‘The Resident’, the new medical drama from FOX, is hardly optimistic when it opens in a scene where head surgeon, Dr. Randolph Bell (Bruce Greenwood), accidentally nicks an artery, and instantly kills a patient. He has only one thing in mind, at the moment: his reputation.
Hellbent to protect it, he knows well how to compel the rest of his team to cooperate for a cover-up. And why could he not? Not only they aren’t functional assistants (they are shown taking selfies during the operation), he is the god doctor whom no one could say no to.
For a full-blown narcissist like Dr. Bell, it appears such incident could never be more than just a dim in his highly-celebrated career, hence, he is not worried that Dr. Conrad Hawkins (Matt Czuchry), one of his hospital’s most brilliant residents, bears no intention of signing up to his fan club.
Luckily, he finds Dr. Devon Pravesh (Manish Dayal), a newbie resident whose looks up to him as an industry icon, to take Hawkins’ place. Both Pravesh and Hawkins could be titular roles, and that is in spite of the fact that each of them sits on the opposite ends of the respect bar, for Dr. Bell. Pravesh is idealistic; Hawkins, a bit on the other side, but he is hardly the worst pessimist.
By any means, ‘The Resident’ is no ‘The Good Doctor’, nor ‘Grey’s Anatomy’.
It delves largely on the same territory but it digs further to unexploited depths. Medical malpractice and hospital corruption are thrown into the spotlight, straight away, and while the narrative does not strictly contain itself within the confines of these nonuniformities, it anchors to such sentiments to keep its intentions, in tact, and eventually, move itself forward.
Arguably, ‘The Resident’ artistic ensemble isn’t as strong as it requires it to be. Devon is practically Dr. Shaun Murphy without the autism. Dayal pulls him off decently, but Devon’s confused idealism makes Dayal’s dramatic efforts somehow dissipate in the devouring presence of Czuchry and Greenwood’s more structured characters. Unsurprisingly, the friction between Bell and Hawkins is more profound than the latter’s chemistry with Pravesh. But that is not to dismiss the excitement about where their team-up could possibly go.
Emily VanCamp plays the conscientious nurse, Nic. For the most part, she is seen playing the GOOD nurse–so good she could might as well take ‘The Good Doctor’ title. But she is not gonna go there; at least, that is what she claims she will never force herself to be. She connects in varying intensity (and chemistry) with both Pravesh and Hawkins–a friend-almost-pretending-to-be-a-mentor to Pravesh, an indifferent ex who nurtures nothing more than a professional relationship, with the latter.
At the very beginning of the first episode, Dr. Bell is immediately introduced as the main antagonist. His selfish motives are bright as the sun, and Greenwood articulates them so effectively. That he would go to any length to protect everything he cares about, isn’t an alienating choice to Conrad who will do anything to save the people he loves.
Greenwood has an impressive restraint, being able to pull off both Bell’s sarcasm, and the darker shades of his flawed humanity. Conrad is essentially the same, but without the greed. He also displays multiple facades, each conflicting the other. That does not necessarily make him a confusing character, because if anything, it turns him to a more interesting subject. The same can be said to Mina Okafor, whose tactless demeanor may put her immigration status, at risk. She nearly looks entirely deprived of distinctive emotional patterns, but it’s not difficult to understand her character’s trajectory, either, and that makes equally important.
The show’s cynical point-of-view on how the healthcare industry generally operates will earn raising brows, that is for sure. But that’s what makes this medical drama irresistibly intriguing. Hawkins isn’t strictly sarcastic when he stresses ‘Medicine isn’t practice by saints. It’s a bussiness’. His tone bears some level of certainty there, but he couldn’t let go of the mad hope–the same hope Devon fully acknowledges as a truth–that maybe the malpractice isn’t entirely incorrigible, at all.
It is easy to find medical dramas that only shed light almost entirely on the more optimistic side of its subject, but ‘The Resident’ is brave, and that is refreshingly different in the context of taking hospital dramas, alone.
RATING: 3.5/5
‘The Resident’ is now airing in the Philippines every Tuesday 3PM, on 2nd Avenue, with primetime telecast at 9PM
5 – Excellent
4 – Very Good
3 – Good
2 – Tolerable
1 – Terrible
