Since ABC’s hit series “Scrubs” wrapped its nine-season run in 2010, Hollywood has mostly shied away from comedies set in hospitals — at times a tough place to find laughs — though there have been outliers like Fox and Hulu’s “The Mindy Project,” Warner Bros. and Adult Swim’s absurdist “Childrens Hospital” and HBO’s critically acclaimed “Getting On.”
NBC is the latest to attempt it with “St. Denis Medical,” a new sitcom that blends this challenging setting with a popular format: mockumentary. Can Hollywood find comedy inside a hospital in 2024, especially from a show that focuses on hospital workers’ everyday lives and following a global pandemic?
To try to find out, TheWrap did an exclusive set visit in the last week of filming for the show’s 18-episode first season, which is set to premiere on Nov. 12. TheWrap spoke with the “St. Denis Medical” cast and creators about crafting the comedy series. An exclusive visit to the writers’ room offered further insight into how the team balanced laughs and vulnerability with advice from medical experts, their own experiences with hospitals and plenty of off-color jokes.
“It’s a workplace comedy in the most interesting workplace you can think of,” showrunner Eric Ledgin told TheWrap. “When I’m in a hospital or meet people who work there, I’m so interested in what their life is like — so high-stakes and dramatic. But when I talk to them, they all have funny stories… There’s a lot of tension, but also a lot of release of that tension, too.”
By making “St. Denis Medical” in the style of “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation,” the team has to earn the laughs while staying true to the serious subject matter typically associated with hospitals. NBC has a track record of launching bold comedy concepts to massive success — a lineage that includes “The Office,” “Friends,” “30 Rock” and “Will & Grace.”
Still, in a Hollywood where the TV industry is contracting, the network is taking a risky bet on the hospital comedy, its sole single-camera comedy series order of the season. The new “Happy’s Place” and the returning “Lopez vs. Lopez” and “Night Court” all stick to the cheaper multicam format. CBS is the only other broadcaster dedicating as much programming real estate to comedy, with four shows this fall.
A doctor’s visit
In “St. Denis Medical,” cameras follow the doctors, nurses and administrators of a fictional hospital and the myriad shenanigans in their daily lives — like caring for difficult patients, learning on the job and juggling their personal lives while saving others.
The show aims to find the funny in the tragic.
On the day of TheWrap’s set visit, the cast and crew meshed well in bringing to life the new medical comedy from creators Ledgin and Justin Spitzer. It certainly helped that many of those involved had worked together on NBC comedies like “The Office,” “Superstore” and “American Auto.”
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Spirits were high on that Monday in September, when series star Wendi McLendon-Covey worked through a scene. She tried out different punchlines for a joke about “cool” happenings around the Oregon-based hospital where the show takes place. McLendon-Covey, who plays Joyce — the hospital’s executive director — brought it home each time with a different laugh-out-loud reaction to an unwanted health update from one of her co-stars.
“I don’t know if this is just because I’m not running this one, so it’s easier, but it feels like everything is clicking so smoothly for a first-season show,” Spitzer, who created “Superstore” and “American Auto,” told TheWrap. “First seasons, you’re kind of just figuring [the show] out, and Season 2 is where you fire on all cylinders. God willing we get a second season, but it feels like we figured it out very early this time.”
Ledgin, who was a writer and producer on Spitzer’s “Superstore” and “American Auto,” made the jump to showrunner with this new series. “I feel so proud of what we’ve made and I feel so exhausted, which I think is how you’re supposed to feel at the end of running your first show,” he said.
The showrunner said he wanted to capture the range of emotions that go through a typical day at a hospital. “I spent a lot of time in hospitals when I was in my 20s — not for me, but for someone I was very close to — I laughed a lot, and also had some very trying moments,” he said. “And during this season of the show, I ended up in the hospital for three days. There’s something that has felt very personal to me about being able to reflect on life in a hospital setting.”
It’s that challenge that lured top talent like Allison Tolman and David Alan Grier to the project.
“I was really surprised that I found a sitcom that I was excited about,” Tolman, who previously starred in “Fargo” and “Good Girls,” told TheWrap. “The situations are so silly and the goal is to get these big belly laughs, but the way that we go about it feels really authentic to me.”
“People laugh at funerals,” veteran sitcom actor Grier, who made his name on “In Living Color,” added. “People laugh literally during war, when there are bodies all around them. It’s the human psyche, the way that we survive.”
Casting was the ‘hardest part’
Workplace comedies are only as good as their ensembles, and Ledgin admitted that finding the right talent was “the hardest part of making the entire show.” He recalled watching hundreds of tapes after the casting department had narrowed the candidates down from “thousands.”
All that hard work paid off. “Superstore” veterans Kaliko Kauahi and Josh Lawson, “Jury Duty” breakout star Mekki Leeper and “Cocaine Bear” standout Kahyun Kim fill out the roster of series regulars for “St. Denis Medical,” alongside McLendon-Covey, Tolman and Grier. Their chemistry is palpable from Episode 1, with Joyce serving as the neurotic but fearless hospital leader, Grier’s Ron as the cranky and hilarious emergency doctor and Tolman’s Alex as the emergency department’s supervising nurse — and the show’s emotional core.
Each member of the ensemble relished the chance to play in an NBC comedy series sandbox with Spitzer and Ledgin in charge.
Except for Grier.
“I liked the writing, but I didn’t know anyone on the show,” Grier told TheWrap.. “I knew Wendi’s work and Allison’s work from ‘Fargo,’ so I knew it was a good cast… but I didn’t know the showrunners.” A rave review from “American Auto” star Ana Gasteyer encouraged him to sign on for the project, but the strong comedy in the script was what truly sold him.
For McLendon-Covey, “St. Denis” was a chance for her to play a “prickly” character who was completely different from “cuddly” matriarch Beverly Goldberg, whom she’d embodied for 10 seasons on ABC’s “The Goldbergs.”
“She’s irritating, but she’s good at what she does, and you need someone like that to keep things running in a pressure cooker place like a hospital,” she told TheWrap. “She probably thought, ‘I can make a difference from the inside.’ ‘I will go up against the insurance companies.’ That’s going to make a person bitter, isn’t it?”
Like many involved with making the show, Tolman shared a personal connection with the premise. Months before the script for “St. Denis” came to her, she left Los Angeles and returned to her home state of Texas. Her father had fallen ill and had to spend six weeks in the hospital, so she tended to the house as her mother stayed by his side during the day. They would decompress at the end of each day watching half-hour comedies together.
“It felt like kismet. And [Alex] reminded me a lot of my mom,” Tolman said, adding that the chance to put a spotlight on the lives of “underrepresented and underappreciated” health care workers felt like the perfect way to honor them.
“The show does a really good job of balancing the silly with the sweet, so it doesn’t feel like we are ever just like, ‘this job is hilarious,’” she added. “These are people whose job is to be around people on their worst days — or their best days in some cases — and any profession has things that are absolutely absurd… Some episodes we’re in the broad storyline doing something wacky, and others we’re talking about a hardcore truth from this world.”
Inside the writers’ room
The show starts on the page, of course. The writers behind “St. Denis Medical” had plenty to juggle in crafting a comedy series that was funny, emotional and at least somewhat accurate.
The show’s 13-member writing staff prioritized fine-tuning jokes during TheWrap’s exclusive visit to the writers’ room in late July, while cast and crew geared up to film five additional episodes ordered by the network. Though the actual writing of an episode’s draft happens individually, the team gathered to go through drafts for Episodes 14 and 15, doing table reads of scenes and giving notes on how to bulk up punchlines — including a heavily discussed joke subtly hinting that Matt (Leeper), a strange but lovable new nurse who joins the staff in the series premiere, was getting involved with animal masturbation in his off time (“Maybe with a horse? A whale? A goat?”).
“I love that we’re going to spend our entire hour debating masturbation jokes and fun animal facts,” Spitzer joked. “We’re trying to teach you.”
Spitzer and Ledgin led the room discussion, noting how almost every member of the team has a family member or close relationship with someone in the medical field. The team also consults with medical experts to make sure the jargon, procedures and cases featured on the show are as accurate as possible. Medical techs then ensure the execution of the scenes on set remain in top shape.
The show is certainly a comedy, and each writer brought new flair to the jokes discussed in the room — even if the joke pitches weren’t always immediately apparent to Spitzer.
“This is so tiny, I feel stupid even mentioning it, but when she says ‘let’s get in formation,’ it might just sound like ‘information,’” he told the room while giving a note on a cold open line for Joyce, oblivious to the reference being made.
An unexpected moment of silence ensued as he attempted to come up with an alternative, until another writer pointed out the line was a clear nod to the hit Beyoncé song “Formation.” Laughter grew as Spitzer got a crash-course reminder on the global superstar. Then they moved on to the next scene.
As for the “really blue” joke about Matt? Spitzer and Ledgin told TheWrap they eventually cut it during the editing process — likely to avoid a note from NBC’s standards and practices department.
“That is the most time we spent on a blue joke all year,” Spitzer said.
“St. Denis Medical” premieres Tuesday, Nov. 12, on NBC, streaming the next day on Peacock.
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