Monday Mornings is the best new drama on television and you can watch it tonight and every Monday on TNT at 10p after Dallas. The medical drama follows surgeons as they do their job and once a week they are held accountable by their peers in a meeting on Monday Mornings. Unlike other medical drama this one is about doctors actually doing their job and the patients whose lives they are trying to save. It is not a soap opera (like Grey’s Anatomy) or a procedural (like House), it is just a medical drama.
Because it is that, the cast is expected to use medical terminology and we all know that ain’t easy for us non-doctors. I was recently on a conference call with Jamie Bamber and Jennifer Finnigan and we talked about this.
Bamber plays neurosurgeon Dr. Tyler Wilson and it wasn’t the words that necessarily got to him, but it is how we pronounce them here in The States that gave the Brit a problem. As he explained, “For me it’s always a simple one because the terminology is one thing and you just have to work at it and we all do and it becomes second nature but occasionally for me there’s a double whammy of medical terminology that’s also slightly accented differently in English than it is in American English.” Then after a few seconds of Jennifer Finnigan and him trying to think of the word that was a big problem for him, he knew which one it was. He said, “I remember it, its trachea. Instead of trachea I would say trachia, trachia, a simple word that we all know but for me to say trachea instead of trachia, it was, I had to pause about three words before I got there and take a deep breath, repeat it inside of me and then spit it out.” The Finnigan, who plays attending neurosurgeon Dr. Tina Ridgeway, said “I saw it in his eyes.”
Bamber then added, “Yeah, it’s the simple ones that sometimes bite you. I mean, yeah, we have significant differences. Like we say anesthetist and you guys say anesthesiologist. Most of those I’ve got down but occasionally one will creep up but I actually use in sort of common parlents and those are the ones that bite me, not the really technical ones.” So it’s not the words, it just the issue that they say it differently on the other side of the pond.
So what about his accent, Finnigan who also plays his lover, commented on that. She said, “He’s amazing because he’ll be, we’ll be, talking literally right up till action and he’s, you know, a Brit, and then all of the sudden he just switches over on a dime, it’s shocking! I mean, especially involving all that jargon.” He chimed in with, “I can’t do it the other way. I can’t do it the other way where you stay in character all day.” Then Finnigan said his accent is having a strange effect on her because as she shared with us, “But then it’s weird because I think being Canadian I’m sometimes conscious of that slipping in which really it doesn’t when I’m sober but so sometimes talking to Jamie at length, because we do tend to sit together at those meetings and so 15 hours later I have a quasi-British accent for sure.”
So tune in tonight to see if you can hear either one of them accidentally slip into British accent. Especially since last week their affair was revealed and her marriage ended because of it. So you know there will be plenty of scenes between the two of them and I am so not complaining about that!
The night starts off at 8p with an episode of The CW’s Arrow that will leave you gasping every few minutes. Just when you think they can’t shock you anymore they surprise you again. Tommy’s (Colin Donnell) dad Malcolm (John Barrowman) invites his son to an event that he is being honored at, but he hesitates until Oliver (Stephen Amell) convinces him to go after a heart-to-heart conversation. A decision Oliver will later regret because an assassin has his Deadshot (Michael Rowe) eye on taking out Malcolm and Arrow will have to go in to try to save the day. By the end of the night Tommy and Oliver’s friendship will be changed forever and they will not be able to get back to where they were once at. Think that is enough to get you to want more, it is just preparation for the evening’s final reveal… So make sure to tune in for a game changing episode because so much happens that you can’t miss a single shocking moment.
Then at 8:30p NBC’s Guys with Kids stages a Cosby Show reunion when Marny’s (Tempestt Bledsoe) irresponsible younger sister Bridget (Keshia Knight Pulliam) comes for a visit. Instead of just giving her money, Marny decides that her sister should work for her husband to earn the dough. Gary (Anthony Anderson) is against this for obvious reasons. Is he right or will his sister in law actually wind up helping him? Meanwhile Chris (Jesse Bradford) and Sheila (Erinn Hayes) decide to have another baby even though they are divorced. Something his best friend, Nick (Zach Cregger) is vehemently against. Luckily for him Chris’ ex-girlfriend Sage comes back into the picture and now he will have to choose which ex to be with. The season finale ends with Gary singing a Kelly Clarkson song and let’s just say it doesn’t suck and neither does this great episode!
Then at 9p on TNT Donnie Wahlberg honors the people his brother and him spent a lot of unwanted time in their youth with and they are Boston’s Finest. It is inside look at entire Boston Police Department, including patrol officers, detectives, special task forces and members of the SWAT Team, the Fugitive Unit and highly decorated Gang Unit. Besides following them as they fight crime, we get to see what their lives are like when the badge comes off. In a way it is like the reality version Wahlberg’s CBS show, but set in Boston. You really go along for the ride with them and after you watch it you will want to tip your hat to these brave men and women. Wahlberg really gives these people the respect they deserve with this series.
Then at 10p Psych is back on USA and it picks up exactly where it left off. Shawn (James Roday) arrives just as his father Henry (Corbin Bersen) was shot. Now it is up to him to save his dad and get the man responsible for shooting him. Even though Jules (Maggie Lawson) and Lassie (Timothy Omundson) tell Shawn to sit this case out, he doesn’t listen. Will Shawn get himself into a situation he can’t get out of and does his dad survive? You will have to tune into find out!
Finally at 10p Stranded makes it debut on Syfy at 10p and this is an interesting twist on ghost hunter shows. Each week four everyday people will be sent to a location for 5 days to investigate if it is really haunted. They will be cut off from the world meaning no phones, no computers and no way to leave, and they will have nothing to do to but find out if there are any ghosts with them. They will be given the equipment to find out if they are alone or not and what they discover will not only spook them, it will do the same to you. I loved Stranded so much that when it gets picked up for a second season, I am so going to try to be on it.
Tonight at 9p Dallas goes to court as Ann Ewing tries to defend herself on why she (rightfully) shot her ex-husband. Their daughter will see both of them in a different light as several people will take the stand for both sides. By the end of the episode we will find out if she is going to jail or if she is a free woman?
But tonight’s episode is only about her; archenemies will realize they have a common threat, another set of enemies will call a truce and a union looks like it is over before it even got started. Think you know what’s going to happen? You don’t and you won’t, so make sure to watch the first remake that is as good as the original.
And you don’t want to miss a single second because all of this leads up to March 11th when J.R. will get shot again and sadly as we all know, he won’t survive this time to find out who did it.
Tonight at 10p on TBS’s King of the Nerds, Jason Mewes gets to combine two of his greatest loves comic books and Revenge of the Nerds. He is going to be a guest judge on the show and will help to decide the winning team should be. The contestants are going to debate over their comic book love. Something that is near and dear to him and Kevin Smith who is also a judge on the show. And before he hung out with that Kevin, he was hanging with another Kevin watching Revenge of the Nerds all the time. So much so the two of them learned all the words to the rap song at the end of the first movie. Now when it comes to the Kevin that we know, Mewes told me last week during an interview that Smith took him to his first comic book show in NY when they were teenagers and they’ve been hanging out ever since. So it is perfect that they are on tonight’s episode together.
When I was talking to Mewes and he told me what a big fan of the movie he is, I had to know which was his favorite Nerd in it. Without hesitation he said Booger, thus he really enjoyed working with Curtis Armstrong on the show. So while the contestants went all fan boy over him, he was going all fan boy over Booger!
And what about those contestants. When I asked him if they knew more than him when it came to comic book knowledge. He wouldn’t say that they know more about comic books than Smith and him, but he would say “They had more passion behind each debate. When they were debating about one thing or the next. They really knew what they were talking about.” We will have to tune in to watch their debates that are much different than the average person’s who would be arguing with their friends which superhero they would rather have sex with. Not saying the contestants on the show don’t do that, but they won’t be doing that tonight on the nerdiest competition show on television.
So besides doing King of the Nerds, he has a full plate on his hands. He is hosting AXS Live an hour long live pop culture show on AXS TV on Mondays and Tuesdays. He is also working on a Jay and Silent Bob Groovy Cartoon Movie. The 70 minute animated film that he produced and was written by Kevin Smith will hopefully be out in April and they are planning on touring with it. You can check out his YouTube channel SeesMod. You can listen to his Smodcast with Kevin Smith and see them on tour. And if that is not enough, he told me he would love to a storyarc on either ABC’s Revenge (a show he loves) and/or The CW’s Arrow. There has to be a way to make this happen.
But before that happens make sure to watch Jason Mewes tonight at 10p on TBS’s King of the Nerds.
Monday Mornings debuts on TNT tonight at 10p after Dallas and you don’t want to miss one of the best dramas to grace our televisions in a long time.
Doctors are responsible for saving lives and because of that fact some of them might become overly cocky. Monday Mornings is a show where you see these doctors doing get knocked down a notch when the messed up in a weekly meeting. In a way these meetings keep them humble and you wanting more.
Alfred Molina plays Dr Harding Hooten who runs these meetings. He is the one who puts his surgeons in their place whether they like it or not, and most of the time they don’t. But he is doing this for his patients’ benefits. And when you see him interact with them, you will see a compassion that you haven’t seen any doctor show before on television.
Could be because this show is co-created by CNN’s Sanjay Gupta. He has lived these experiences in his own life, so adding some fiction to them makes them seem so much real.
So real that I have seen some of these doctors in my hospital stays and such. One doctor that really brought back bad memories is Dr Sung Park, who barely has the English language down. He might be amazing at what he does, but he has the worst bedside manner you have ever seen. He tells patients get the surgery or dead because he has no time to interact with the talking patients and their family. While I have not had that experience, how many times have we seen a doctor who is so brunt with his diagnosis, you don’t know how to react and what to do? Well Dr Hooten will try to teach him compassion, but is he too thick skulled to get it? Keong Sim plays Dr Park and his portrayal is so dead on that I was shocked when I read his real life bio.
He isn’t the only doctor on the show, there is also Dr Tyler Wilson played by Jamie Barber. He will do anything he can to save his patients, but sometimes his inexperience will hurt them. He will be called out in these meetings for his mistakes.
Then there is his friend and colleague Tina Ridgeway (Jennifer Finnigan), she in a way is the one that keeps everyone calm. She is tough doctor who sees the potential in her interns. That will cost her, but yet she will appear to remain level headed and the one people go to talk to when they need someone. This is a role unlike anyone that Finnigan has played before and it is one she was born to play.
Then there is Dr Sydney Napur (Sarayu Rao), who you can tell is show co-creator’s Bill D’Elia and David E Kelley’s, baby on the show. She is the one that gives the speeches. She is the tough one. She is the one with ethics. She is the one you don’t want to mess with. And she is the one you want to look after you if you were unfortunately in the hospital!
There is one final doctor and that is Dr Jorge “El Gato” Villanueva played by Ving Rhames. He is the kind of the moral compass of them all.
I cannot express to you how much I love this show. D’Elia and Kelly have returned to medicine after several legal dramas and it has resuscitated how amazing these two show runners are in this field. They know how to bring heart to a drama. Unlike anything we have seen done with a medical show since their last one Chicago Hope.
There is a compassion with this show and a honesty that makes it so watchable. It is not a soap opera. It is not about a mad man. It is about doctors doing their job and not always getting it right. Unlike other ones they will not keep getting wrong in one episode until they get it right.
That is what I like most about this show. It shows that doctors are imperfect, but sometimes they are that way to make the person perfect again.
So watch this show every Monday night at 10p because paired up with Dallas, TNT has one of the strongest Mondays on television ever!
