Before we start, I’d just like to say that this is not an ordinary review. At first glance, Fox’s The Resident seems to fit into the new crop of medical dramas on the market today. It’s tone, atmosphere, and style have a soapy feel, and the actors either accidentally or purposefully go in that direction with their performances. However, a quick look underneath the surface reveals that this show is supposed to be a SERIOUS drama written by SERIOUS writers in a SERIOUS way to start a SERIOUS conversation about the SERIOUS flaws in the American healthcare system.
To put it simply, it’s complete and utter bullshit.
The Cast Deserves Better.
I’m honestly shocked that a show of such awful quality managed to attract a good cast.
On the side of good, Matt Czuchry and Emily VanCamp stand out as Conrad Hawkins and Nic Nevin, respectively. These two mix quite well together in certain scenes, but their otherwise decent-to-great acting is often beaten down by a liberal dose of ham. On one hand, the pair manages to do something with the romance between their two characters. On the other, they are the ones who have to loudly gesticulate like unprofessional douchebags about whatever questionable fact the writers want to parrot that week.
I know that I should say something about the titular resident, but I find it difficult to give a damn about him. Manish Dayal gives it his all as Devon Pravesh, but there is nothing that makes him interesting aside from the fact that he avoids the Indian doctor stereotype. His private life is silly, his residency is a mess, and I honestly don’t know if he has any common sense in certain situations. More on that in the plot section, bitch.
On the side of EEEEEVIL, Bruce Greenwood is wildly entertaining as Dr. Randolph Bell. As I pointed out at the beginning, his character fits the show’s soap opera style to a fucking T. He kills people, picks up prostitutes, and generally acts like a corrupt bastard. His moustache-twirling villainy makes it easy to laugh along with the show… until you realize that this is supposed to be a super-cereal take on medicine.
If Nothing Else, It’s Good For A Laugh.
On the lighter side of things, most of the melodrama is good for a laugh if you squint hard enough. While it may seem like the showrunners have done their research, it’s rather easy for any old viewer to spot an assload of inaccuracies in any given episode. While it may seem like I’m nitpicking over minutiae here, it’s important to realize that the SUPER-SERIOUS CREDIBILITY of The Resident falls apart under a reasonable amount of scrutiny.
For starters, it’s important to note that there are protocols and multiple forms of oversight in a hospital. To give you a sense of what I mean, Devon would not be supervised by Conrad in a real hospital. Instead, there would be attending doctors, nurses, and other staff in the room with patients at certain times. Virtually every other medical show on the face of the planet understands this fact, but The Resident just has Nic.
As I stated in the cast portion of this review, the romantic side of this show leaves a lot to be desired as well. While Nic and Conrad are a believable couple, the brief and howlingly stupid love triangle of Devon, Priya Nair (Tasie Lawrence), and Julian Booth (Jenna Dewan) will either leave the audience in a fit of giggles or force them to put their head through the nearest wall. Every single one of their scenes are punctuated by queefy dialogue, an utter lack of female personality, and sudden twists that come out of left field.
How are we supposed to give a damn about anyone other than Devon, again?
On a far darker note…
This Show Is Insanely Anti-Doctor.
It’s one thing for a medical drama to show that doctors make mistakes. However, The Resident takes an absurd left turn into loony town by stating that doctors and hospitals either lack basic common sense or are evil incarnate. It bears repeating that this fits in the context of a silly soap opera, but this show is not that.
When one couples the characters with Amy Holden Jones’ rants on Twitter, it’s easy to see that the showrunners have a bone to pick with doctors and other medical professionals. I’m not exactly sure why that is, but I can tell you that it’ll only deepen the gulf between ordinary people and the doctors who want to serve them. Let’s take a look at two examples.
The stupid side of Devon and Conrad shines through quite noticeably in the pilot episode. At the start of his residency, Devon has to resuscitate a patient who has coded due to pulseless electrical activity. He can’t shock her back to life, so the team administers CPR and adrenaline for 26 minutes. If we accept the premise, Devon brought back a vegetable even though he should have known better. With that said, a 2012 study indicates that approximately 80% of survivors have “favorable” brain function even when they’re under the gun for 15-30 minutes (Study/News).
In other words, someone is lying here, and I’m betting that it’s the writers.
The Resident gets even more ridiculous when one considers the crimes of Randolph Bell, Lane Hunter (Melina Kanakarendes), and Gordon Page (Michael Weston). I could write a book on the absolute shitshow that all three characters start on a weekly basis, but it’s best to focus on the insane arc of Gordon Page and QuoVadis.
In a normal show, one might expect this story to be a reflection of various news headlines, such as the price gouging of insulin. However, The Resident takes things into conspiracy territory by making QuoVadis out to be the medical equivalent of SPECTRE. They have moles inside the FDA and import all of their medical devices from China without raising any eyebrows, yet no one says anything because Michael Weston is doing his best impression of Ernst Stavro Blofeld and Mark Zuckerberg.
Why was this not a soap opera again? It would have been glorious!
Conclusion.
Don’t waste your time with The Resident. Under normal circumstances, I’d recommend it wholeheartedly because it comes pre-packaged with five hundred pounds of Wisconsin pepper jack cheese, but the actual intent of the show utterly destroys its entertainment value. It passes off misleading information as fact, portrays doctors as villains, and doesn’t even bother to get the basics right.
You, dear reader, deserve better. We all do.
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