Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Brilliant Minds’ On NBC, Where Zachary Quinto Is An Empathetic But Eccentric Neurologist

When we heard that Zachary Quinto was going to star in a broadcast network medical series, our first instinct was that the show should be pretty good, because Quinto’s history has shown that he generally picks good projects. But after watching the first episode, we started to wonder about that. It has potential, and Quinto elevates the proceedings, but it needs a lot of work.

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Opening Shot: A man looks at his reflection. “When a doctor looks at a patient, what do they see, the disease or the person? I believe you can’t treat a patient without knowing who they really are,” says the voice of Dr. Oliver Wolf (Zachary Quinto).

The Gist: We see an example of how Dr. Wolf, a neurologist, sees the person behind what’s being treated: He sneaks into the Alzheimer’s ward of the hospital where he works to take one of his patients to his granddaughter’s wedding, and asks him to sing. His argument is that the singing unlocks some momentary lucidity, and it’s cruel to let a person rot even if their memory is failing them. Despite giving him a great day, the man’s daughter and son-in-law threaten to sue the hospital, a final straw that leads the hospital’s administration to fire him.

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Dr. Wolf lives alone in a huge house on City Island, part of the Bronx. He grows a lot of ferns, and eschews all technology besides a land line. This is where his friend, Dr. Carol Pierce (Tamberla Perry) finds him; she’s the head of psychiatry at Bronx General Hospital and she’s there to tell him that there’s an opening in neurology. He’d be a one-man show there and work closely with her. He resists, saying, “you know why I can’t,” but she gives him the preview of a case she’s working on that intrigues him.

He takes a dip in the Hudson (yes, the Hudson River) to sort it out, and he thinks back to his father swimming with him at the local Y, but also bad flashbacks of his mother Muriel (Donna Murphy) covering for his dad when he had to be committed due to mental illness.

Wolf decides to take the job, and is at first alarmed that he has four interns — Drs. Erika Kinney (Ashleigh LaThrop), Van Markus (Alex MacNicoll), Jacob Nash (Spence Moore II) and Dana Dang (Aury Krebs) — mainly because his face blindness makes it hard for him to tell any of them apart. Carol is the only one who knows about it, and Wolf would like to keep it that way. Somehow, though, Kinney recognizes this and describes each intern to him by their personality traits.

The patient that Carol talked about is an epileptic who was operated on by neurosurgeon Josh Nichols (Teddy Sears); the surgery eliminated her seizures, but every time she sees her two sons, she thinks they’re imposters. What Wolf and his interns attempt to find out are the conditions under which this happens, even going so far as observing the family at the house they just moved into.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Brilliant Minds is more or less House , but involving neurological cases.

Our Take: Quinto’s presence certainly elevates Brilliant Minds beyond being yet another network medical show. He manages to take a character like Dr. Wolf, who might seem absolutely cartoonish in the hands of a lot of other actors, and really communicates the attention and empathy that’s supposed to be the hallmark of how he does his job.

Of course, the series, created by Michael Grassi based on two books by the late Dr. Oliver Sacks (Greg Berlanti is an executive producer), isn’t just about Wolf, and while there were some head-scratching moments in the pilot, we saw more than enough to think that once Grassi and his writers have a better handle on things, the show could be reasonably entertaining.

What are the head-scratching items? For one, Wolf seems to have a lot of time to work with one and only one patient in the first episode. He’s the only neurological attending in a large public hospital in New York City. Even with his interns in tow and his lack of what seems to be any sort of social life, would he realistically have time to do things like go to a patient’s house and observe how they live? Probably not.

Another head-scratcher is Wolf’s relationship with his mother. We find out at the end of the episode where their relationship stands, and it isn’t exactly warm. A lot has to do with how coldly she treated Wolf’s father back in the day, given the fact that there’s a good chance that Wolf has similar mental health issues. Is it realistic that the situation Wolf finds himself in would actually happen? Probably not. But that’s never prevented other shows from throwing in similar plot wrinkles.

We also wonder about just how developed the characters of the interns are going to be. We know that Dang is on meds, just like Wolf is, and there’s no shame in that. Nash is a former pro athlete. Markus seems like a generic white guy. The only one of the four that seemed to show any sort of depth was Kinney, who classifies herself as the most reliable member of the interns and the only one who seemed to understand Wolf’s disability.

To make a truly great medical drama revolving around one character, the main character has to be deeply flawed, and the people around him do more than either say yes to him or grumble when he suggests something but do it anyway. If Grassi can accomplish this, then Brilliant Minds will be an entertaining show.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Wolf greets his new boss, and the boss is not exactly a surprise.

Sleeper Star: Tamberla Perry is in the unenviable position of playing Wolf’s one and only supporter. The more her character calls Wolf on his hifalutin self, the more useful the character will be. And we hope Teddy Sears does more than just play the typical a-hole surgeon, like he did in the first episode.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Pierce tells Wolf that he should open up to the interns about his condition, Wolf mockingly says, “Carol! It’s 2024, we don’t call homosexuality a condition.” What an awkward way to add an expository detail about Wolf into the mix.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Zachary Quinto is a big reason why Brilliant Minds works in its first episode. But for it to continue to work, the rest of the characters need to be developed, and Quinto’s character needs to have his flaws explored in more depth.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com , VanityFair.com , Fast Company and elsewhere.

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