Cop shows, combat and hospitals: Those three subjects dominate television drama and always have. And for good reason. There’s plenty of action, high stakes and time to explore character.
Keep that in mind as you watch “Lenox Hill,” a new eight-episode docuseries from Netflix. Filmed before the coronavirus pandemic, it offers overlapping stories of medical procedures both ordinary and everyday, from expectant parents seeing their baby’s ultrasound for the first time to brain surgeons scrubbing up for a complex, multipart attack on a tumor choking off the blood supply to a woman’s brain.
While we catch some glimpses of the doctors’ personal lives, don’t go expecting the melodrama of “Grey’s Anatomy.” While shows like that use the medical profession as the stage for a soap opera, here the “drama” takes a back seat to the caregiving. As such, it’s much more interesting.
War has been described as endless waiting punctuated by brief bouts of action. The same could be said of police work or life at a hospital. Anyone who has ever been a patient, or even visited one, knows that time hangs heavy in the corridors. “Lenox” keeps the action going by juggling a number of stories, but one still gets the sense of the waiting game.
Another reason hospital dramas tend to flourish is the pride and professionalism of the lead characters. In “Lenox Hill” we meet two surgeons early on. And right off the bat, both ooze a kind of confidence bordering on arrogance. In a world of Type-A personalities, surgeons tend to affect the swagger of jet pilots. At the same time, both express how humbled they are by their patients and their “mission” to save as many as they can.
Other doctors describe a life shaped by the need to help others, an accent on empathy and compassion in short supply on many TV dramas.
The filmmakers gained extraordinary access to both patients and doctors. We witness childbirth from first contraction to delivery. We also see a surgeon field a phone call from his wife. He wants to talk about a professional paper he’s just published; she’s obsessed with the seating arrangement for Sunday’s dinner party.
While Lenox Hill is located in a relatively wealthy section of Manhattan’s Upper East side, the range of patients is diverse. A woman awaiting brain surgery is a police officer who came all the way from Tennessee. One of the patients has been living on the streets for the last six months and another has just been evicted from her apartment. Another patient affects the nervous pose of a street hustler.
Perhaps the clearest sign that we aren’t in the status-obsessed world of network hospital shows is seen at the end of the first episode, when doctors are seen riding the subway home.
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— Desperate measures for a dying man on “Chicago Med” (8 p.m., NBC, r, TV-14).
— A child genius and his robot scheme to save the day in the 2014 animated fantasy “Big Hero 6” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).
— Bathing suits loom large in four escapist movies on TCM: “Million Dollar Mermaid” (8 p.m., TV-G); “Gidget” (10 p.m., TV-G); “Surf Party” (11:45 p.m., TV-PG) and “10” (1 a.m., TV-14).
— A rookie irks everybody on “Chicago Fire” (9 p.m., NBC, r, TV-14).
— “NOVA” (9 p.m., r, PBS, TV-PG, check local listings) examines new theories about Stonehenge.
— Brothers reach out on “Ultimate Tag” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-PG).
— Atwater goes undercover on “Chicago P.D.” (10 p.m., NBC, r, TV-14).
— Elite agents battle the mysterious on “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” (10 p.m., ABC, TV-14).
— An absence felt on the season finale of “What We Do in the Shadows” (10 p.m., FX, TV-MA).
CULT CHOICE
Fading show business fixtures (Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt) encounter a dangerous counterculture in director Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 ode to a passing scene “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (9 p.m., Starz).
SERIES NOTES
James Corden and Landon Donovan compete on “Game On!” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-14) … The top 20 compete on “MasterChef” (8 p.m., Fox, r, TV-14) … Strangers converge on “The 100” (8 p.m., CW, TV-14) … Serbian intrigue on “SEAL Team” (9 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14) … Undercover and over their heads on “Bulletproof” (9 p.m., CW, TV-14) … Assassins swarm the city of angels on “S.W.A.T.” (10 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14).
LATE NIGHT
Jimmy Fallon welcomes Jamie Dornan, Impractical Jokers and Lenny Kravitz on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC) … Michael Moore and Bel Powley visit “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC).
