Monday Mornings

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.

Besides all the negative appointments and the low rating, i find this show amazing! Against all odds, it's almost cool as House MD, witch i really loved. Each doctor is amazing, completely different from each other, with very strong personalities. The stories are cool and well made, and the medicine part is so realistic.

There's some negative points, indeed, like the small cast. Will be a very difficult job to the writers to make more than twelve episodes, in my opinion. Each episode revolves around one or two specific cases. We could have one case for each doctor, for example. I think they should cover the personal life of the doctors, too. It's like if nobody got a family, kids, almost unreal.

But overall, it's very enjoyable show. Give it a try before believing in the negative reviews done here.

I go along with pennymaui: Patients need this kind of wake-up lesson about not necessarily trusting the first doctor or opinion.

I've already learned a lot of things I didn't know just watching the show, especially tonight. (I DVR shows) I hope this show has a lot more then 10 episodes. I really think people can learn a lot just from the Monday morning parts of the show. I love what they do there. Especially about the feelings of the patients and their families. Please, please keep this show going, it's great. I'm so sick of all the stupid comedy and reality shows that are on now. They have canceled sooo many good shows after just one season.

This is a thoroughly entertaining medical drama. I don't know what the negative posters expected. I suspect they are just negative people who like to find fault with everything.

The character development is superb. Stand out performances by VingRhames, Keoung Sim and Alfred Molina. There's really not a weak cast member. Story lines are good. It's not frenetic like ER, nor as bizarre as House. It's closer to Grey's anatomy with a strong focus on the medical issues and less on the soap opera aspects.

My family members in the health field agree this show is pretty much on target.

Check it out.

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.