Mental

I saw this for the first time end of 2011. I loved it. I just love the way this guy actually cares about his patients - which is really the only way to heal people (engage with them). I love the way he is outside of the box and isn't a tame psychiatrist who belongs to the health authority, but uses his expertise and humanity to do what needs to be done. He takes one person at a time and enters into their take on the world & holds them steady while they do what they need to do. It comes at a cost to him of course. He doubts himself & gets hurt, and can make choices that don't turn out well - welcome to the real world. But no decision is really wrong, and it's only from engaging that you learn anything at all. I loved this. All trainee psychiatrists should have to watch it.

They copied every routine detail house series: - conflicts with female boss(Lisa Cuddy clone), - weird undiagnosed illnesses that others can't cure, - contradictory diagnoses, - giving orders to other doctors, - time shortage, - crazy-looking and unexpected behavior, - and even "braking and entering" but instead of coping movie's personality they should concentrate on more important factors such as: - quality acting, - quality camera-work, - quality sound... Oh yes and quality ideas... I surprised fox even showed it. Yes, I watched 1st episode to the last minute, I thought maybe they at least have an interesting idea, but no...

please tell me this wasn't the series finale.... .We watched as he walked away last night wondering if the entire cast was going to continue, or would just he pick up somewhere else.....We were waiting to see if the one doctor, Carl Bell. was going to be found out as the jerk and manipulator he was portraying, and if the pharmaceutical representatives would be seen as forcing favors on individuals and hospitals for the opportunity to use them as guinea pig farms. Would the department head Nora Skoff find enough funding to be able to toss them (Bell and the drug representatives) out on their whatever. There were so many unanswered questions hanging at the end of this episode, we're hoping that it will return with some slowly released answers as the regular stories emerge.

Is someone forcing Chris Vance to over play the part of smart-Brit-in- America? One reviewer noted that he was ever smirking. I concur. Are we supposed to like his character or distrust him? It's hard to trust a character who is trying to manipulate the audience into believing he is always spot-on, with ready-made wise answers. Make the ossified American version of the BBC stereotype go away! The public watch BBC and PBS programming and expect a more complex protagonist, if only because he is not American. Give us the savvy consuming public(& Chris Vance) a break!!! Vance looks like a cross between a youthful Sting and Harvey Keitel. And sounds like Julian Sands to boot! Shine on, Chris Vance.

It just wants to impress, amaze and woo us from the start. It fails, since this approach is so last century. I want character development, colors, emotions. I don't want to rush into stereotypes: "cool boss" + "powerful female colleague"; two sexy interns, fresh from actors school in LA; hospital director that looks like a captain from some hardboiled cop show, but not someone with a medical background. Mental cases are interesting stuff to explore, but it fails here also, since it emphasizes on human relations, rather than subject of psychiatry itself.

Camera work is so bad it pains me to look at those Mexican soap opera style close-ups. Sound falls even shorter.

And yes, where are the writers of this show? My bet is, that it will end with this one pilot.