'St. Denis Medical' Puts on a Workplace Comedy Clinic

In the third act of “St. Denis Medical’s” fourth episode, “Salamat You Too,” a bunch of nurses are on break when the pinnacle nurse, Alex (Allison Tolman), interrupts to softly reprimand their earlier insubordination. Earlier, the self-identified “Filipino Mafia” didn’t like when Alex break up up their “clique,” so that they merely ignored her orders and caught collectively. Then, in an effort to reestablish her authority, Alex walks to the dry-erase board and tries to remind her colleagues that she’s the boss — a easy declaration that nonetheless requires a six-part written breakdown (together with one notably summary acronym).

Alex is the point of interest of the scene. She’s main the assembly — issuing directives, talking emphatically, gesticulating wildly — and Tolman’s skill to channel relatable frustrations by way of passive aggressive directions is fairly humorous. But even along with her expertise on full show, the funniest bits happen within the background. One even begins earlier than the scene itself, when Matt (Mekki Leeper) takes a chew of his Filipino colleagues’ shared meal and says, “This chicken is really spicy. What do you call it?” Staring pointedly again at him, Rene (Nico Santos) replies, “Costco rotisserie chicken.”

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A couple of minutes later, as Alex is writing the phrase “RESPECT” on the whiteboard, the digicam catches Matt taking a swig of water and gasping in aid, as if his mouth is on hearth from the mass market retail retailer’s flippantly salted lunch possibility. If that is the primary episode of “St. Denis Medical” you’ve seen — or in the event you merely weren’t paying shut consideration to Matt’s introduction — then you might not know the younger male nurse hails from a sheltered spiritual neighborhood within the mountains of Montana, the place one can think about most meals have been as easy and easy as solely an Old Testament God would offer. But figuring out this about Matt solely enhances a joke that’s humor is obvious regardless. Why? Because Matt is a white man sampling delicacies he believes to be Filipino in origin. Not solely is it humorous that he doesn’t acknowledge a hen dish as plain and pale as his alabaster pores and skin, but it surely’s additionally humorous that even after he’s advised of it’s origins, he can’t assist however be overwhelmed by the warmth.

As a white man routinely taken down by meals with the slightest spice to it, maybe my appreciation of this joke is a bit overblown. But what’s nice about “St. Denis Medical” isn’t this joke particularly; it’s what number of of those sly little moments are peppered into each episode. Like “Superstore” before it, Justin Spitzer and Eric Ledgin’s new NBC office sitcom understands that trendy TV comedies can’t exist on a single comedian aircraft. The scene’s focus can’t be its solely supply of comedy, simply because the comedy itself can’t all the time be a set-up, then a punchline, set-up, punchline. Humor needs to be layered into the performances, baked into the staging, evoked within the blocking, and elevated by the modifying.

To put it bluntly: Comedies that you may hearken to with out watching received’t reduce it. To maintain the eye of at the moment’s audiences — who’re involuntarily tempted to test our telephones or pushed to multitask throughout no matter downtime we are able to get — the jokes have to come back from anyplace and in all places. They must fly in so constantly, so multilaterally, that viewers who look away from the display screen will fear they missed one.

So whether or not you appreciated the hen joke or not, “St. Denis Medical” is aware of to have one other gag on the best way, stat. In that scene alone, after a cutaway to meet up with the episode’s different storylines, we come again to see Alex has scrawled three extra guidelines on the board, two of which repeat the identical factor (that the pinnacle nurse is in cost), whereas the final one merely reads, “Have fun.”

Elsewhere, the hospital’s government director, Joyce (Wendi McClendon-Covey), is seeking to title a brand new Featured Employee, however she will solely discover “turds.” One such unqualified candidate is a nurse attempting to pop her personal pimple. Another is a janitor smoking within the hospital hallway, and the final is a health care provider consuming yogurt along with his fingers. None of those characters have strains, however all of them present audible laughter. It’s the montage — and Joyce’s disgusted expressions — that carry on the giggles.

Later, episode writers Bridget Kyle and Vicky Luu flex the sequence’ ear for dialogue — by way of an alternate that features “I was the victim of your note” vs. “You were the recipient of my note” — whereas taking correct benefit of David Alan Grier’s cantankerous attraction. (The means he ends the more and more hostile argument with, “I. Like. YOU.” is a pleasant little cherry on prime of the controversy sundae.)

There are a lot extra examples scattered all through Episode 4, however I’ve repeated sufficient comedy for one article. (How’s that previous saying go? “Jokes are funnier when you have to explain them”?) What issues is that though “St. Denis Medical” continues to be within the early phases of its sitcom life, it’s exhibiting off a sturdy set of legs. Characters will change, dynamics will shift, and storylines will come and go, however Spitzer and Ledgin (who serves as showrunner) have earned the viewers’s funding in a sequence solely 4 episodes previous by exhibiting a transparent grasp of the basics — of what separates a satisfactory comedy from an unmissable one. (Don’t be scared to leap in now! It’s OK to observe TV weekly! It may even be fun sometimes!)

After all, how awkward would it not be if these overworked, underpaid hospital staffers have been serving up under-worked, over-simplified jokes? Aren’t the 9-to-6 grinders depicted in “St. Denis Medical” additionally the present’s audience? Don’t the individuals doling out medication all day and evening additionally deserve the perfect medication themselves? And everyone knows what that’s: laughter. Laughter is the perfect medication. Yes, OK, I’ll see myself out.