For as fun as it was to watch St. Denis Medical switch things up with a big gala episode last week, I’m so glad the show decided to return to its sweet spot for its first season finale. This is a series about the day-to-day realities of working in a hospital and the small-scale wins, losses, and evolutions that take place within those walls. So it’s only right that we get a finale rooted in what the show does best.

Case in point: One of the most powerful moments in “This Place is Our Everything” is just a quick, low-key scene where Matt gets called over to help a patient who’s having trouble breathing. Matt immediately deduces she’s having an allergic reaction, notices the granola bar she just ate and the nut allergy bracelet on her arm, and calmly grabs an EpiPen from one of the drawers to help her. “Should we get someone?” the patient’s friend asks in a panic. “No, it’s okay, I’m someone,” he replies with confidence as he injects her with the medicine.

It's a pointed reversal of the moment in the pilot where Matt anxiously tries to give a patient his first unsupervised EpiPen only to accidentally stab himself instead. While Matt may not have done a 180 transformation during his time as a new nurse at St. Denis, he has made meaningful progress this season. And the show finds the perfect way to celebrate that growth with a small but impactful victory.

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One of my favorite sitcom traditions is the late-season episode that gets everyone out of their usual setting and into some fancy clothes for a big event. And while a lot of shows use that kind of switcheroo for their finales, St. Denis Medical gets it in early in this penultimate episode set at the hospital’s annual fundraising gala. I’m curious what that means for what the show has in store for next week’s season finale. But for now, the hair is down, the drinks are flying, and the dance floor is open for some fun ensemble comedy.

Both the strength and the weakness of “Bruce-ic and the Mus-ic” is how much it feels like the sort of big, high-stakes episode where something truly game-changing is going to happen. And while I guess Joyce and Ron scoring a $10 million donation from a real estate tycoon’s ex-wife fits that bill (or does it? I don’t understand how hospital budgets work), ultimately “Bruce-ic and the Mus-ic” is more about celebrating the dynamics the show has craft…

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Another week, another wild swing in quality for St. Denis Medical. Thankfully, it’s in the positive direction this time as “Anything to Push Zaluva” is one of the funnier, more charming episodes of the season. That’s because—like “Gimme the Scuttlebutt” before it—this episode largely drops its medical procedural roots to focus on the workplace comedy side of its sitcom formula. In fact, Jordan Hearne’s script cleverly divides the show’s ensemble into three different character pairings that offer a full spectrum of relatability when it comes to working in a hospital.

On the most universal side of things, Alex and Serena squabble over how best to throw their coworker a baby shower, which is the sort of thing that anyone who’s worked in an office can probably relate to. On the most heightened side of things, Bruce puts Matt through the sort of hospital boot camp that could only exist on a sitcom. And in the absolute sweet spot of specificity and relatability, Jo…

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St. Denis Medical has delivered a real rollercoaster of quality in this back half of its first season. While I praised the previous episode for delving into heavier emotions that felt like they were actively pushing our characters to new places, this week the show is back to spinning its wheels. Despite some initial promise, “Sometimes It’s Good to Be Cautious” ultimately winds up being a real filler episode. It will probably play fine in a binge-watch as a breather between the emotional upheavals of “Listen to Your Ladybugs” and whatever the show has in store for its final three installments of the season. But as an episode to think about and analyze in isolation, well, there’s just not much there there.

That starts with two really thin runners: Joyce’s interview for Stanford’s alumni magazine and Ron’s love of the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team. There are, admittedly, some funny physical comedy gags in Ron’s storyline, whether he’s getting a patient…

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When “Listen to Your Ladybugs” opened with the umpteenth scene of Bruce bragging about yet another medical award, I drew a mental line in the sand. Either this was the episode where St. Denis Medical would finally give Bruce some depth or this is the week I’d officially give up hope of his character ever becoming anything more than one-note comedic relief. So I’m thrilled to report that Bruce finally gets some much, much needed character shading here. And I’m even more pleased to report this is the first episode of St. Denis that genuinely made me cry—which is a milestone I wasn’t expecting this season to reach at all.

That’s because “Listen to Your Ladybugs” largely throws out traditional sitcom plotting for a melancholy character-centric story with a strong thematic backbone. This is an episode about fear. After hearing a dementia patient recite the quote “You don’t have to be good,” Bruce begins to panic about who he is beyond all his medical skills. Joyce, meanwhile, sees…

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There comes a point in any workplace sitcom season where watching the same comedic dynamics in the same setting can start to feel just a little repetitive. So I always appreciate an episode that mixes things up a bit. Though “Some Famous Internet Guy” is technically still set within the hospital, it introduces a new foyer location and a pseudo-talent show premise that makes it feel immediately distinct from anything we’ve seen before. And that sense of freshness carries the episode—even if it’s built on some pretty shaky storytelling ground throughout.

That’s because, more so than most episodes of St. Denis, this one really relies on wacky sitcom logic to justify its narrative. That’s a different beast than the wacky sitcom humor the show deploys each week. A lost cat or a co-worker prank war are things that could conceivably happen within a real-life hospital, the show just heightens them to ridiculous proportions. This week, however, the very bones of the s…

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St. Denis Medical has experimented with a lot of different tones over its debut season: low-key social commentary, full-on cringe-comedy, prop-based humor. But none have fit nearly as well as the tone the show found in its Christmas episode, “Ho-Ho-Hollo.” St. Denis’ sweet spot is slightly heightened absurdism grounded by an earnest, heartfelt affection for its whole ensemble. And after a string of early 2025 episodes that tried and failed to recapture that magic, “Buffalo Bruce and Matty the Kid” brings it back with a vengeance. I laughed, I smiled, I even slightly teared up at the end. And that’s a great energy for the show to bring into its final stretch of episodes this season.

All that great forward momentum starts with a thoughtful look at the past. Back in the pilot, Serena was introduced as a travel nurse—a job title the show hasn’t really addressed since. In fact, I sort of assumed the series was simply retconning the detail out of existence, but “Bu…

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Huh. My first thought when I finished “Nobody Even Mentions the Brownies” is that I wonder if this episode was filmed earlier in the season and then held off to air until now. Maybe it’s just the fact that (on my digital screener, at least) the theme song seems to have gotten a slightly horn-forward makeover, but there was something about this episode that immediately felt different to me. From the camerawork to the tone to, especially, the thematic focus, this felt like watching an episode of St. Denis Medical from an ever so slightly parallel dimension. And that was actually a helpful way to check in on what is and isn’t working about the show so far.

For what it’s worth, I tried to dig into the limited production code information NBC has supplied behind the scenes and although I’m not 100% sure I’m reading those codes correctly, I do think this was actually the fourth episode that production filmed. If that is the case, it would mean Ron’s mention of a Nut…

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Whether you’re a classic ER fan, a long-time Grey’s Anatomy viewer, or you’re glued to a new medical show like The Pitt, we all know the basic beats, rhythms, and archetypes of a medical drama. So the core fun of St. Denis Medical comes from seeing that classic TV setting twisted in a whole new comedic direction. This week, for instance, the staff are sent spiraling when they learn the hospital’s Yelp rating has fallen by half a star—something I can’t imagine the doctors of Grey Sloan Memorial having time to care about. And that inherently funny premise buoys a lot of this ensemble-based half-hour.

To be fair, it’s really only Joyce who cares about the rating decrease itself, everyone else is just shocked to learn that hospitals have Yelp reviews. (I was too, but just Googled hospitals in my area to confirm it’s a real thing!) It’s Ron who first comes under fire when he’s accused of fat shaming…

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Since basically the first episode of St. Denis Medical, I’ve wondered when and how the show would tackle death. It’s a major, inevitable part of working in a hospital and something that every medical show has to figure out how to address in some kind of meaningful way eventually. I still remember watching Scrubs’ stellar fourth episode “My Old Lady” and being blown away by how masterfully it approached the idea of doctors losing patients. Given that St. Denis has pointedly avoided having any patients die in its first eight episodes, I assumed the show was going to go for something similarly poignant and memorable for its “first” death. And while that was perhaps an unfair expectation to place on the show, I’m not sure what St. Denis gained by waiting so long to finally tackle the topic.

In fact, “You Got to Have a Plan” sends some pretty mixed signals about whether this is supposed to be a Special Death Episode or just another random wacky sitcom outing, whic…

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The first seven episodes of St. Denis Medical followed a pretty similar template: take a medical procedural drama structure and turn it into a comedy, with wacky patients-of-the-week to bring out the best (and worst) of our ensemble of healthcare workers. With “Gimme the Scuttlebutt,” however, the show smartly remembers it’s not just pulling from the history of medical dramas, but from the legacy of workplace sitcoms too. Thus we get a pretty bold shift in format—an episode all about the interpersonal lives of its characters with barely a patient in sight.

It’s a great way to shake up the world of St. Denis as the show heads into the latter half of its first season. (It was originally slated for 13 episodes before NBC picked up five more in June.) From the beginning, St. Denis has tried to convey the idea that working in a hospital isn’t that different than working anyplace else. So, naturally, the thing that brings that idea to the forefront is a classic wor…

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After ending 2024 with its first true homerun of an episode, I assumed St. Denis Medical might rest on its laurels a bit and return to the good-not-great feel-good vibes that characterized most of its initial run of episodes. Instead, this winter premiere surprised me with a hard left turn into some darker subject matter: the story of two inmates at a nearby prison who are regular visitors to the hospital because they keep stabbing each other. “We should start a loyalty program where with your tenth stab wound you get a free froyo,” Alex jokes.

While “50 CC’s of Kindness” isn’t the strongest episode comedically, I do give it major points for trying to thoughtfully tackle a heavy real-world issue within the goofy confines of a network sitcom. That initially seemed like it was going to be the overarching thesis of the show, which started its pilot with a joke about a drug addict patient who keeps ending up at the hospital after OD-ing. But as the show moved on …

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One of my favorite things about network television is its ability to deliver real-time holiday episodes that coincide with whatever cheer (or stress) we’re all feeling at the moment. And I especially love when shows embrace a particular holiday as their own. Modern Family and Brooklyn 99 were famous for Halloween episodes. Friends, New Girl, and This Is Us made Thanksgiving their brand. Now St. Denis Medical is staking its early claim as a Christmas show—and, if this episode is anything to go by, that could very well be the gift that keeps on giving.

“Ho-Ho-Hollo” is easily my favorite episode since the double premiere, if not just my favorite episode of the show so far. As I’ve talked about throughout these reviews, the first five episodes of the season have felt like the show re-calibrating and fine-tuning itself—making strides in some areas even as it backslides a bit elsewhere. But “Ho-Ho-Hollo” is the first episode where it feels like everything finally …

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As St. Denis Medical continues to find its feet, one of the things we’ve been chatting about in these reviews and comments is when and how Dr. Ron is working as a character. While David Alan Grier is reliably great, the show’s various takes on Ron haven’t been as consistent (or as consistently successful). The pilot depicted him as a curmudgeonly but ultimately caring milkshake-lover; the second episode somewhat randomly zeroed in on his younger-skewing dating life; the third pushed things over-the-top by giving him a bold anti-superstition stance; and the fourth focused on his road rage (er, parking lot rage) against Serena. This week, we’re back to the sweet tooth arena with a hilarious storyline about his love for Reese’s NutRageous candy bars. But—more importantly—I think I now understand what makes a Ron storyline work or not. (And, no, it’s not the product placement.)

Ron’s curmudgeonliness is funniest when he’s not the initial instigator of the conflict, but a sort …

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After last week’s St. Denis Medical seemed to lose a little of the show’s spark, things get back on track this week with an episode that manages to cram an impressive amount of story into its 21-minute runtime. There are two big, intersecting themes this week: one is that the social dynamics of St. Denis are basically just high school in scrubs, and the other is that we all have our psycho moments sometimes—particularly in such a high-stakes job. They’re ideas that are broadly relatable to a lot of different people. (I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve compared the world of film criticism to high school.) But, crucially, they also feel deeply rooted in the specifics of a hospital workplace too.

The high school comp is a particularly helpful one for understanding where St. Denis sits in the crowded landscape of medical TV shows. ER presented the hospital as a grown-up work environment. Scrubs took on a fantastical point of view that almost felt like a demen…

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The first few episodes of a new sitcom are about building out a world. St. Denis Medical’s premiere introduced us to the hospital from a nurse’s point of view. “A Very Robust Personal Life” expanded out to look at the daily lives of its administrators and doctors. And now “Weird Stuff You Can't Explain” is here to introduce us to the concept of hospital-wide “vibes” and how they can shape a work day in the ER. I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is the first episode where St. Denis Medical is another character in the series—it basically has been since the beginning. But this is the first episode where painting a broader portrait of the hospital feels like it takes priority over anchoring us in any one character’s perspective, even as David Alan Grier’s Dr. Ron is nominally our POV character this week.

The good news is that St. Denis Medical finds some interesting new “ins” to its medical setting. This week is all about religious beliefs and superstitions and how they can (or can’t) co-exist with such a scientific-minded workplace. And while this certainly isn’t the first hospital show to tackle those issues, I do think deep-diving into the question of religion in the third episode of a medical sitcom is a refreshingly bold move. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that strong set-up leads to a particularly compelling story structure or payoff. While feel-good comedy is clearly a high priority for St. Denis, there’s a risk of becoming toothless, which this episode veers toward in the end.

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Welcome to Episodic Medium’s weekly coverage of St. Denis Medical, the new hospital comedy mockumentary that debuted two episodes tonight on NBC (and will be available on Peacock tomorrow). As always, the first review is free for all, but subsequent reviews will only be available to paid subscribers.

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If you’ve ever spent any extended time at a hospital, you know there’s no truer statement than that. Though the logical part of my brain has always known that Grey’s Anatomy is a fictional take on heroically dedicated doctors, I was still shocked when my dad spent five days at the hospital after a bike accident a few years ago and we saw his doctors for a collective total of maybe 20 minutes that entire time. Instead, it was the nurses who knew about his care and his treatment, and who got to know us and who shaped his experience. I can’t remember any of his doctor’s names, but I can still remember Katie and Angie.1

Before diving into St. Denis Medical, I thought its main hook was that it’s the first medical show to utilize the mockumentary format—Scrubs by way of The Office. But it turns out to have another angle too. This is one of the few medical shows that’s first and foremost anchored in a nurse’s point of view, in this case empathetic supervising nurse Alex (Allison Tolman) and her workaholic commitment to her job in the face of the current nursing shortage.2 That means that like Abbott Elementary, there’s a pointed social message at the heart of all the goofy mockumentary comedy: a rallying cry against a broken system and a celebration of the unsung heroes who don’t usually get positioned as the stars of their own stories.

That’s become something of a specialty for co-creator Justin Spitzer, who got his start writing for Scrubs and The Office before creating the workplace sitcoms Superstore and American Auto for NBC. Though I’ve yet to do a deep dive into either show, I know they’re interested in the institutions that shape America and—in Superstore’s case—the underpaid employees that make those institutions run. This time around, Spitzer and co-creator/showrunner Eric Ledgin are bringing that same energy to the world of medicine.

In the two episodes that premiered tonight, the duo make a strong case that they’ve found a winning formula. While I didn’t have super high expectations heading into this show (I’ve been mixed on the Instagram ads that have been served my direction), I was pretty immediately won over from the moment I realized the premiere was opening with a joke about OD-ing. It’s an edgier topic than most network sitcoms would launch with and an early sign that while St. Denis is rooted in feel-good comedy vibes, it’s not afraid to tackle the darker side of our strained healthcare system as well.

Of course, given how ubiquitous the workplace mockumentary has become over the past two decades, there’s always something a bit rote about watching a new one establish itself. But St. Denis has the confidence of two creators who know their way around the genre. (Though this is the first time Spitzer and Ledgin are working together as co-creators, the latter wrote for both Superstore and American Auto, as well as comedies like Rutherford Falls and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.) The characters all pop, at least in a broad archetypal way. And even after just the first episode, there were already relationships I’m excited to see more from.

The sweetest dynamic is between Alex and emergency physician Dr. Ron (the great David Alan Grier), a lovable curmudgeon who knows all too well that dedicating your life to your career can come with a cost. While St. Denis hilariously sends up heroic TV doctors via star trauma surgeon Dr. Bruce (Josh Lawson), Dr. Ron is a much more realistic take on an ER doctor—dedicated to his patients but believable in his emotional detachment too. There’s also a sweet potential romance between new floor nurse Matt (Mekki Leeper), who grew up in a religious community that doesn’t believe in medicine, and jaded RN Serena (Kahyun Kim), who exudes black cat energy to his golden retriever vibes. (“Wow, he dumb.”)

Had St. Denis premiered a decade ago, there’s every chance Matt would’ve been our likable white male lead and we would’ve been experiencing this small regional Oregon hospital from his wide-eyed Montana perspective. But I like the choice to jump in with people who know what they’re doing instead. We’ve all seen medical shows like Scrubs, Grey’s Anatomy, and The Good Doctor that anchor us in the POV of a newbie’s first day. St. Denis is more interested in capturing how a well-honed system (just barely) works.3

If there’s a character who didn’t entirely click for me in the premiere, it’s Wendi McLendon-Covey’s executive director Joyce, whose broad Michael-Scott-esque antics felt a little too heightened compared to the quieter comedic key everyone else is operating in. Thankfully, the show seems to realize that and course corrects in its second episode, giving Joyce a heavier storyline to bring her more in line with the tone of the rest of the series.

While the premiere, “Welcome to St. Denis,” is a likable if somewhat predictable intro to the world of St. Denis, “A Very Robust Personal Life” really impressed me with how it’s structured. Seemingly disparate stories about Joyce’s work/life boundaries, Matt’s fear of being an organ donor, and Bruce’s obsession with doing good in the world via his patients all wind up intersecting in subtle but meaningful ways. (The only truly standalone story here is Ron’s decision to expand his dating age range by an extra four years.) We also get the start of an Alex/Joyce friendship (er, colleague-ship) that could easily become a cornerstone of the series, and an unexpected moment of genuine humanity from Bruce. It’s nice work all around from writers Sierra Teller Ornelas and Owen Ellickson.

The best thing I can say about these episodes is that both had moments that made me laugh out loud and both had endings that made me unexpectedly tear up. For a fledgling sitcom, that’s a great starting point. Whether St. Denis Medical will be able to truly elevate itself above the mockumentary pack remains to be seen. But its stats look great and it’s charting in the right direction.

Stray observations

• Welcome to coverage of St. Denis Medical! In my decade as a TV critic, I’ve actually never reviewed a half-hour sitcom weekly before, so I’m excited to have a new creative challenge ahead of me. And I’m very curious to hear if this show is clicking as well for all of you as it is for me!

• Unless I missed it, I don’t think there’s any attempt to explain why a documentary crew is following this particular “safety net” hospital—although that’s perhaps just par for the course with the mockumentary format these days. Joyce and Bruce clearly love the attention though.4

• Initially, I assumed Matt’s religious background would just be a source for easy jokes, but I actually thought his philosophical/emotional exploration of whether he wanted to be an organ donor was genuinely fascinating! I feel like you usually see that kind of storyline explored through a patient, and it was cool to see a medical professional grapple with his own relationship to medicine.

• I’d already seen it in the show’s trailers, but Matt stabbing himself with the EpiPen was a really funny bit of physical comedy.

• Joyce briefly mentions that she was an oncologist for 20 years before she moved into hospital administration, and I hope we see more of her medical perspective come into play moving forward.

• It's played as a joke, but “Best breast test in the West!” is actually a great slogan.

• Was anyone else devastated that Alex didn’t make it in time to see her daughter star in Mamma Mia! as Donna? They needed to make it a big sports game or something because my theater kid heart couldn’t handle it.

• On the positive side: I love the floral dress they put Alex in for the big medical crisis at the end of the first episode! Tolman looks great in that pale pink color.

• “iPhone? Oh, now there’s Max Pro? Okay!” McLendon-Covey’s tossed off delivery really made me laugh.

• “It was like one of those Saw movies I’ve accidentally seen the posters for.”