The Mob Doctor

I love the idea. Lead characters Grace and Constantine are well cast. BUT, it's just too hectic with too much drama and too many attempted subplots that detract from telling the story. The Michael Rapaport character is ridiculous. The petty conflicts with the Olivia character doctor whoever and are ridiculous and only last a few episodes for the artifice of establishing Grace's character before the offending characters simply have the "a-hole" gene written out of their behaviour, that's one way to remove an annoyance - just re-write the character. It wants to shoehorn an episode of the Sopranos plus an episode of House into each episode, but they really don't need these resident doctors to be super geniuses who are dealing with some bizarre medical diagnostic challenge every episode... what they need is to ensure Grace's workload at the hospital is not so overwhelming that she cannot possibly have a moment to be the mob doctor. I didn't tune in to watch House, i guess was hoping for the Sopranos with a twist rather than yet another hospital drama. I like the idea, but it's a bit too much soap opera for my taste.

I am enjoying this show and it fills in the Fox Broadcasting hole that was left by the departure of House. The dilemmas Grace must face to fulfill her debt to the mob, stay under hospital radar when she needs to use their equipment and also follow her conscience to her oath as a doctor put her in some tough situations. Does she kill a mobster on orders from the people she owes? How does she fix up the guy that she knows just caused a family great pain and anguish and still live with herself? Grace faces all this and more. The show is gaining an audience in the 3 or so weeks it has aired. The cast is good and the show is well done. The premise is interesting and plot twists are not always expected. Check out my blog on Blogspot called Tales of Television for more reviews

Time will tell, but it looks like a good show to me. I like medical drama/mysteries/suspense/adventure. This has it all with the mob twist that makes it interesting and even more intriguing and suspenseful to watch. Good Dr. "Grace" is a thoracic surgeon trying to do her best juggling the demands of her job and her obligations to mob in Chicago. There's no rule book-Grace must face a moral dilemma in each case as she goes along, always trying to balance her conscience with what is the right and wrong thing to do. The stress she feels lets the audience feel her pain and frustration which draws people in to this new TV show that seems headed for success. 9:00 PM Mondays on FOX

The Mob Doctor is a show I was looking forward to over the summer but it died out quickly with me once it premiered. I really didn't care what happened to any of the characters. Jordana Spiro I like in certain roles like her in My Boys but it just doesn't really ring true as her playing a medical resident being forced to do back alley medical procedures on some mafioso's. In the pilot episode they had Michael Rapaport as a mob guy who isn't believable as an Italian character in any way at all. It's a show that might work better as a made for TV movie then an actual TV show itself.

I don't usually comment on TV series, but for this I had to. There are a lot of doctor shows out there, but when you think of something that shows actual medical cases and real dilemmas, very few actually come up. ER and Grey's Anatomy type shows focus on the people and ignore the medical issues consistently and the likes of Dr.House focus on the brilliancy of the lead character and eventually come to avoid medical information altogether. Both types care more about the imaginary emotional problems of the main characters than for the actual characters. One could easily replace the doctors with high school hall monitors or street cleaners and not change a bit of the script. Not so The Mob Doctor, where the lead character has to juggle her connection to gangsters and her usual high profile medical doctor job. She has both strange cases with limited resources outside of hospital and medical highlights inside, where all the equipment and tests are useless without a good doctor inspiration. OK, the show is not perfect. The mob operations are ridiculously obvious and the way the doctor gets out of work without anyone raising eyebrows is also quite incredible, but overall the show brings a lot of the stuff that others ignore completely. This series is not bad and certainly did not deserve a cancellation after only one season, with no chance to improve. The only cause I can find is that the female doctor in the show was not ravishingly beautiful and did not really have a romantic life. A professional that did her job well, discreetly and did not want to get into other's people business robbed the masses of their portion of gossip and monkey clan business and so they switched to the likes of Emily Owens. That's a shame, really.

Dr. Grace Devlin (Jordana Spiro) is forced into working for the mob to cancel a debt his useless brother Nate (Jesse Lee Soffer) incurred. Only her connection to the mob boss Constantine Alexander (William Forsythe) is actually much more personal than that. It's impossible to zero in on one thing that was wrong with this show. It was a critical failure, a ratings failure, and filmed only 13 episodes. It was dead on arrival. Jordana Spiro is a nice comedic actress, but the character really had a limited range. Jesse Lee Soffer plays Nate who is probably the most annoying and frustrating character around. Then there is Paul Moretti (Michael Rapaport) who played the bad Mob guy. He's annoying. He disappeared for awhile and then returned. It was bad idea. They should either kill me off, or let him be a constant character. That kind of change really can screw up a serial show. The problems were just never fixed.

I tuned in, because the premise intrigued me. By the time it was over, I decided that there went 60 minutes of my life that I'll never get back again. This was an absolutely wretched show featuring several graduates of the Keanu Reeves School of Wooden Acting. The lead actress, Jordana Spiro, is pretty, but that is about all she has going for her. Her character is completely unlikeable. I like characters I can root for, and her's isn't one of them. The only bright spot in the first episode was Michael Rappaport, who is always on his game. The left wing activism is also a huge turnoff. That was probably my biggest beef on the show. It's alright for her to nudge her boyfriend into performing an abortion on a 14 year old girl, who got pregnant through casual sex, and then as doctors, they lie to her father about it. However, it is not okay for her to let a mobster, who had participated in criminal activity die? Stuff like this is why a lot of people are getting tired of Hollywood forcing their morality on the rest of us.

The pilot gives us quite a bit to chew on. Lots of action and suspense. I was impressed by how it developed and the pacing could not have been better. More than anything I really loved the acting by the lead actress Jordana Spiro. I must admit I am bias as she is good in anything she does. Her look and feel fits this show to a tee. There is also great acting from the rest of the cast, Wendy Makkenna and Zack Gilford, I also detect it will have a soft side to it as the action slows to do human stories along the way. You will enjoy seeing scenery of the Chicago that does not make into most films and television. Over all I feel this will be a strong drama series based on, yes, just the first episode. Watch and enjoy.

There's not to many shows out there my son and I like watching together but the mob doctor was one of them. I was very disappointed when I heard they were canceling it. We don't like or watch reality shows and it seems like that's all that's out there. It seems that way anyway. My son also developed a crush on Dr. Devlin. It seems this series has a little of everything. Medicine, drama, love,family & criminal activity. Not to mention conflict in the workplace (hospital) What does it take for a show to make it? I wish I could get an answer to that question I would of like to see Franco and Grace make it as a couple and Constantine brought to justice There's never enough time.