one is pretty well done. It beats fishing shows, infomercials, and hicks turning left (aka NASCAR) for Sunday afternoon viewing, at any rate.