Welcome To St. Denis – The series begins with a very brief introduction of Alex (Allison Tolman) as she discharges an overdose patient, Mr. Taylor (Joe Keyes). The ensuing conversation and her pleas for him to get help suggest that Mr. Taylor is practically a regular. After sending him on his way, Alex tells an interviewer how an experience with her sick grandmother inspired her to become an RN.

Executive Director, Joyce Henderson (Wendi McLendon-Covey), offers a brief look at the business side of St. Denis and her desire to turn the hospital into an international medical mecca. Being that St. Denis is a safety net hospital, this is something that will require lots of donations. A brief interaction with some of the staff indicates that Joyce is more of an acquired taste than anything else.

Alex and Serena (Kahyun Kim) are anxiously discussing the arrival of a new floor nurse when Ron Leonard (David Alan Grier) interrupts with invitations for after-shift milkshakes. Serena is quick to jump on the offer, whereas Alex claims to have prior plans to attend a reproduction of Mama Mia at her kid’s school. Alex is especially excited about the outing, being that she hasn’t had much time with the kids since being promoted to supervising nurse.

While the new floor nurse, Matt (Mekki Leeper) shares his religious upbringing and family’s reaction to his career path, Joyce introduces the interviewers to ER physician, Ron. Ron offers an interesting take on the job, as he views himself as a glorified mechanic. Supposed star trauma surgeon, Bruce Schweitz (Josh Lawson) doesn’t waste the opportunity to get in front of the camera and he’ll make a similar appearance again sometime later.

Alex shows a bit of her controlling side when she not only spends several minutes ensuring that Serena knows how to reach her while she’s away, but takes over an IV insertion when she spots Stella (Bella Ivory) supposedly making a mistake.

As Phil (Feodor Chin) and his crew install the hospital’s new $300,000 Bravo-Genesis 3D Mammography machine, Joyce explains more about her plans to turn St. Denis into an international medical mecca. She appears almost insulted when Phil interrupts to make sure the hospital has the bandwidth to run the machine. It doesn’t out they don’t, leading to an entire system crash which at the same time prevents Alex from leaving on time.

Matt finds the perfect opportunity to introduce himself when Joyce gathers the staff in the break room to discuss the computer crash. He doesn’t receive anywhere near the reception he was hoping for and things immediately go back to the crash when Alex mentions updating the computer system. When she claims they don’t have the budget, Ron asks about the new machine. Joyce doesn’t appear to have a response at the moment, but she later accuses Ron of disrespecting her in front of the staff.

Things aren’t going any better for Val (Kaliko Kauahi) as she attempts to deal with a pushy patient, Laurie (Mindy Sterling) as professionally as possible. Bruce attempts to get in the spotlight again when he interrupts one of Ron’s diagnoses with several outlandish theories. A brief scene with Matt and an EPI pen suggests that he isn’t just new to St. Denis, but new to the world of nursing.

Alex finally attempts to leave the hospital after learning that her daughter, Ella (Romy Fay), will now be playing the lead. She’s even out of her scrubs and in the parking lot when Lisa collapses and she intervenes. All while this has taken place, Joyce has been grappling with signing off on the machine now that it is installed and operational. She’s in the process of simply walking away when she encounters Alex with the collapsed patient.

Along with Matt, Bruce, Ron, and several others, Alex manages to save Laurie’s life. When she later returns to her car in the parking lot, her car’s battery is dead. As she gets out to evaluate the situation, she is approached by Laurie’s extremely grateful and emotional husband (Scott Subiono). While he embraces her with gratitude, Phil and his crew can be seen in the background, loading the repacked machine in their van.

The episode ends with giving her opinion about what makes a good hospital when she learns that there is a 10% restocking fee on the scanner.

 

St. Denis Medical Review

Despite the half-hour episode, there was almost too much going on at times. It’s not like the story was hard to follow or entirely uninteresting but there was just so much being thrown around. Although there were some dull parts, I can’t say that the characters were so much so. Alex and Ron are about as average as you can get and it’s unfortunate that she will likely be viewed as the lead but the others appear to bring a bit more to the table. As of right now, I’m interested to see how they and their stories develop. For that, I’d give the episode a 5.3 out of 10.

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