The Mob Doctor

With a lot of medical dramas out there, this one has a different take. Grace is a resident at a Chicago hospital and a respected surgeon. She is a likable character. She does what she thinks would be the right thing to do. It gives you very little of her background though.

Grace helps her brother out with his debt to the Mob. Now, she has to moonlight for them. The pilot did seem a little rushed. An extra half hour could have been nice to gather background information on the characters before throwing us into the Mob plot. The beginning and ending of the episode gave us a little insight, not much. It was a decent pilot and I hope the rest of the season turns out to be good.

Dr. Grace Devlin (Jordana Spiro) is forced into working for the mob to cancel a debt his useless brother Nate (Jesse Lee Soffer) incurred. Only her connection to the mob boss Constantine Alexander (William Forsythe) is actually much more personal than that.

It's impossible to zero in on one thing that was wrong with this show. It was a critical failure, a ratings failure, and filmed only 13 episodes. It was dead on arrival. Jordana Spiro is a nice comedic actress, but the character really had a limited range. Jesse Lee Soffer plays Nate who is probably the most annoying and frustrating character around. Then there is Paul Moretti (Michael Rapaport) who played the bad Mob guy. He's annoying. He disappeared for awhile and then returned. It was bad idea. They should either kill me off, or let him be a constant character. That kind of change really can screw up a serial show. The problems were just never fixed.

4.0 stars !

That's what this show was rated at IMDb a couple of days ago. Now it's 5.4 stars, and climbing. This also happened to "The L.A. Complex" (which is one of my favorite shows) and others. Seems like some group or person has hacked into the rating system here.

I don't usually like mob shows or movies, but the rating was so ridiculously low that I had to see for myself. And I was pleasantly surprised. I liked Jordana Spiro from "My Boys", and she's still gorgeous and did a good job here (s01e01) too.

As a fan of medical dramas (Grey's, Private Practice, Royal Pains, Saving Hope), I think this compares well. And I plan to watch at least a couple more episodes in the hopes that it continues to do as well or better that the first episode.

I am enjoying this show and it fills in the Fox Broadcasting hole that was left by the departure of House. The dilemmas Grace must face to fulfill her debt to the mob, stay under hospital radar when she needs to use their equipment and also follow her conscience to her oath as a doctor put her in some tough situations. Does she kill a mobster on orders from the people she owes? How does she fix up the guy that she knows just caused a family great pain and anguish and still live with herself? Grace faces all this and more. The show is gaining an audience in the 3 or so weeks it has aired. The cast is good and the show is well done. The premise is interesting and plot twists are not always expected.

Check out my blog on Blogspot called Tales of Television for more reviews

I really like this show, but - there is always a but isn't there, whoever is your "medical" expert needs to know what he / she is talking about. Episode 5. Yound girl is dying because she needs a new heart and is lying in bed with oxygen running. All is good and here comes the but. She does not have an oxygen mask on she has a CPAP mask on. CPAP masks look a lot worse than an O2 cannula and I think this is why they chose to use it. CPAP masks are used when someone is sleeping to keep them breathing, not when someone is awake and talking, also when someone is waiting for a new heart he/she is not pretty pink, but a horrible whitish grey color.

Thank you for your time, like I said I do like the show, you just have to get it more real when someone is sick, use the right masks, etc. I am sure if I saw this error a lot of people did.