[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for St. Denis Medical Season 1, Episode 1, “Welcome to St. Denis.”]
St. Denis Medical has lastly arrived on NBC, and it’s delivering sturdy Parks and Recreation and The Workplace vibes because the community explores the interior workings of the titular hospital by the lens of a mockumentary.
The pilot episode shortly establishes the gamers on the coronary heart of this candy sequence, which focuses on workaholic nurse Alex (Allison Tolman) as she tries wrapping up her duties for the day to make it in time for her child’s musical. Each time she is about to step away, one thing pulls Alex’s consideration again in and physician Ron (David Alan Grier) is fast to name her out for not adhering to regular hours or work-life boundaries. Ron is extra jaded, seeing sufferers as broken-down automobiles that he’s endlessly repairing and patching up.
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Alex and Ron’s dynamic feels very paying homage to Parks and Rec‘s Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), within the sense that their strategy and outlook to their jobs could also be totally different, however they’re in the end good-hearted people who nonetheless work in the direction of the identical purpose. In the meantime, St. Denis Medical’s administrator Joyce (Wendi McLendon-Covey) could recall to mind The Workplace‘s Michael Scott (Steve Carell), keen to determine the hospital’s footprint by ordering an overpriced mammogram machine.
The difficulty with such an endeavor? The costly machine cuts into the finances that might go in the direction of changing the hospital’s present computer systems, which have fully gone down. When Joyce is clued into this although, she lets her dream to have the “finest breast take a look at within the west” go to be able to get monetary savings for the pc repair down the road.
Amongst St. Denis Medical‘s different workers members are beginner nurse Matthew (Mekki Leeper), calm and funky Serena (Kahyun Kim), the frazzled Val (Kaliko Kauahi), and over-confident surgeon Bruce (Josh Lawson). All of them are such characters that we are able to’t assist however think about the hijinks they’ll stand up to because the season unfolds.
The present’s first episode concludes with a harrowing rescue of a lady who suffers a pulmonary embolism, reminding the employees and watchers at dwelling what this ragtag staff of medical suppliers is working in the direction of, which is to supply life-saving medical care.
The sequence hails from co-creator Justin Spitzer, who beforehand labored on The Workplace and served as showrunner on different NBC reveals like Superstore and American Auto, so he is aware of a factor or two about crafting comedy. However does St. Denis Medical have the potential to dwell as much as two of NBC’s most iconic mockumentaries that got here earlier than it? We wish to hear from you. Hold forth within the ballot and feedback part, beneath.
St. Denis Medical, Tuesdays, 8/7c, NBC