Inside the NBC comedy of hospital absurdity

Since ABC’s hit series “Scrubs” ended its nine-season run in 2010, Hollywood has largely shied away from comedies set in hospitals — sometimes it’s hard to find something to laugh about here — although there have been some outliers like “The Mindy Project” by Fox and Hulu, the absurd “Children’s Hospital” by Warner Bros. and Adult Swim, and the critically acclaimed HBO film “Getting On.”

NBC is the latest show to try this with “St. “Denis Medyczny” a new comedy series that combines this challenging setting with a popular format: the mockumentary. Can Hollywood find comedy in the hospital in 2024, especially in a series focusing on the daily lives of hospital workers and the aftermath of a global pandemic?

To find out, TheWrap exclusively visited the set during the final week of filming for the series’ 18-episode first season, which is scheduled to premiere on November 12. TheWrap spoke with “St. Denis Medical” about the cast and creators of the comedy series. An exclusive visit to the writers’ room provided further insight into how the team balanced laughter and vulnerability with advice from medical experts, their own experiences in hospitals, and plenty of off-the-wall jokes.

“It’s a workplace comedy in the most interesting workplace you can imagine,” showrunner Eric Ledgin told TheWrap. “When I’m in the hospital or I meet people who work there, I’m very interested in what their lives are like – full of challenges and drama. But when I talk to them, they all have funny stories… There’s a lot of tension, but also a lot of release from that tension.”

By making “St. Denis Medical” in the style of “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation,” the band must earn some laughs while staying true to the serious subject matter typically associated with hospitals. NBC has a track record of introducing bold comedy concepts to huge success – with a lineup that includes “The Office,” “Friends,” “30 Rock” and “Will & Grace.”

Still, in Hollywood, where the TV industry is shrinking, the network is making a risky bet on the hospital comedy, which is its only single-camera comedy series order of the season. The new “Happy’s Place,” the returning “Lopez vs. Lopez” and “Night Court” stick to the cheaper multicam format. CBS is the only other broadcaster with the same amount of programming devoted to comedy – it will air four shows this fall.

Doctor’s visit

In “St. Denis Medical” cameras follow the doctors, nurses and administrators of a fictional hospital and the countless antics of their daily lives – such as caring for difficult patients, learning on the job and balancing their personal lives while saving others.

The aim of the series is to find the funny in the tragic.

On the day of TheWrap’s visit, the cast and crew worked well together to create the new medical comedy from creators Ledgin and Justin Spitzer. It certainly helped that many of the people involved in the project had worked together on NBC comedies like “The Office,” “Superstore” and “American Auto.”

The mood was good on that September Monday as series star Wendi McLendon-Covey worked the scene. She tried out various punchlines as a joke about the “cool” goings-on at the hospital in Oregon where the show is set. McLendon-Covey, who plays hospital executive Joyce, brought it home with a different, resounding reaction each time to unsolicited health information from one of her co-workers.

“I don’t know if it’s just because I’m not hosting the show so it’s easier, but I feel like things are going smoothly for a first-season show,” Spitzer, who created “Superstore” and “American Auto ” he told TheWrap. “In the first seasons you are just figuring out the series, and in the second season you give it your all. God willing, we’ll get a second season, but I think we found out about it very early this time.

Ledgin, who was a writer and producer on Spitzer’s “Superstore” and “American Auto,” has been promoted to showrunner with the new series. “I’m very proud of what we did, and I feel very exhausted, which I think is how you should feel after you finish your first show,” he said.

The showrunner said he wanted to capture the full range of emotions that come with a typical day in the hospital. “When I was 20, I spent a lot of time in hospitals – not for myself, but for someone I was very close to – I laughed a lot and also had some very difficult moments,” he said. “This season of the show, I ended up in the hospital for three days. There is something that felt very personal to me about being able to reflect on life in hospital.”

It was this challenge that attracted top talent such as Allison Tolman and David Alan Grier to the project.

“I was really surprised to find a sitcom that I was excited about,” Tolman, who previously starred in “Fargo” and “Good Girls,” told TheWrap. “The situations are silly and the goal is to get laughs, but the way we approach it feels really authentic to me.”

“People laugh at funerals,” added sitcom veteran Grier, who became famous for “In Living Color.” “People literally laugh during war, when there are corpses all around them. It’s the human psyche, a way of survival.”

Casting was the ‘hardest part’

Workplace comedies are only as good as their teams, and Ledgin admitted that finding the right talent was “the hardest part of putting together the whole show.” He remembers watching hundreds of tapes after the casting department narrowed down the candidates from “thousands.”

All that hard work paid off. “Superstore” veterans Kaliko Kauahi and Josh Lawson, breakout “Jury Duty” star Mekki Leeper and “Cocaine Bear” standout Kahyun Kim round out the list of “St. Denis Medical” with McLendon-Covey, Tolman and Grier. Their chemistry is palpable from the very first episode, with Joyce as the neurotic but fearless hospital director, Ron Grier as the grumpy and funny ER doctor, and Tolman’s Alex as the nurse supervising the emergency room – which is the emotional core of the series.

Each member of the team was thrilled to play in the sandbox of the NBC comedy series under the leadership of Spitzer and Ledgin.

Except Grier.

“I liked the script, but I didn’t know anyone on the show,” Grier told TheWrap. “I knew Wendi and Allison’s work from ‘Fargo,’ so I knew they were a good cast… but don’t meet the showrunners.” He was drawn to the project by a rave review from “American Auto” star Ana Gasteyer, but what really won him over was the script’s strong comedy.

For McLendon-Covey, “St. Denis” was a chance for her to play a “prickly” character who was very different from the “cute” mother Beverly Goldberg she embodied for 10 seasons of ABC’s “The Goldbergs.”

“She’s annoying, but she’s good at what she does, and it takes someone like that to keep things running in a pressure cooker like a hospital,” she told TheWrap. “She probably thought, ‘I can make a difference from the inside.’ “I will take action against insurance companies.” That will make one bitter, right?”

Like many people involved in the creation of the show, Tolman had a personal connection to the premise. A few months before writing the script for “St. Denis” came to her, she left Los Angeles and returned to her home state of Texas. Her father fell ill and had to spend six weeks in hospital, so she took care of the house and her mother was with him during the day. They unwinded at the end of each day by watching half-hour comedies together.

“It was like kismet. And (Alex) reminded me a lot of my mom,” Tolman said, adding that the chance to highlight the lives of “underrepresented and underappreciated” health care workers seemed like the perfect way to honor them.

“The show does a really good job of balancing silly with sweet, so we don’t feel like we ever think, ‘this job is funny,'” she added. “These are people whose job it is to be with people on their worst days – and in some cases their best days – and in every profession, absolutely absurd things happen… In some episodes of the main storyline we do something crazy, and in others we talk about the hardcore truth of this world.”

In the writers’ room

The program begins, of course, on the website. The creators of “St. Denis Medical” had a lot to do in creating a comedy series that was funny, emotional and at least somewhat relevant.

During TheWrap’s exclusive visit to the writers’ room in late July, the show’s 13-member writing staff made it a priority to refine the jokes as the cast and crew prepared to shoot five additional episodes ordered by the network. Although the actual writing of the episode draft is done individually, the team came together to go through the drafts of episodes 14 and 15, reading scenes from a table and making notes on how to make the punchline more powerful – including a much-discussed joke subtly implying that Matt (Leeper), a strange, but the adorable new nurse who joins the crew in the series premiere dabbled in animal masturbation in his spare time (“Maybe a horse? A whale? A goat?”).

“I love that we’ll spend the entire hour discussing masturbation jokes and animal facts,” Spitzer joked. “We’re trying to teach you that.”

Spitzer and Ledgin led the room’s discussion, noting that almost every team member has a family member or close relationship with someone in the healthcare industry. The team also consults with medical experts to ensure that the jargon, procedures and cases presented on the show are as accurate as possible. Medical technicians then ensure that the scenes on set remain in tip-top shape.

The show is certainly a comedy, and each writer brought a new twist to the jokes discussed in the room – even if their content wasn’t always immediately obvious to Spitzer.

“It’s such a small thing that I feel bad even mentioning it, but when she says ‘let’s gather information,’ it might just sound like ‘information,'” he told the room, passing the note to Joyce on the cold open line: paying no attention to this is a reference.

There was an unexpected moment of silence as he tried to come up with an alternative, until another writer pointed out that the line was a clear nod to Beyoncé’s hit song “Formation.” The laughter grew as Spitzer received a reminder of his crash course in global superstardom. They then moved on to the next scene.

What about the “really depressing” joke about Matt? Spitzer and Ledgin told TheWrap they ultimately cut it in editing, likely to avoid a memo from NBC’s Standards and Practices department.

“This is the most time we’ve spent all year on the blue joke,” Spitzer said.

“St. Denis Medical” premiered Tuesday, November 12 on NBC and streamed the next day on Peacock.