Allison Tolman in the NBC medical sitcom

Justin Spitzer is the Armando Iannucci of the good guy, which is to say that if the Hypermarket AND American car If the showrunner's work were 25% angrier and 75% more profane, perhaps more attention would have been paid to his ever-expanding resume of comedic critiques of eroding institutions.

Of course, it's the quiet anger and lack of vulgarity that allows Spitzer to do something borderline Chayefsky-esque in a television landscape currently better suited to Big Bang Theory spin-offs, mismatched family sitcoms and Abbott Elementary (The latest hit is so elusive that ABC has done absolutely nothing to follow up on it).

Saint Denis doctor

The bottom line

Fun, but too soft to be immediately great.

Air date: Tuesday, November 12, 8:00 pm (NBC)
Launch: Wendi McLendon-Covey, David Alan Grier, Allison Tolman, Josh Lawson, Kahyun Kim, Mekki Leeper, Kaliko Kauahi
Creators: Eric Ledgin, Justin Spitzer

Created with Hypermarket veteran Eric Ledgin, Spitzer's latest NBC comedy, Saint Denis doctorshifts its satirical focus from Midwestern retail workers and auto manufacturing executives to a mid-sized hospital outside Portland, Oregon. Like the first episodes of Hypermarket AND American carthe three episodes of Saint Denis doctor sent to critics comes across as a bit toothless, moving away from scathing commentary on our often dysfunctional healthcare system in favor of familiar plots about egomaniacal doctors, overworked nurses and bizarre patient misadventures.

However, the ensemble cast is good enough to be made very quickly Saint Denis doctor it's worth checking out, or at least checking it out after giving it time to fine-tune its voice.

St. Denis is a so-called “safety net hospital,” providing care to everyone regardless of economic status. The hospital is run by Joyce (Wendi McLendon-Covey), an oncologist-turned-administrator who, despite a lack of staff and financial resources, is determined to boost her profile on the national stage.

We spend most of our time in the emergency room, overseen by the world-weary Dr. Ron (David Alan Grier) and his trauma surgeon Bruce (Josh Lawson), whose diagnostic approach relies on looking too much. House. Alex (Allison Tolman), a mother struggling to maintain work-life balance, is the newly promoted supervising nurse, with Serena (Kahyun Kim) as her spiritually curious second-in-command. The latest addition to the staff is Matt (Mekki Leeper), a humble nurse with an ultra-religious background.

Hypermarket veterans Kaliko Kauahi, playing a funny nurse, and Nico Santos, who has yet to appear in the episodes I've seen, round out the ensemble.

Ruben Fleischer, a regular director of Hypermarketset the Saint Denis doctor visual template, which is primarily an extension of the mockumentary conventions of The Office AND Parks and recreation. (The opening credit sequence borders on plagiarism for the most popular genre.) The format is good for a medical comedy, allowing for brief moments of hand-held intensity as patients arrive in emergency situations and facilitating an instant connection between the characters and the body. camera during mandatory confessional interviews.

The latter becomes even easier when you have such a customizable cast. Tolman is particularly good as the everywoman at the center of this gathering of oddball doctors: exasperated but thoughtful, devoted to her profession but vaguely moved by everything she's watching unfold. Grier expertly blends surly and avuncular, skeptical and devoted, without making either extreme seem cliché.

The character work is less balanced elsewhere. Especially in the pilot, Saint Denis doctor he doesn't seem to understand that while a bumbling rookie archetype like Leeper's Matt can be very funny in a business context, the humor doesn't apply in medical situations where lives hang in the balance. But later chapters refine Matt's weirdness, and when the stakes are lower – as when he questions the faith of the hospital chaplain, or tries to convince two patients from a nearby prison to resolve their differences – his naivety plays much better. Likewise, there's a breadth to McLendon-Covey's Joyce in the premiere — she tries to inspire the employees with a cheerleading routine that ends with a cartwheel — that is subsequently toned down.

Then again, I'm not sure there's a broader character than Lawson's perpetually oblivious Bruce, but nothing I've seen so far has made me laugh as much as his work in the episode revealing the character's fear of needles.

However, that plot, while pleasantly whimsical, reflects an overall softness in the series' outlook. “The doctor is afraid of needles”, “the doctor does not believe in office superstitions”, “the nurse may miss the children's school production” Oh mama!” and “the doctor really likes milkshakes” are plots that can and do generate a few chuckles. But it's hard not to notice missed opportunities for deeper examinations of, say, insurance failures, the high cost of female-focused medical equipment, or anything related to the prison industry. Even the only mention of COVID – which Hypermarket engaged better than any other TV show – it's just a punchline thrown away.

AND Saint Denis doctor is still the most ambitious network sitcom of the fall? I assume? Man, that's a low bar. Will a clearer perspective eventually emerge? Perhaps. Is it unfair to expect it to develop more rapidly here just because of Spitzer's history of using television as a mildly subversive vehicle to capture the undercurrent of a national impulse? Probably. But there is potential here. Right now, it's the kind of series that could build a silly, semi-fruitful C-story from Matt (much like Saint Denis doctor himself) failing to find an impulse. For a freshman-broadcast comedy, maybe that's enough.

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