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Somebody high up thought this crime/surgery melodrama was going to stick with audiences. Alas....
Sony / 566 Minutes / 2012-2013 / Unrated / Street Date: March 12, 2013
One can imagine the network pitch sounding something like: “It’s Grey’s Anatomy meets The Sopranos.”
The Mob Doctor is chock-full of solid TV performances from folks like Jordana Spiro (My Boys) and William Forsythe (Boardwalk Empire) who know the medium well enough to deliver what viewers have come to expect. This is not a subtle show in any major regard, but these acting mainstays are more than a little familiar with how to hunker down and emote with just enough brazen gravitas to make their soap opera melodrama seem more imperative than it really is.
Our thirteen tales here revolve around the lovely young Dr. Grace Devlin (Spiro), who’d be a top-notch Chicago surgeon if it wasn’t for her poor brother who just can’t quite shake the South Side mobsters constantly on his tail. In order to preserve even just a modicum of familial stasis, Grace decides to supplement her income as an honest-to-goodness surgeon by being on call when off-the-grid mob cases manifest themselves. Call it a case of good doctor/bad doctor, but Grace knows she must do what she can to help both her patients and her family’s well-being, so she bites off just a little more than she can chew.
The Mob Doctor’s imminent cancellation doesn’t come as much of a surprise after having imbibed the episodes on this Complete Series set: by the second DVD, the show clearly runs out of gas. It has the shape and feel of an odd little melodrama/crime saga hybrid, but after a capable pilot, it splinters off into all-too-familiar lands of TV mediocrity. It’s easy to see why network brass thought it’d sell, but there just isn’t enough going on under the hood here to merit much in terms of longevity.