Welcome to Bronx General. If you are a fan of medical dramas on Broadcast, then pull up a chair. The Doctor will see you shortly.
Brilliant Minds is latest medical drama to hit the airwaves this fall, with fans of previous hits such as New Amsterdam, Transplant, and Chicago Med likely find a degree of comforting familiarity in NBC’s latest offering.
Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, Heroes) takes on the role of square-peg-in-a-round-hole neurologist Doctor Oliver Wolf, a deeply empathic doctor dedicated to treating the person behind the illness, even if his methods at first seem counter-intuitive to some.
In the pilot’s opening scene we witness Wolf sneaking an elderly, mute, dementia patient via motorcycle to his granddaughter’s wedding in the hope that a musical performance might help his patient, if only for a brief moment. It’s a nicely done moment that illustrates to the audience what we can expect from the rest of the hour, and in episodes to come. Sometimes there is no last minute save on this show. However Wolf’s commitment to his patients goes beyond medicine, and ultimately gives them, and us, something heartfelt to take away.
The motorcycle stunt gets Wolf fired, of course, but his story doesn’t end there. Someone is looking out for our rogue doc (we won’t spoil who here) and after a brief stint at being unemployed (where he really gets into growing ferns) he once again finds himself calling the shots in the neurology department of the overcrowded and underfunded Bronx General.
Unlike New Amsterdam’s Dr. Max Goodwin, Wolf is not all that likeable at first glance. A true loner, he hates spending time with people, abhors the idea of having to teach a group of eager interns, and finds his methods regularly placing him in direct violation of hospital policy.
Wolf also has face blindness, meaning he finds it almost impossible to remember the faces of his would-be new team. Caught in a set of excruciating social circumstances that make him deeply uncomfortable, this doc soon learns that he needs to get along with others or face (pardon the pun) the prospect of never working in the city again.
Wolf’s teammates come in the form of his only friend from med-school, Dr. Carol (Tamberla Perry), who finds herself acting as a reluctant go-between for Wolf and the hospital’s Chief of Staff. There’s also the tetchy Dr Nichols (Teddy Sears) who gets off on the wrong foot with Wolf from the get-go, but whose frosty relationship status undergoes a thaw and maybe more in later episodes.
There is also a quartet of adorable interns — ambitious Erika (Ashleigh LaThrop), the overly empathic Van (Alex MacNicholl), the earnest Jacob (Spence Moore II), and the acerbic and occasional pill popping Dana (Aury Krebs).
This diverse quartet of newbies are tethered to Wolf’s magnetic and mad-genius orbit, and Quinto, with his long list of TV, theatre, and film credits, doesn’t have to do much heavy lifting to make his awkward lead character both intriguing, and endearing. Just to be sure though, the show offers glimpses of young Wolf’s childhood via a series of flashbacks that illustrate how his sense of “otherness” helped shape the man he will one day become.
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Brilliant Minds is inspired by the real life Oliver Sacks, a British neurologist who dedicated his life to destigmatizing mental illness. Sacks wrote a series of books (the 1990 film Awakenings starring the late Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro was adapted from one of them) about people living with neurological conditions in a way that was accessible to the world, mostly for the first time.
NBC’s Brilliant Minds aspires to do the same, with episodes featuring famous cases from Sacks’ books, reimagined with contemporary twists. Weekly episodes highlight rare and unusual neurological conditions that are often misdiagnosed, or brushed aside as other conditions, dooming patients to lives of misery or even death if not for Dr Wolf’s eagle eye.
Largely the show succeeds in this endeavour. In the handful of episodes we screened, Wolf not only helps the patients under his care, but takes the time to explore the relationships and mental health of the interns under his supervision too.
Brilliant Minds is big on heart and character drama — the staples of any good procedural medical drama series. Poignant speeches abound. Rules are broken. Overburdened but dedicated interns provide clues for Wolf’s inevitable Eureka moments. The Chief of Staff tut-tuts at Wolf’s outside-the-box thinking, but inevitably lets his unorthodox methods slide — after a stern warning, of course!
If this all feels familiar, it’s probably because it is. Brilliant Minds doesn’t set out to break any storytelling molds. Instead it delivers what fans of the medical drama genre love best. It’s comfort TV; a warm blanket on a cold Monday night, a heroic doctor who will not pass the buck, and the reassuring reminder that no matter how “other” you feel, you are not alone.
You may not need a spoonful of sugar to help this particular medicine go down. Brilliant Minds is sweet enough as it is.
The series stars Zachary Quinto, Tamberla Perry, Ashleigh LaThrop, Alex MacNicoll, Aury Krebs, Spence Moore II, Teddy Sears, and Donna Murphy.
Michael Grassi serves as creator, writer and executive producer, with Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, Leigh London Redman, Lee Toland Krieger, DeMane Davis, Melissa Aouate, Henrik Bastin, Jonathan Cavendish, Andy Serkis, and Shefali Malhoutra executive producing.
Brilliant Minds premieres on Monday, Sept. 23 (10 – 11pm ET/PT) on NBC.
