Am I the only one who watched the premiere last night? I went in pretty much blind- all I knew was what they showed in the trailers, and I hadn’t seen those until some time late last week.
Decent enough pilot; sort of a more comedy-driven House. I liked the throwaway line “I’m a resident, not a detective” (embarrassing disclaimer: when they said “Residents don’t leave the unit,” I thought they meant they were patients, and I couldn’t figure out why he’d be sending patients out to talk to family members…). I also liked the nod to the holistic treatment of mental illness- treat with meds AND talk therapy AND other treatments- and the slapdown of the woman who runs the day program (you’ve seen results because you’ve created a safe, predictable environment- life isn’t like that).
I’m wondering what the NAMI folks think of it… hopefully they (and Fox) give it a chance before deciding it’s degrading to mentally ill people.
Can’t say I’ve ever seen ‘acute cat syndrome’ as a diagnosis before.
I enjoyed it, but I definitely got a “House rip-off” vibe from it. My girlfriend, who is in school to become a therapist, enjoyed the parts about how patients have to be treated with more than just medicine.
I think it was well within so okay it’s average territory. Not great, but not really bad either. It seems watchable if you’re the sort that likes that genre.
Eh. I’ll keep watching for a few more weeks, but it’s not an instant favorite or anything.
It always annoys me in mental illness situations when everyone knows stuff and won’t tell the hero and then he’s the hero for figuring out what everyone knows- like in real life, people with mental illness don’t just need someone to figure out what all their cryptic statements (like “it’s not enough!” “I can’t do both!” “If only I… but I can’t” “she needs me!” and so on) mean. I don’t think it’s degrading or offensive, really, but (so far) it seems to be overly simplistic and pretty clichéd (the artist whose creativity is dulled by his meds? they couldn’t have come up with something more original?).
I did think it was very House-y. I also found the “look how extraordinary this guy is! he rides a bike! he climbs up houses like a gymnast! he has dance parties in the hospital! he does magic tricks!” stuff to be a bit much.
All in all, I hope the things that annoyed me will even out as the show progresses. I understand that pilots are supposed to be mostly about character introduction and establishing the setting and so on, so some of it will probably get better.
Just watched the first episode. I definitely got the big “House” vibe, which isn’t bad, but then it’s unoriginal. What bothered me more was the lack of individual therapists and social workers.
[mini rant] okay yes I’m a social worker and it didn’t make sense to me when the *psychiatrist *was the one looking for information on the patient beyond the meds because that’s what a social worker would have done who probably would have done the initial intake anyway! [end rant]
Exactly what I was thinking. Not much like House, though. That concept began with the premise “He’s a superhuman genius who cures the incurable on a weekly basis!”, and then wrote to figure out how that person would plausibly act and function in day-to-day life. This Gallagher chap, OTOH, is a 100% genuine, board-certified Mary Sue. He plays outside society’s rules! But only because he CARES! He fights for a complete and total overhaul of the system! But only within the bounds of reason, and tempered by our dispassionate judgment! He even has the prerequisite Not-a-Flaw: he chose this career and this position because he loves his sister too damn much, and he’s going to make sure she gets help, in a cheery and non-conventional manner.
I’m hopeful too; this show has huge potential. If they can snag a writer who can build believable characters we can care about (or even character, singular), then everything will fall into place. Realistically, they’ve kinda written themselves into a corner. If they give this man some actual human weaknesses and an internal conflict that the weekly story slowly sheds light on, then any attempts to differentiate themselves fail, and you get House on the west coast. But if you stay the course and make do with what was presented in this episode, you’ll be spinning your wheels by the third episode (somewhere around the point where Gallagher throws Dr. Kickback out on his ear while simultaneously concocting a quirky and ingenious plan to solve the hospital’s budget crisis).
The first thing I wondered about when the show started was how were they going to introduce time pressure into the show? On “House”, the PotW is going to die any moment! With psychiatry, how many “gotta solve it in 60 minutes” situations arise? But they took care of it for the pilot with the 48 hour commitment limit. The coming attractions has a false pregnancy (?) and maybe they have to figure it out before she “gives birth” or some such.
The 2nd episode was noticably better, but the show still needs work.
Urging a nut job to take a scapel to his wife’s belly is so over the top that it takes one out of the show. They need to tone that sort of thing down.
Things that puzzled me:
The mental hospital appears to be a wing in a larger hospital. I thought it was stand-alone.
The redhead’s marriage wasn’t in good shape based on the first show but we find out she has a boyfriend on the side. That wasn’t clear in the first episode was it?
House’s (or whatever his name is) girlfriend left the hospital just minutes before and he doesn’t grab his cellphone and call her. ???
Note that David Carradine was shown in the preview for the next show, I wonder if they’ll push that episode back due to his death.
That’s actually pretty typical for short-stay/crisis units- when you think of how they typically get their patients, it’s safer for everyone to have them in a larger hospital (or really close by, like across the parking lot). What’s odd is how they’ve got a day program operating out of the same unit.
I don’t think we even found out that the redhead was married in the pilot. But as for the boyfriend on the side, can I just say: Folks, if you’re stupid enough to ignore the general rule of “Don’t shit where you eat,” then could you make an ATTEMPT to be SLIGHTLY clandestine about it???
Following that rule, the revelation of the intern/resident psych being a lesbian was… odd. Especially in the context it was put it. If I was being hit on in such an obvious way, and had even an inkling that it was being done as a litmus test of my sexuality, I would be PISSED OFF and on my way to HR within seconds.
It’s pseudo-House’s sister, not girlfriend, and I think that he was too frantic to think about calling her. Plus we need to drag that mystery out at least another 4-5 episodes. gigi, I don’t mind them making fun of people in pain- hell, that’s SOP for most of us in the field. I just dislike when they mix up real diagnoses with obviously false ones. Go one way or the other, folks!
