Monday Mornings

I should clarify that this review is written at the very beginning of the series. So far, only the pilot has been released, so this will be obsolete soon. However, I saw that the show is already getting more negative reviews than it deserves, so I thought I should do my best to do it some justice.

Now, if you're a David E. Kelley Fan, you'll soon find familiar elements in this show, the easiest to spot being the abnormally high number of main characters with different personalities. You will probably come to love some of them and hate others. Personally, I love this aspect of Mr. Kelley's writing. Sure, shows with all insanely cool characters fighting insanely unlikeable villains are...cool. But, through creating an array of very different characters, the writer has you constantly questioning values, and as a result, gets you more emotionally involved.

One of the most disappointing things about the Pilot was the lack of Comedy. Now, obviously this is meant to be a drama, but again, Mr. Kelley has shown a lot of strength in intertwining drama and comedy in various dosages: The practice had lots of Drama and some comedy. Boston Legal had both equally. Harry's Law had perhaps the most comedy of all. But so far, I've seen lots of Drama and no Comedy, which can get boring, preachy, and resembling shows like Grey's Anatomy.

In short, this show does have a bit of promise, but some flaws too. However, being a David E. Kelley fan, one should know that all his shows start slow and work their way up. One should also know that the cast may change without notice, and one should also be sure of the fact that a lot of strength is bound to arise from the guest appearances.

In conclusion, if you are the kind of person who follows a show a week-by-week (as opposed to those who'd rather wait for the DVD to come out), then it's only fair to have some patience, and let the show grow. Granted, I won't lie and say it's the best pilot ever, but I see some promise in this show, enough to give it a chance to properly impress me.

Absolutely brilliant. The hour just flew by. Based on CNN's Chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta's book of the same name, the show revolves around the Monday morning M&M (morbidity and mortality) conferences held at all major hospitals. The goal of these meetings, chaired by the Chief of Medicine, is to review cases where a death occurred and hold doctors accountable for their actions. By doing so, it is hoped the entire staff learns something.

I completely disagree with the previous two posts about this show. The premise here is fresh and new, and is much more realistic than other "feel good" shows where physicians are never made to answer to their superiors for their mistakes and everything is tied up with a nice pink bow at the end of 60 minutes. The M&M conferences are REAL, they happen every week in real hospitals. Monday Mornings has been compared to House and ER, but in my view, it more closely resembles Chicago Hope (another David E. Kelley production) and St. Elsewhere in style and content. This show is not directed at the same crowd as ER, and ER fans may not like it. It's more philosophical and deals more with the psychological and ethical side of medicine than just "fixing people". Yes folks, people DIE in this show - otherwise there would be no mortality cases to pick apart and find fault with at the Monday morning M&M conferences.

Unfortunately, what makes this show great and sets it apart may end up being its downfall. Smart, philosophical shows sometimes have difficulty finding an audience (how else can you explain hits like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Keeping Up With the Kardashians????), but if the right people find the show and tune in, it should succeed. And I hope it does.

I have been watching this show from the very beginning and it hooked me straight away, Greys Anatomy did the same thing and I have religiously watched every episode. While this is not as soapy as GA, but there are similarities that appeal to me and I would rate them both very closely.

For me this is a brilliant show and I look forward to watching it each week.

It seems to me to be very realistic and does not sugar coat the unfortunate side of medicine as some shows do, it is also for me very educational. I am a bit anti doctors and will question them on everything if I have the misfortune of being in a hospital, and this show seems to encourage that line of thinking.

Finally I am and have been a big fan of Alfred Molina, so this may seem a biased review. He, Ving Rhames and Keoung Sim are outstanding and make me smile whenever they are on screen. The whole cast is amazing really and all put in very good performances, right down to the tiresome Lawyer played by Anthony Heald. I was so happy his character got eaten by Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs.

8/10 for me, some episodes get 10/10

We don't need a lot more comedy or what passes for comedy on network TV. There are not a lot of shows that take a serious subject and dramatize it so that people who do not just watch CNN and other news can be educated about what has usually been kept 'quiet'. Sanjay Gupta, MD has impressed me all through his CNN career and now he has written a book and collaborated on this TV series so that the general TV watching public can be educated without being 'lectured'. Its entertainment! I too miss ER but this promises to continue in the genre and its a sad statement on North Americans to see such negative responses. Maybe these people should mention the names of shows they DO think worth watching? what .. Survivor?? Anger Management?? Those of us who appreciate really intelligent scripts that for once are not from the BBC need to applaud the producers for serving up what I just told my husband I thought was now the best new thing on TV..and its not even about lawyers and cops! (we like those too). But Gray's Anatomy is more like a soap opera than a drama. Patients need this kind of wake-up lesson about not necessarily trusting the first doctor or opinion. I thought the acting was just fine and appropriate. Please please don't pan this promising new series!!

I was very skeptical of this show to say the least. That's because I can't remember a single hospital show that I liked, ever. Monday Mornings ended up being a pleasant surprise. Maybe pleasant is the wrong word—the show is neither for the squeamish on the visual nor the emotional side.

One preview I read stated that Monday Mornings was special because it showed us a side of the medical system that we haven't really seen before in other hospital shows. I rolled my eyes a bit at that, because what it usually means is coating the topical parts of the show with some completely unrelated melodrama elements to show the "human side" of it all. Well, Monday Mornings does show the human side alright, but not in the way I would have expected.

The focus and unique element of the series are the eponymous Monday morning meetings of surgeons. The main topics discussed are cases of patients who died while in the hospital's care—namely those where the decisions or conduct of the surgeons might have been a factor in the patient's death. These meetings are highly dramatized for the sake of television, but they drive home the point of what immense pressure lies on a medical professional's almost every decision. And how hard these situations are for them personally, even before they have to take professional responsibility, and justify their decisions.

It's a part of the medical system we don't very much like to think about. With all the research, high-tech equipment and drugs marketed as miracles, a good deal of eyewash makes us want to believe that in our day and age, no one needs to die if we just have the technical means to heal them. But when we first decide to seek medical assistance, when we are diagnosed, how accurate the diagnosis is, if the doctors make the right calls at the right time, and whether they react correctly to the way we are responding to treatment—at any imaginable stage, the human element is a huge factor and source of error. Portrayed in other shows as the "gods in white", Monday Mornings makes it a point to show that, for doctors, mistakes being a matter of life and death doesn't change the fact that they are human beings who occasionally will make them. It's an uncomfortable truth that who treats you can make a crucial difference in your life. But medical science so far wasn't able to make us clairvoyant. Judgement calls, and bad judgement, are an everyday part of it.

While there are some stereotypical characters, they're less cringe-inducing than on most shows. There's the workplace sweethearts, but their relationship (so far) hasn't overshadowed the actual plots. There's the tyrannical supervisor who, just barely, manages to not turn into a caricature. And the Asian overachiever is actually funny ("What's the worst that could happen?" – "Dead. Worst is always dead." – "Have you done this before?" – "Once." – "How did it go?" – "Dead.") The first episodes averted more cliché lines than they gave in to, opting instead for more honest and realistic conversations. Going by genre alone I expected it to be painful to watch, but it really wasn't.

There is only so much you can do to keep hospital routine, even from such a different perspective, fresh enough for a television show. Monday Mornings has yet to show if and how it will manage to do that. Most other shows just add so many personal and relationship plot lines for the medical staff, that the entire show essentially ends up being a random soap opera in front of a hospital backdrop. Others... well, actually, the only other one I can think of is House, M.D., who borrowed from crime shows to become more of a thriller. I'm curious to see whether Monday Mornings will carve its own path. But so far, my verdict is that it's definitely worth having a look at.