New Amsterdam
Fall premiere week is upon us and the networks are clamoring for your eyeballs on their new and returning shows. In a busy landscape, let’s look at why you should watch New Amsterdam.
Yes, Another Medical Drama…
NBC, who brought us the gold standard of medical dramas with ER, brings us an aptly timed medical drama of a hospital transitioning from focusing on the bottom line to patient care. I can hear it now, but we have too many medical shows on already. This one promises to be different. After all, as revealed in the trailers, the new medical director fires the entire Cardiac Surgical department in what appears to be an early meeting with the physicians. We meet Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold), the new medical director at New Amsterdam, the world’s oldest public hospital. At a facility with a rich and lengthy medical history, Goodwin seems to reduce a job that is entirely too large to a seemingly simple question, “How can I help?”.
We also get to peek in on some of the other doctors at the hospital as they adjust to a new boss and continue their practices. In one clip, we see an interaction between Dr. Goodwin and Dr. Iggy Frome of Psychiatry (Tyler Labine) in which the latter is looking for a way to help a teen in distress who has been abused within the foster system. A striking interaction between a Psychiatrist who doesn’t know what to do and a medical director determined to help people. Dr. Goodwin instructs Frome this way, “If you can’t help Gemma as a doctor, just help her as a human being.” Frome disbelievingly asks, “Am I allowed to do that?” The response: “You are now.”
You Need To See This…
Based on what I’ve seen so far, this is a different kind of medical drama. Rather than going rogue and sneaking around the system to try to help selected patients, New Amsterdam boldly declares its desire to change the system from within. Don’t miss the premiere of New Amsterdam Tuesday September 25 at 10 pm EST on NBC, it will be worth your time.
You can thank me later with gifts of coffee.
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