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| TV Reviews | |
the right prescription Edie Falco nurses the hospital drama back to health Jun 8, 2009
Fortunately, the series has Edie Falco, who won three Emmys playing Carmela on “The Sopranos” and who proves herself able to revive almost single-handedly the depleted hospital-drama genre. In the series, premiering on Showtime tonight at 10:30 p.m., Falco plays Jackie Peyton, a nurse at a Manhattan hospital called All Saints. (The show apparently has no relation to the long-running Australian medical drama titled “All Saints.”) A recurring motif in “Nurse Jackie” is having questionable actions or discussions take place in front of a painting or sculpture of a saint. This isn’t merely easy irony, because in her professional life, Jackie is almost worthy of canonization. She is compassionate, strong, principled and more capable than many of the arrogant doctors she works with, especially the callow Dr. Cooper (Peter Facinelli), with whom she has a life-or-death dispute in the premiere. All those virtues may make Jackie sound insufferable, but Falco plays her with such prickliness and cynicism that her good deeds almost pass unnoticed. She gives the impression that Jackie is doing the right thing almost out of force of habit. And Jackie’s personal life is anything but saintly. She abuses prescription painkillers, which she obtains from the hospital pharmacist, Eddie (Paul Schulze, who played the flirtatious Father Phil on “The Sopranos”). Discussing Jackie’s other off-duty sins would spoil a surprise in the first episode. Suffice it to say she deals with the full spectrum of adult issues. Jackie’s force of character tends to dominate the show, but since each episode is only 30 minutes long, she’s never tiresome. And the focus on Jackie helps cover up the show’s occasional lapses into cliché. Too many of the traumas suffered by patients in the six episodes Showtime made available for review are deliberately outrageous in a way that was old before “St. Elsewhere” went off the air. (For example, two different men are put into gynecological stirrups after groin injuries.) The character of the gay best friend and confidant (played here by Haaz Sleiman) is hackneyed. And the device of having a staffer’s relative or friend show up to be treated at the hospital veers into terrain that “Grey’s Anatomy” has worked to exhaustion. The supporting actors and guest stars are generally excellent (this usually means that the directors are too), although we never quite believe in Jackie’s friendship with Dr. O’Hara (Eve Best), a British fashion plate who takes her out to lunch at expensive restaurants. Anna Deavere Smith (“The West Wing”) is underutilized in the comic-relief role of Jackie’s administrator, Mrs. Akalitus. This has been an unrewarding summer for drama fans. “Nurse Jackie” not only ends the dry spell but should make viewers happy they haven’t canceled their Showtime subscription even in hard times.
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