Brilliant Minds

So in a number of ways "Brilliant Minds" is similar to "The Irrational." A super smart dude with weaknesses with super smart friends and a gaggle of smart but sort of clumsy interns goes around solving mysteries. In the former (Brilliant Minds") they are largely medical mysteries; in the latter it is... um... more of a detective series where a University professor solves murders and such.

One BIG difference is that in the former we have Zachary Quinto. He is a wonderful actor and he is really, really good in this. He plays a very interesting character who has "facial blindness". He's quite quirky and after a few episodes the show becomes less like "The Irrational" (which let's admit it, is kind of dumb) and much more like "House". The episodes leading up to the middle of this the first season have been really good.

I believe that the main character (which Quinto plays) is based on the late Dr. Oliver Sacks. Sacks wrote a (classic) book called "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" and some of his cases have been reimagined as episodes in this series. I find that very interesting.

I recommend this if you like medical dramas. I think you need to get past the first 4 or 5 episodes and that's only fair... Series like this often take a while to kick in and you need to be patient. It was at Episode 7 where I was really knocked over. It is excellent - the writing is fantastic and it and has an unexpected (at least for me) ending.

So my message to you is to ignore those people who wrote a review after watching just one episode. Sheesh.

There are for sure a few things that bug me about this series but my hope is by the end of the first season those will be ironed out.

I should admit I enjoy medical dramas and that I totally loved House. I think it may be one of the best network TV shows ever made in the U. S. So comparing this show to House is a compliment.

To start of, I need to tell you that I have always been a fan of House M. D. And that is in some sense strange, since I have totally no appetite for watching other hospital drama series. The "ingredients" of House just make it so much more appealing, that I found it an addictive watch. House is just so much more different than the prototypical view we all have of a doctor... Instead of being a "gentleman" he is more like a distraught Einstein.

So when I heard about this new show called Brilliant Minds, I immediately recognized several traits of House in it. And this caused me to just give it a try! And yes, it appears to be an attempt at creating a show that has many traits similar to the ones that you find in House! First of all, the main character, dr. Wolf, is as awkward as House. Like House, he has a severe medical condition: instead of a pain syndrome with a corresponding painkiller (Vicodin) addiction, Wolf has facial blindness. And like House, there is also a team of young people - called "interns" instead of "residents" - which consists of also a group of brilliant, but akward people. And yes, we see Wolf also faced with challenging puzzles lin finding out what rare condition a patient shows up with (and how to treat / improve it).

The setting is though somewhat different than what you are accustomed to see in House. Instead of the very prestigious "Princeton-Plainsboro" (fictious hospital) where House is working as a doctor, we see Wolf work in "Bronx Hospital". The latter is clearly a hospital on the lower end of the "prestiguous-scale". You won't see expensive offices with glass walls, but more the layout that we as common people are accustomed to seeing in a hospital. So in that respect, many more people will see a hospital environment that they are more used to seeing. At least, that is my personal experience when watching Wolf.

It is further not difficult to see that the producers tried to make it fit with the trend of making socially responsible content (ESG). On the topic of "inclusion", you see that they chose to make Wolf a gay character. Further, they show successful women in business. Wolf's boss is not only a women, but also his team of interns consists of genial women. And last but not least, we see many coloured people. So on ESG, all boxes seem to be ticked on inclusion: i.e. LGBTQ, coloured people and "women in business".

Finally I need to of course mention the main actor, which is Zachary Quinto. This excellent actor - with a pretty impressive slate that includes e.g. Star Trek's Spock - most certainly has the skills to make this show a success. For the Trekky-fans like myself, it takes some time though to get accustomed to a character that all of a sudden has emotions;)

All-in-all, I think this show has many things that can make it a success like House. From what I have seen in the first 2 episodes, it most certainly has a lot of potential for the future episodes. Overall, I am going to score it 7.1/10, which is in my way of scoring a pretty decent score.

The first episode kept me so interested!!! A lot of doctors truly don't see the person they sometimes see a helpless person with an illness to the brain. I love that this serious digs deep into who they are not what they're become. My uncle had a stroke the doctors were saying he won't understand speech, won't walk or talk. Truly discouraging it's been 3 months and he understands language, is trying to speak and stand. All n all it proves doctors aren't god they don't know everything. I really like how this series portrays this message. To not give up because of the patients condition. All n all I'm excited for this series. I hope we get a season 2.

I remember seeing a TV Line post on watch it or skip it and it said that Brilliant Minds was nothing new in terms of medical dramas. I wholeheartedly disagree.

First: We have an interesting lead character who cares about patients. His team was not the most fleshed out in the first few episodes. But they're getting there and I really want to know everything about all of them.

The neurosurgeon is adorable, Dr. Wolf's best friend has a lot going on in her own life, and his conflict with his mom is also really interesting.

This is actually a refreshing medical drama because it manages to balance characters and their arcs and stories, and keep the case in each episode interesting, and unique. The solutions and ways they help patients is also really refreshing, without domineering, or acting like they know what's better for the patient. Its about internal conflicts, and external conflicts.

I do wish they would do something about the lighting in the show. But other than that, the characters are 3d and compelling, the cases are unique, and different from previous medical dramas as are the way they're treated. So if you love good characters and diversity, and LGBT stories, this is the show you want to be watching.

I just now realised after watching Awakenings for the first time, that the show is based heavily on real life doctor Oliver Wolf Stacks and some of the medical cases are based of real medical cases that doctor Sacks wrote about just like the amazing case that Awakenings is based on.

I went and searched the Internet and read about him and it gave me a whole now perspective on the show.

The biggest difference is that the show takes place today rather than in dr Sacks lifetime and in my opinion it would have been more interesting to keep the story in the 70s and 80s. Nevertheless the show worth watching.