NBC’s St. Denis Medical is a captivating office sitcom from Superstore and American Auto creator Justin Spitzer and author Eric Ledgin.
Informed as a mockumentary, the sequence follows a bunch of nurses and medical doctors at an Oregon hospital. Between its format and its concentrate on a bunch of harried, underfunded workers simply making an attempt to do some good, St. Denis Medical accommodates shades of different reveals like Abbott Elementary and Parks and Recreation. However will it additionally characteristic the traditional office sitcom staple of an workplace (or on this case, hospital) romance? Who will probably be St. Denis Medical‘s Jim and Pam? Its Leslie and Ben? Its Janine and Gregory?
As of the present’s first two episodes, no one! Sort of. Sure, St. Denis Medical hints at the potential for a office romance between nurses Matt (Mekki Leeper, Jury Obligation) and Serena (Kahyun Kim, Cocaine Bear). However it additionally subverts that very same trace in a means that feels real, good, and probably refreshing for the style.
Our first hints at a St. Denis Medical romance come lower than 5 minutes into the episode, when head nurse Alex (Allison Tolman) tells Serena their new flooring nurse is a “young guy from Montana.”
Serena’s response? To playfully dry hump the entrance desk and picture it is the brand new nurse, one thing she straight-up tells St. Denis physician Ron (David Alan Grier). Who wants boundaries in a hospital anyway?
Nevertheless, no matter fantasies Serena could have had in regards to the Montana nurse fly out the window when she really meets him. Matt could also be a pleasing goofball, however, to place it merely, he isn’t good. He administers an EpiPen to himself as an alternative of a affected person on his first day, for crying out loud. Serena can solely watch on in horror.
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Kahyun Kim in “St. Denis Medical.”
Credit score: Ron Batzdorff / NBC
Later, although, she provides him a small pep discuss how he stepped up throughout a medical emergency. She even nudges his shoe together with her personal, a small little bit of bodily contact that makes Matt’s face gentle up.
In a confessional instantly following that scene, Matt reveals that he is beginning to suppose he is received what it takes to be a nurse. “Also,” he says conspiratorially, “I might have met the girl of my dreams. So, yeah, I think I’m in the right place.”
Minimize to Serena, who has a really totally different factor to say to the documentary crew: “He’s definitely getting fired. He’s so, so bad.”
Serena’s response is a good comedic undercutting of Matt’s pleasure about his “dream girl,” nevertheless it additionally shuts down the potential for any romance between them kicking off instantly. In any case, when you introduce mutual attraction in your first episode, like Jim and Pam in The Workplace or Janine and Gregory in Abbott Elementary, you’ve got set your self a ticking time bomb. The viewers is aware of instantly that these characters will get collectively in some unspecified time in the future. But when that will-they-won’t-they dynamic overstays its welcome, you danger exasperation and unlucky narrative drag. (Sure, Jim and Pam pushed me to my limits.)
That St. Denis Medical seemingly cuts the Matt-Serena romance off on the head implies that the present may not even be participating with a style trope that is grown a tad overplayed. Or, it might simply be shopping for itself extra time, letting the characters develop organically and individually earlier than nudging them collectively down the road. Not less than we cannot be force-fed pining glances proper from the soar.
OK, Matt should still be pining, however Serena will probably be too busy being competent to note. Perhaps if he learns methods to correctly work an EpiPen, he’ll be worthy of her, and I will be extra able to root for his or her pairing.
