S01.E01: Pilot

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

When Sam’s former boss wakes up months later demanding to resume his duties, she is tasked with supervising this egotistical expert with a scalpel who never acknowledged her stellar talent. Complicating matters, the caustic and arrogant Griff also happens to be her father. As he defies Sam’s authority and challenges her medical expertise, the big question becomes whether this father and daughter will ever be able to mend their own relationship as expertly as they heal the hearts of their patients.

Airing Wednesday, January 5, 2022.

[Avabelle]

Looking forward to seeing the feedback on this. 

[Lady Calypso]

So, for a pilot, it was pretty much what I expected. For a medical drama, it was nothing new or groundbreaking. I just expect medical dramas to follow the same basic formula with relationship drama thrown in. I'm not looking for my medical dramas now to be anything new; I'm just looking to be entertained and not bored.

And I can say, as pretty formulaic as this was, I did enjoy it. I came out of the pilot not feeling bored and actually feeling interested in the next episode. So I guess that's promising for this show. I thought Sophia Bush did a great job as Sam. She really is a contrast to Jason Isaac's Griff, who really is the stereotypical narcissistic ego-centric big shot surgeon, BUT the show did add some promising subdued moments with him, especially in terms of this accident from years ago that led to Sam's heart surgery. But it was good to get the POVs out of the way; Sam doesn't blame her father, while he fully blames himself. 

Of course Wendy Crewson plays Sam's mother AND the Chief Medical Officer! It wouldn't be a medical drama without some sort of conflict with the superiors! 

And, of course, other relationship drama includes Bland White Guy with Sam, who is also interested in new Rich Finance Guy, who she has things in common! Oh, whoever will she choose?!?! Probably Rich Finance Guy, since they spent more time exploring them, rather than Bland White Guy who ended the relationship with Sam earlier, probably for jealousy reasons. 

I mean, I will say, the show caught me off guard with Sam's father and best friend, but I can't predict ALL the twists, even though that one should have been glaringly obvious. She's the only other woman on the team so of course her father is sleeping with her!

And then there's the other guys on the team who....really didn't do much and we only heard about their personalities, rather than actively seen them. But hey, it's a pilot!

The medical case in itself didn't make a whole lot of sense, but we're not in it for the accurate science of it all! Still, I did like some of the touches that they added, like Sam's whiteboard, and Sam's piano playing factoring into her nervous tic. 

All in all, I've seen worse pilots. I'm actually mostly intrigued in the series, which is a good sign. I'm really not expecting much; I'm just expecting to be entertained, and the one thing this show has going for it is that they've actually added more humour/light-hearted moments than a lot of other medical dramas. So...that could be the nice touch to the series that helps it succeed.

All in all, fairly ok start, promising future if the ratings do well. 

[Moose135]

Watched this one out of inertia. TV was on that channel, nothing else pressing to watch, so I left it on. I hadn't heard anything about the show before tonight. I can say, other than the father not being dead, I wasn't surprised by anything, seemed like just another standard medical drama. Won't be back, unless inertia sets in again some Wednesday night.

[Daff]

I had been looking forward to this and yesterday set the DVR. This morning, not there! Should have checked, because the DVR often does just what it pleases. I like Jason Isaacs (Case Histories), but yes, he always seems to end up playing unapologetic narcissists. He’s annoyingly good at it. 

[Avabelle]

I wonder how it will do ratings wise. I hope it doesn’t bomb as I felt a bit bad for Sophia Bush being in a timeslow pitted against her former show. Especially given what a crappy departure she had.

[historylover820]

Who else got major House vibes? When lupis was diagnosed, I said out loud "It's never lupis."

I both liked this pilot and didn't like it. What I don't like is the pitfall of all pilots. "As you know, I'm your mother and I'm also the hospital administrator." (So, Cuddy?) So, I felt like expo dumps were going on, but I have no clue who the interns are--what is Sam's boyfriend's name? 

But, I love Jason Isaacs. I could watch him read a phone book, so him channeling Hugh Laurie as House is very intriguing to me. In fact, if Jason Isaacs wasn't in this show, probably wouldn't have even watched the pilot.

So, I'll be back for a couple more episodes at least. Hope it picks up.

[Elizzikra]

Quote

Who else got major House vibes? When lupis was diagnosed, I said out loud "It's never lupis."

Yup. They have a whiteboard; Sam plays piano...

[SuzieQ]

It was watchable and I will hang in there for awhile.  Nothing groundbreaking but I like Sophia Bush so I will give it a chance.  I do find it funny that it plays opposite Chicago PD😄

[SnarkShark]

Im questioning ANOTHER medical show (like the Doogie Howser reboot) centered around your parent(s) being your boss.

 

If I didn't love Sophia Bush totally out of proportion to the shows she's actually been in (consistently awful)...  She's in that Rachel Bilson territory.  Charming, adorable, and always much better than the material.

Edited January 7, 2022 by SnarkShark

[SnarkShark]

On 1/5/2022 at 11:14 PM, Lady Calypso said:

Sam's piano playing factoring into her nervous tic

Does she actually play piano?  I noticed that whenever we saw her play, enough to see the hands moving i mean, we didn't see her face.  Just her hair.

[historylover820]

Sophia Bush may not play piano, but Sam does

[KeithJ]

On 1/6/2022 at 9:46 AM, Avabelle said:

I wonder how it will do ratings wise. I hope it doesn’t bomb as I felt a bit bad for Sophia Bush being in a timeslow pitted against her former show. Especially given what a crappy departure she had.

It already did:

https://www.tvfanatic.com/2022/01/tv-ratings-good-sam-opens-low-for-cbs-amazing-race-returns-solid/

 

 

Edited January 7, 2022 by KeithJ

[statsgirl]

The acting on everyone's part was very good.

I think that I would have enjoyed this show more if 90% of it wasn't a repeat of other medical shows which I suppose is kind of inevitable because there are so many medical shows on now.

Dr. Griffiths Sr. is a re-do of Gregory House, brilliant, aggressive, sexy (sleeping with a resident), negligible empathy and a whiteboard. (Jason Isaacs is very watchable but I am tired of arrogant assholes being presented as admirable.)

Sam is what would be if House and Wilson had a kid: brilliant and also caring about people. Whether she is actually strong enough to run a department with the deus ex machina of writing supports is to be determined.

Lack of ethics: Sam should NOT be proctoring her father given how much he walks over her.

Then we have the residents, one of whom is Sam's best friend but also sleeping with her father (ooh, conflict!).

Mostly I like the medical director/mom and Wendy Crewson is always fun to watch. I don't like that she still seems to be hung up on her ex in spite of being married to someone else for 8 years. Too much of the House/Cuddy vibe (a plot I hated).

Nice twist of Sam playing the ppianoto make her fingers more flexible. It made me feel sad as my father had an upright piano in his office so that he could play between patients. Not for flexibility but because he loved music.

Sam's nervous tic of moving her fingers when upset is pure Arrow.

I'll try it again, I think. But it's pretty far down on my list of medical shows. At least it's not hate watching.

Edited January 7, 2022 by statsgirl

[HurricaneVal]

On 1/6/2022 at 10:10 AM, historylover820 said:

Who else got major House vibes? When lupis was diagnosed, I said out loud "It's never lupis."

Snerk.  Me too!

On 1/5/2022 at 9:29 PM, Moose135 said:

Watched this one out of inertia.

Me too.  I suspect this isn't going to be "must watch" TV for me, but it is harmless enough that I'll not turn the channel.  I do like Jason Isaacs, and I did like Sophia Bush--though I'm not as big a fan as others here.  I'm just unfamiliar with her, since I don't watch Chicago PD.

 

The character's nervous piano tic is going to get on my nerves, though.  I'm not a piano player, beyond picking out the right hand melody lines, but even I could tell that was just random finger twiddlings and not pretend playing of an actual piano piece.  Maybe frenetic renditions of "Flight of the Bumblebee," if anything, but I suspect it is just the actor's and director's interpretation of what a piano player pantomiming playing an imaginary piano would look like.  There's no rhythm to it, no consideration of hand span to reach notes, no chord placement, no note spacing.  It all just looks like she's drumming her fingers.  If they're going to make such a big deal out of a character's personal quirk, they should at least make it look good--though I think that would be very hard for a non-piano player to fake convincingly.  Someone at least needs to sit Sophia Bush down at a real piano and show her how to pick out some tunes and then have her use those as her nervous finger twiddles.  That way her brain can fill in the music, which will flow to her fingers and make it all look less like faffing around and more like a real coping tool.

[tinkerbell]

Sophia Bush's hoarse voice is going to annoy me, but I will give it a few more episodes. 

[babyrambo]

House™ Lite, with heart. 

The first 20 minutes were so cliche and formulaic, I almost quit watching from deep boredom. But it evened out after a while. It’s definitely nothing new but this episode was just entertaining enough to make me want to give it another try. I like the vibe between the residents the most; they’re all pretty solid actors and the group dynamic is warmer than on other shows were medicine takes over and friends and enemies are one in the same, because that gets pretty tiring. The sardonic genius angle with the dad could get old if he doesn’t pull back a bit later on, but right now it works.  Pilots cover a lot and almost have to be overdone to lay groundwork so I’ll give it a couple more chances to flesh itself out.

Edited January 8, 2022 by babyrambo

[Lady Calypso]

I know that the appeal is both Sophia and Jason, but I wonder if it would have been better to drag out Griff's coma stuff until the end of the pilot. Again, I know, it's a pilot, they have to cram so much in, but if we had seen Sam actually have to be Chief for the entire episode, or if we had seen more with Griff as the Chief before the shooting, and then the rest of it with Sam as the Chief, showing their conflicting styles, and then had Griff wake up at the end, would that have been better?

Because I was very intrigued with the relationship between the residents and Sam (as much as it was a little weird for Sam to be directly teaching her best friend and ex boyfriend). And if Griff hadn't woken up ten minutes into the episode, we would have seen more of the other residents who didn't get that much to do this time. 

[Irlandesa]

This was decently constructed blah.  The performances were good.  I absolutely adore Jason Isaacs ever since I saw him in an NBC show Awake. (Intriguing sliding door concept where in one timeline his wife dies and in another, it's his son).  There was energy in the pilot.

But there was just too much exposition.  This is Sam.  This is Sam's mother and ex of Sam's father.  Also she's someone important in the hospital.  These are Sam's father's interns.  There's the happy guy. The quiet guy.  The best friend.  This is Sam's boyfriend.  Six months later: This is Sam's ex who freaked out. Sam's father is a jerk. Sam's father is the best.  He makes people better doctors.  And the guy in finance whose family donates to the hospital absolutely got his job on his own merit.  Maybe it would have been more interesting if he didn't?  And had to prove that he actually is capable of the job?

It's all so straight forward and blah.

And the case wasn't all that interesting either.

1 hour ago, Lady Calypso said:

I know that the appeal is both Sophia and Jason, but I wonder if it would have been better to drag out Griff's coma stuff until the end of the pilot.

I agree.  It would have been interesting to understand the dynamic of him as Chief Surgeon and as her father in the pilot with maybe the shooting serving as a first episode cliffhanger.

I understand the reason they didn't do that.  The show is Good Sam and I think that approach may have ended up centering Griff in the pilot.

I do think that they had Griff recover way too quickly.  It makes me wonder if there was maybe a better way to get Griff in the same position.  Maybe he was suspended for a medical decision he made or a political decision he took that went against the board?

I don't mind redundancy in a show concept but the only thing that piqued my interest was Griff and Sam's best friend.

[Granny58]

I find Sophie Bush's voice annoying.  What's with the sore throat voice?  It's distracting.  Otherwise it was okay for a first episode.  I don't expect much from first episodes, they're just laying groundwork.  I too got the House vibe...which I'm good with as I LOVED House.  I'll be around a bit longer to see how this progresses.

[statsgirl]

3 hours ago, Lady Calypso said:

if we had seen Sam actually have to be Chief for the entire episode, or if we had seen more with Griff as the Chief before the shooting, and then the rest of it with Sam as the Chief, showing their conflicting styles, and then had Griff wake up at the end, would that have been better?

It would have been better for me. The way they wrote this, and then threw in Griff sleeping with his daughter's best friend, it made the episode (and possibly the show itself) centred around the conflict between Sam and her father rather than Sam herself running the department.And I'm not interested in another show of "idealistic young doctor vs abrasive asshole older doctor". There are already at least 2 medical shows currently on TV like that.

I wonder if they (network? producers?) didn't trust that Sophia Bush had the pull to anchor the show and so they emphasized Jason Isaac's role for more star power.

[jabRI]

To me the whole 'brazil parasite' thing screamed too 'house',

On 1/8/2022 at 12:18 PM, statsgirl said:

The way they wrote this, and then threw in Griff sleeping with his daughter's best friend, it made the episode (and possibly the show itself) centred around the conflict between Sam and her father rather than Sam herself running the department.And I'm not interested in another show of "idealistic young doctor vs abrasive asshole older doctor"

I'm from Michigan, and if I went to someone's house before calling, and I got the feeling they were not alone, no way would I barge in.  that's a stupid plot point.  Detroit people have a lot more courtesy than that, it's ingrained in us.

[proserpina65]

God, that was bad.  To be fair, I was only watching for Jason Isaacs, but I'm not sure that'll be enough to keep watching.  Sophia Bush is terrible, and I cannot imagine any hospital making someone as ineffectual as Sam the head of a major department, especially since she was just a fellow at the point.  And that "extremely rare" heart surgery, haven't we seen that more than once on Grey's Anatomy like 10 years ago.

On 1/6/2022 at 12:10 PM, historylover820 said:

When lupis was diagnosed, I said out loud "It's never lupis."

So did I.

On 1/7/2022 at 11:34 AM, statsgirl said:

Lack of ethics: Sam should NOT be proctoring her father given how much he walks over her.

In a real hospital, she wouldn't be allowed to supervise a relative.

 

[Tachi Rocinante]

So he walks into an open heart transplant right off the street?  Who writes this crap?

[Thalia]

Patient intake didn't ask the man if he'd recently traveled outside the country?  I hope I never have to go to that hospital  

I recorded it last night, but for all the reasons stated here i think I will erase it and find a more worthy show.  The only interesting thing was the dad and the best friend. 

[rwlevin]

No way in hell would a recent fellow become had of a department. Many still need to pass their subspecialty boards- unlike regular boards, those are given every year, and they just don't have enough experience to run a whole department. Of course, it doesn't seem like there's any other attending surgeons- cardiothoracic or otherwise- at that hospital so in that case, I guess it makes sense. 

[SnarkySheep]

On 1/6/2022 at 1:10 PM, historylover820 said:

Who else got major House vibes? When lupis was diagnosed, I said out loud "It's never lupis."

As a person with lupus, I find this very disappointing. Because yes, sometimes it IS lupus, and it can be very serious. TV always makes it look like this is a fictitious disease.

Just got around to watching this over the weekend and my main thought was "what hospital would allow so many family members top jobs??" Even if Sam was super qualified, her getting that job smacks of nepotism. And that she'd be the one to assess whether her dad could perform surgery again? To anyone who's ever met the guy it would seem rather obvious he'd try to bully his daughter into passing him, regardless of actual condition.

[historylover820]

9 hours ago, SnarkySheep said:

As a person with lupus, I find this very disappointing. Because yes, sometimes it IS lupus, and it can be very serious. TV always makes it look like this is a fictitious disease.

 

I apologize if I was insensitive. I was quoting from House, and that was often what was said. I know can be a serious disease. My cousin-in-law had lupis, and while another disease ultimately took her life, it was something that she struggled with.

[SnarkySheep]

11 hours ago, historylover820 said:

I apologize if I was insensitive. I was quoting from House, and that was often what was said. I know can be a serious disease. My cousin-in-law had lupis, and while another disease ultimately took her life, it was something that she struggled with.

No worries, I was just speaking about how the shows tend to treat it, not you. I also watched House back in the day.