Previewing Monday Mornings

I like to complain that the only shows on television these days feature cops, lawyers, or doctors but with House and Private Practice ending last year, if I am not mistaken one of the few doctors left on television last fall was Dr. Sheldon Cooper and as a theoretical physicist, he faints at the sight of blood so he won’t be performing surgery anytime soon. For those that miss the more traditional doctors, tonight sees the premiere of Monday Mornings created by David E Kelly, his first trek back into the operating room since creating Chicago Hope in 1994, and based on the book of CNN’s chief medical correspondent (and almost Surgeon General of the United States) Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

What sets Monday Mornings apart is at the start of every week the chief of staff Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2) sits down with his surgeons and makes everyone who made a mistake the previous week come up to the front of the lecture hall to explain in agonizing detail just what wrong in the operating room and what they should have done differently. These meetings are painful and Molina is relentless and scary in his line of questioning it is surprising he has not made one cry (yet). These scenes are so great that if these meeting made up the majority of the show I would be tuning in every week.

Unfortunately much like Dr. Sheldon Cooper, I hate the sight of blood except when it is cartoonish horror movie blood. But for those that do like medical porn, you will see inside a person’s brain within the first minute of the show. And since there are a couple neurosurgeons on the show, you will be seeing inside the skulls of many of patients throughout the series. Other cases you will see this season is a woman with incontrollable (except when consuming wine) hand tremors, a thirteen year old who refuses surgery, and a schizophrenic (played by Once Upon a Time’s Jiminy Cricket) who cannot provide the consent for life-saving surgery.

Joining Molina is Ving Rhames (Con Air), the Trauma Chief who is about as menacing as Alfred. The always intimidating Bill Irwin (Hot Shots!) is the local Chief of Transplantation who gets under the skin of the other doctors who thinks he just stands around hoping for their patients to die so he can harvest their parts. With all that hardheadedness, Jamie Barber (Battlestar Galactica) is the complete opposite of his co-workers who gets way too sensitive whenever he loses a patient (and my bet for the first doctor to cry at a Monday morning meeting). His partner, in possibly more ways than one, is Jennifer Finnigan (Committed) a neurosurgeon just as compassionate as Barber.

But my favorite character, which is saying a lot whenever Ving in a part of a cast, is Keong Sim (The Last Airbender) as a Korean emigrant and English speaking challenged who gives simple blunt answers like when asked what the worse case scenario is, “worse case: dead.” The rest of the cast includes Sarayu Roa (Lions for Lambs) who dates Finnigan’s real life husband Jonathan Silverman (Weekend at Bernie's) and Emily Swallow (Southland), the most inexperienced doctor on staff.

Monday Mornings airs Mondays at 10:00 (in the evenings, not the mornings) on TNT. You will be able to download Monday Mornings on iTunes.