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NBC’s new series Brilliant Minds is an inspiring new medical drama that puts a fresh spin on traditional medical procedurals, moving beyond entertainment to provide thought-provoking stories meant to challenge and inspire the audience. Based on the life of the famed author and physician Dr. Oliver Sacks, Zachary Quinto is Dr. Oliver Wolf, a brilliant neurologist whose focus on mental health is personal and professional.
“I want to change the way the world sees my patients,” Dr. Wolf tells the hospital board. His focus is on not only helping his patients, but it’s on making important changes in the way mental health and mental illness are perceived, even within the medical field. Mental health is not cut and dry, it’s nuanced, and it’s in that nuance that Quinto’s Dr. Wolf thrives.
Quinto was destined to front a medical drama. This isn’t his first stint as a TV doctor; he made his case as the diabolical Dr. Thredson in American Horror Story: Asylum. Here he’s in his element, playing a character not only haunted by his past but is dealing with face blindness, a condition that challenges his daily life as much as his personal life.
Dr. Wolf is the kind of outside-the-box doctor who makes TV medical dramas interesting. The first time we see him, he’s sneaking an Alzheimer’s patient out of the hospital so that he can attend his granddaughter’s wedding. Though he can’t recall anything, Wolf has discovered the patient has moments of lucidity through music and his impromptu performance at the wedding brings the room to tears. It also gets Wolf in trouble at his hospital, leading Wolf’s friend Dr. Carol Pierce (Tamberla Perry) to offer him a new position at her crowded hospital in the Bronx.
Well aware of Wolf’s brilliance and his quirks, Dr. Pierce puts him in charge of four fresh-faced interns who have their own mental health issues. Dr. Ericka Kinney (Ashleigh LaThrop), Dr. Dana Dang (Aury Krebs), Dr. Jacob Nash (Spence Moore II) and Dr. Van Markus (Alex MacNicoll) all believe Wolf hates them until they witness him in action and come to understand his eccentricities, many of which are linked to his condition and his past. Suddenly, the team clicks and they’re off and running.
The series only gets stronger as it goes. The writing is smart, with lots of whip-fast jokes and asides that keep things light even in the middle of the most challenging cases.
Brilliant Minds offers something different in the crowded world of medical dramas in the fall TV lineup. It’s the perfect show for fans missing New Amsterdam and The Resident, and, like those long-running shows, Brilliant Minds has legs to go on for several seasons if it can keep up the high-level storytelling that sets it apart.
Brilliant Minds airs Mondays at 10 pm ET/PT on NBC, with episodes available to stream the following day on Peacock.
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