New Amsterdam, NBC’s newest medical drama based on the book ‘Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital’ by Eric Manheimer, promised to shake up the genre with new blood, but the pilot failed to deliver.
Ryan Eggold is well cast in the role of Dr. Max Goodwin, the newest medical director at New Amsterdam. He is likeable and more importantly, believable, as a ‘man of the people’, who is determined to shake things up and restore the hospital to it’s glory days by taking on the system and placing patient care above billing.
Unfortunately, the series itself proved to be less believable and lacking in originality. From Dr. Goodwin’s interaction with nursing staff in the locker room to the closing scene where it is revealed Max has cancer, it suffered from a lot of grandstanding for such predictability.
What was admirable was the world they were attempting to create within the walls of the public hospital. A world everyone dreams of living in. Where patients are treated like human beings and doctors stand up to the man and fight for the underdog. Where citizens are swiftly repatriated so they can go home to see their family before they succumb to their illness. An endless supply of happily ever after that we don’t often see in everyday life.
While it is a beautiful dream, the foundation isn’t strong enough to hold it up. It is possible it may strengthen and develop as the series goes on and many may believe in the dream enough to stay tuned for a few more episodes and find out. What do you think? Will you continue to tune in?
New Amsterdam airs Tuesdays at 10pm on NBC.
Written by JessG on Sep 27, 2018
I for one enjoyed it, it may a nice change from the norm of most medical based shows. For myself it was nice to see a doctor who wanted for himself and the other staff to be just that doctor's to do what they had trainned to do. Care for there patients without the All mighty dollar having an effect. Proving that fare quick by firing the cardiac staff and anybody else who put money over patient care