The Deadbolt TV Review - Royal Pains a Fun Summer House Call for USA Network

Royal Pains a Fun Summer House Call for USA Network
by Reg Seeton

After watching the two-hour pilot for the new USA Network series, Royal Pains, the show's concept of a recently fired emergency hospital physician who becomes an unlikely concierge doctor in the upper class New York area of the Hamptons, made me think of just how much the times have changed. I mean, in previous decades asking a doctor to make a “house call” was like asking the CEO of a major bank to work for an afternoon as a teller. How many times over the years can you recall the words, “I don’t do house calls.” Nowadays, however, with both the economy and healthcare system in transition, doctors are finding new ways to practice. Borrowing from a budding real life trend, Royal Pains introduces viewers to the world of concierge doctors, physicians who offer their services either on exclusive contract or on a freelance basis. Starring former West Wing actor Mark Feuerstein who recently appeared in the Daniel Craig toplined Defiance, Royal Pains is a quirky, comedic news series with a dramatic prescription viewers will be glad to refill on a weekly basis.

Featuring a colorful cast that includes Mark Feuerstein, Paulo Costanzo, Jill Flint, and Reshma Shetty, Royal Pains follows New York hospital doctor Hank Lawson who saves a recently admitted young boy at the expense of the life of the hospital’s billion dollar financier and quickly finds himself on the outside of the medical field looking in with his career in tatters. Unemployed, broke, and losing everything, Hank also loses his fiancé, their impending wedding, and the pre-destined, materialistic future they planned with each other. With Hank’s life going down the medical tubes, drinking his sorrows away in his underwear, opportunity knocks when his hotshot accountant brother, Evan (Paulo Costanzo), convinces Hank to join him for a skirt-chasing, party weekend road-trip to the Hamptons. Once in the upper-class town, holed up in a cheap one-bedroom hotel room, Evan forces a reluctant Hank to pose as his European bodyguard in a cooked up scheme to crash a party at the estate of a wealthy and mysterious businessman (Campbell Scott).

Royal Pains Surrounded by wine, women, and high society elite, a supermodel falls to the floor in a drug-induced seizure and is about to receive potentially lethal treatment from the estate’s concierge doctor when Hank takes over and saves the girl’s life. Soon offered a contract to become the estate’s exclusive doctor, Hank refuses and returns to the cheap hotel with Evan and an unforeseen solid gold bar as payment for his services. Word of Hank’s life-saving abilities quickly spreads through town and he soon finds himself being called to various locations around the Hamptons to treat the afflictions of the rich and famous, including the son of the guy who invented the blender. When the supermodel immediately falls in love with Hank and he finds himself unexpectedly growing closer to one of the town’s blue-collar physicians (Jill Flint), a gorgeous but geeky medical assistant (Reshma Shetty) arrives with a truck full of high-tech concierge gadgetry to make his transition from unemployed M.D. to contract doc a seamless affair. Although Hank has no intention of becoming a roving freelance physician in the Hamptons, Evan urges him to take the job and he, his brother, and new assistant Divya set out to build a concierge business in the famous elite region of Long Island.

Although much of the Royal Pains pilot centers around Hank’s reluctance to become a concierge doctor after working toward a successful career in conventional medicine, it’s the fresh, unknown and unconventional aspects of a freelance doc that become all the more appealing to the show’s lead character and the audience at the same time. The world of a concierge doctor is fresh new ground on television along with a series set in the much talked about but rarely seen Hamptons. Original and untapped with the perfect balance of comedy, drama, mystery and romance, watching Royal Pains is the perfect new medical escape for your summer small-screen ailments.

Interestingly, underneath the quirky humor of Royal Pains many subtle but intriguing seeds are planted in the two-hour pilot that give rise to several questions that undoubtedly will be answered as the season progresses. Who is sending Hank new business? Is he working for an evil villain? How are the townspeople getting his cel phone number? Who is his new assistant really working for? Why is everything so easy and convenient? What unknown price will Hank have to pay, and to whom will he be indebted the longer he plays in the big leagues? Given the geeky but professional appearance of Hank’s new assistant, Divya, the seeds are also being planted for a possible ongoing ugly duckling, Cinderella type of thread or a potential mole scenario. At this point we don’t know. Also, Royal Pains has a dramatic heart that taps into the issue of how money doesn’t always buy happiness in the Hamptons, as Hank becomes an unexpected father figure to a young hemophiliac whose grown up rich but alone.

Along with its fresh concierge concept and largely unknown and unseen setting, Royal Pains works even more effectively from a believable cast that feels like they belong together. The comedic chemistry between Mark Feuerstein and on-screen brother Paulo Costanzo keeps the show energetically funny while Feuerstein’s budding relationship with Jill Flint serves as the dramatically credible and romantic spine, as Reshma Shetty keeps Feuerstein on his toes and off-balance in a mysterious yet welcoming manner like Get Smart on wheels. Although the show’s success is largely due to the charming and comedic charisma of Mark Feuerstein, it’s the complete ensemble package that makes Royal Pains a fun breath of fresh air in the USA Network line-up and a show worth the time investment.

-- Reg Seeton