Very good show that's getting very overrated, pros/cons:
A few episodes into this show I was in! Despite my overall rating of this show being a 6.5/10 by episode 13, I would give the early episodes and most recent episode a solid 9/10. I thought, wow, a show about the ER that subtly focuses on how the HCPs, patients, and cases reflect the world around them without beating us over the head with a certain point of view - all while capturing the chaos of emergency medicine with a high degree of medical accuracy!
Well, the subtle part did not last. I feel like I am a good person to make this point, because not only have I worked in this setting, but also, I agree with many of the social points they're making on a practical level. I just hate when I feel like a show is preaching at me at the expense of narrative & immersion. It's fine for a show to have a point of view, and medical cases are a good vehicle for this, but it starts to feel like instead of exploring interesting characters, this becomes a tertiary focus, and many of the patients and some of the HCPs just become avatars to preach about some social issue. This would still be ok if it was just shown in an interesting way, but the writers have a tendency to preach and write these things unnecessarily into the dialogue, or go too cliche/unrealistic with the scenario.
These don't really become a big issue until the middle/late episodes (before things pop off, but no spoilers here) so it can feel a little bait and switchy.
There's just WAY too much telling over showing with any social issue, too. One example that comes to mind is an obese patient who was misdiagnosed due to assumptions about her metabolic health, because of her obesity. There's nothing wrong with showing this, in fact it's cool to show how complex diagnosing in this environment is, but after we are shown this and can deduce for ourselves what happened and why it was a problem, we get a doc lecturing another about why they're bad for for doing and why you shouldn't judge an obese person by their obesity. Or the trans woman who comes in and gets called by the wrong name from their insurance, and the doctors treat her with respect in the room. A bit unnecessary story wise but that alone made sense and showed us more about who those characters are, which is great. But then we get one of the doctors stopping her on her way out the room talking about I'm sorry your name was misgendered we need to do better etc etc. There's no need for these afterschool movie moments - just let the scenes speak for themselves!
That brings me to my last point. Some of the acting is bad, and some of the characters are quite grating as a result of this plus some thin writing. On its own it's not a big deal, but with the issues I mentioned above, you need skilled actors to pull some of this off. Dr Robby, Dr Heather Collins, Whittaker, Dr Mel King, the head nurse, they're all fantastic. But for every one of those we have a Santos, Mohan, Javadhi, many of the patients, even Langdon at times, who make this feel like a high school play. These are also some of the more obnoxious characters where it's especially important to have charismatic actors playing them. I mean "SloMo" Mohan specifically, you need a certain kind of person with a magnetism to pull off the "I'm more empathetic than you all" and "I know I'm great" schtick without it being grating and obnoxious.
Anyway, this show is still worthy of watching, but I do hope they address some of these issues for S2 if it returns.
Well, the subtle part did not last. I feel like I am a good person to make this point, because not only have I worked in this setting, but also, I agree with many of the social points they're making on a practical level. I just hate when I feel like a show is preaching at me at the expense of narrative & immersion. It's fine for a show to have a point of view, and medical cases are a good vehicle for this, but it starts to feel like instead of exploring interesting characters, this becomes a tertiary focus, and many of the patients and some of the HCPs just become avatars to preach about some social issue. This would still be ok if it was just shown in an interesting way, but the writers have a tendency to preach and write these things unnecessarily into the dialogue, or go too cliche/unrealistic with the scenario.
These don't really become a big issue until the middle/late episodes (before things pop off, but no spoilers here) so it can feel a little bait and switchy.
There's just WAY too much telling over showing with any social issue, too. One example that comes to mind is an obese patient who was misdiagnosed due to assumptions about her metabolic health, because of her obesity. There's nothing wrong with showing this, in fact it's cool to show how complex diagnosing in this environment is, but after we are shown this and can deduce for ourselves what happened and why it was a problem, we get a doc lecturing another about why they're bad for for doing and why you shouldn't judge an obese person by their obesity. Or the trans woman who comes in and gets called by the wrong name from their insurance, and the doctors treat her with respect in the room. A bit unnecessary story wise but that alone made sense and showed us more about who those characters are, which is great. But then we get one of the doctors stopping her on her way out the room talking about I'm sorry your name was misgendered we need to do better etc etc. There's no need for these afterschool movie moments - just let the scenes speak for themselves!
That brings me to my last point. Some of the acting is bad, and some of the characters are quite grating as a result of this plus some thin writing. On its own it's not a big deal, but with the issues I mentioned above, you need skilled actors to pull some of this off. Dr Robby, Dr Heather Collins, Whittaker, Dr Mel King, the head nurse, they're all fantastic. But for every one of those we have a Santos, Mohan, Javadhi, many of the patients, even Langdon at times, who make this feel like a high school play. These are also some of the more obnoxious characters where it's especially important to have charismatic actors playing them. I mean "SloMo" Mohan specifically, you need a certain kind of person with a magnetism to pull off the "I'm more empathetic than you all" and "I know I'm great" schtick without it being grating and obnoxious.
Anyway, this show is still worthy of watching, but I do hope they address some of these issues for S2 if it returns.
- krupocin-1
- Apr 1, 2025