‘St. Denis Medical’ Is Another Winning Workplace Comedy From the ‘Superstore’ Team: TV Review
variety.comAlison Herman TV Critic The sitcom writer Justin Spitzer had his first script credit on “Scrubs,” the archetypal workplace comedy set in a hospital.
Twenty years later, Spitzer returns to the genre with NBC’s “St. Denis Medical,” co-created with Eric Ledgin (“Rutherford Falls”).
In between, Spitzer has developed a trademark approach that translates seamlessly to health care. A graduate of “The Office,” he makes shows set on the front lines of the modern economy: the sales floor of a big-box retailer (“Superstore”) or the headquarters of a flailing car manufacturer (“American Auto”). (Ledgin worked on both.) Spitzer characters don’t debate issues at length like Norman Lear ones did, but their everyday lives are unmistakably downstream of larger social and political forces. “St.
Denis Medical” is a worthy entrant in this larger project — and, therefore, a sharp break from the bro-y bonhomie of “Scrubs.” Our introduction to the namesake setting, a “safety-net hospital” in Oregon, is supervising nurse Alex (the wonderful Allison Tolman) attending to a patient recovering from the latest of several opioid overdoses.
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