Exhaustion. Anxiety. The fact that you may be reading this article during another meeting that should have been an email. Reports of burnout have been in the news for years, especially in fields such as medicine, education and — ahem — journalism.
And yet, TV shows about people in these professions are powering through.
Sometimes this is through the benefit of experience. ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” which returns for its 21st season on Thursday, has been on so long that it’s seen character Taryn Helm (Jaicy Elliot) leave the industry to work at a bar before returning to the high-stakes/high-drama world of medicine. She’s now co-chief resident at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.
And sometimes, it’s about adding modern awareness to established genres and tropes. The new version of “Criminal Minds,” fittingly subtitled “Evolution,” which recently completed its second season on Paramount+, follows its CBS forefather in being a show about criminal profilers. But it’s also blatant about the toll the job can take on characters’ mental health.
In NBC’s new medical drama “Brilliant Minds,” which premiered Monday, burnout is omnipresent. Zachary Quinto stars as Oliver Wolf, a dedicated neurologist known for bursting into locker room speeches — “Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can’t breathe,” deadpans one of his interns, played by Aury Krebs — but not everyone portrayed on the show is always so confident. Oliver and the other doctors are fallible, be it freezing up during a spinal tap or completely overstepping into their patients’ personal lives to facilitate a father-daughter reunion.
“Brilliant Minds” creator Michael Grassi wants audiences to know that, for the most part, this is OK. He describes his show as a “very much a high-pressure workplace drama where our doctors are tirelessly and selflessly helping patients and their health and their mental health, while at the same time neglecting their own mental health in very real and relatable ways.”
Grassi’s staff includes Daniela Lamas, a pulmonary and critical care physician who is also a TV writer for medical dramas (her credits include the Fox series “The Resident”).
“People who have underlying anxiety become doctors and that becomes part of their reality,” she says. That’s why it’s important to have these feelings be a constant in the series rather than a specific story arc. “It’s not like something that you shine a spotlight on and it disappears,” Lamas adds.
The “Brilliant Minds” cast and crew also have to keep this momentum going. Unlike, say, the Ben Whishaw-starring 2022 AMC limited series “This Is Going to Hurt,” an unflinching look at the relentless stressors that medicine (specifically obstetrics) can have on doctors and other staff, this show is intended to last several seasons.
“The humor in this show offsets a lot of the potential heaviness of some of the subject matter in a way that feels really real and light,” Lamas says.
Other times, positive outlooks are built into the ethos of the show. This has been seen in ABC’s hit series “Abbott Elementary,” a mockumentary about the teachers and staff at a Philadelphia public school that returns for its fourth season on Oct. 9, and FX’s new series “English Teacher,” another comedy about educators that’s set at a Texas high school. Neither shies away from talking about burnout, nor the many reasons why people leave these professions, but they both still manage to mix pragmatism with optimism.
Justin Halpern, who co-created “Abbott” with Patrick Schumacker and series star Quinta Brunson — the latter of whom was, appropriately enough, too busy filming the show to be interviewed for this piece — says that they haven’t done an episode specifically about burnout because “it’s generally not how teachers talk about it.”
He and Schumacker note that there have been storylines that hint at it, like a Season 2 episode that got into the generational divide over whether sick days must only be used for physical health. But Halpern says that for most educators, “burnout is so prevalent and such a part of their everyday lives that they don’t reference it really; it’s just an accepted norm.”
Schumacker adds that the new season will see some characters “take stock of their entire careers,” while Halpern says there will also be one “about the financial stresses of being a teacher.”
But they also say that the natural whimsy of a setting surrounded by young kids helps ground their series and keep it from being too depressing. They feel the show might have a different vibe if it were called “Abbott High.”
“When we were first talking about the show with Quinta, we were bringing up just the production realities working with younger kids … and Quinta, very rightly, was like, ‘If you set this show in high school with older kids, there are [different] levels of kid interaction and drama that happen,” Halpern says. “It takes away some of the lightness that you can have exist within an elementary school.”
But even the way we look at these stories has changed.
Older TV shows such as “Welcome Back, Kotter” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and even newer series such as “Derry Girls,” taught us that principals and other school figureheads ruled by intimidation. But in “English Teacher,” Enrico Colantoni plays Grant Moretti, a walking ulcer of a school principal who somehow manages to handle all the helicopter parenting, feuding students, budget cuts and everything else that’s thrown at him. He is also the shield that takes much of the abuse so that Brian Jordan Alvarez’s younger, more wide-eyed titular English teacher, Evan, continues his pursuit of nurturing young minds.
A friend of Colantoni’s is a retired principal. He listened to her stories of death threats and harassment and says he asked himself, “How does one embrace the responsibility they have without any authority? How do you want to continue doing your job? … It’s like you’re paid to do something, but you’re constantly being criticized.”
“Everybody starts out wanting to save the world and give it a different perspective,” he says. “And then, it just becomes about, well, if you affect one person or two people over the course of your career as a teacher or as an actor…”
He adds that “people who go into any profession for the wrong reasons won’t last long enough to get burned out.”
Bernice Pescosolido, a sociologist and the founding director of Indiana University’s Indiana Consortium for Mental Health Services Research and Irsay Institute for Sociomedical Sciences, says burnout might be a buzzy term right now, but it’s not a new phenomenon. She mentions the Japanese word karoshi, a term that means death from overwork. She says other terms such as nervous breakdown, anxiety and PTSD may get overused, or misused, but they’re also “ways that the lay public understands mental distress.”
“I think maybe there are lives without stressors, but I doubt it,” Pescosolido says.
Zachary Quinto has always relished the opportunity to play villains, having starred as a brain-eating serial killer in “Heroes,” a deranged doctor in “American Horror Story: Asylum” and a child kidnapper in “NOS4A2.”
But in the new NBC medical drama “Brilliant Minds,” which premieres Monday, the Emmy-nominated actor, who broke out as Spock in “Star Trek,” gets to play a different kind of brooding brainiac — a modern-day character inspired by the life and books of Dr. Oliver Sacks, the late British neurologist and author whom The New York Times once described as the “poet laureate of medicine.”
Created by Michael Grassi (“Riverdale,” “Supergirl”), the new series stars Quinto as Dr. Oliver Wolf: an iconoclastic, larger-than-life neurologist who, after being fired from another institution for his unorthodox way of treating patients, agrees to take a job at Bronx General Hospital. While exploring the wonders of the human mind, Dr. Wolf and his team of young interns must grapple with their own mental health. Like Sacks, Quinto’s protagonist rides motorcycles; loves ferns and swimming in the rivers of New York City; and has prosopagnosia, or face blindness. (Sacks’ middle name was also Wolf.)
“I’m playing a character essentially based on a real-life person, but I don’t have to adhere to any of the constraints of period, or mannerisms, or behavior of the person,” Quinto told NBC News. “I get to dive into all of the source material and rich history of all of Oliver Sacks’ life and then use it to inspire a fictionalized character that we’ve created for the purposes of our show, and to make it more relatable and accessible to audiences.”
Sacks’ 1973 book, “Awakenings,” about his experience of treating patients whose encephalitis left them in a statue-like condition, was adapted into a 1990 movie in which Robin Williams played Sacks. But after being approached by executive producer Greg Berlanti about adapting Sacks’ books “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” and “An Anthropologist on Mars,” Grassi was keen to create a prime-time medical drama with an openly gay character — and actor — at the forefront.
Grassi wrote the role specifically with Quinto in mind. “It’s nice to see Zach tackle something that he’s never really done before — to play this hero, this doctor who leads with empathy, feels really new and exciting for him,” said Grassi, who is also gay.
Quinto had just come off making his West End debut in a play about the political debates between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr. While he didn’t know much about Sacks, who was known for finding dignity in patients with largely incurable ailments, Quinto felt drawn to “the deep spirit of the man” in the character Grassi had created.
But unlike Sacks — who lived in self-imposed celibacy for 35 years before finding a life partner and coming out later in life — the creative team was not interested in having a similarly emotionally closed-off lead, Grassi said.
“Dr. Wolf on the show is so committed to making sure that his patients live a full life that he’s completely neglecting living his own,” Grassi said. “A big part of this season’s story is Dr. Wolf starting to live his life, and what that might look like romantically is an interesting question as well.”
“Brilliant Minds” also reunites Quinto with Teddy Sears, who played his husband during the first season of Ryan Murphy’s “American Horror Story.” Sears plays Dr. Josh Nichols, an ex-military, gay neurosurgeon whose clinical and exacting nature is often at odds with Dr. Wolf’s more empathetic approach to treating patients.
“Oliver Wolf and Josh Nichols don’t necessarily get off on the best foot right away, but there’s something intriguing for both of them in the other,” Quinto said, teasing that the initial antagonism between the characters could underlie feelings of a different kind.
Playing an openly gay lead on network television is a particularly meaningful milestone for Quinto, who, after coming out publicly in 2011, has become one of the most prominent out actors in Hollywood. In retrospect, Quinto admitted, he doesn’t know how differently his career would have panned out if he hadn’t chosen to come out, but he said he doesn’t believe that declaration has hindered or held him back in any way. He also would rather not spend any time thinking about it.
“I don’t know what possessed me to be so self-assured about it, especially at that time, in 2011,” Quinto admitted, reflecting on his decision to come out on his own terms — without anyone else knowing — in a New York magazine profile. “I think part of it was that it took me so many years of internal conflict to get there. Once I accepted the truth for myself, the kind of precarious navigation of how to maintain a relationship to my career and my authentic self … I think all of that cumulatively led me to a place where I was just ready.”
The experience of starring in a New York revival of “Angels in America,” in 2010, had forced Quinto, who was already out to his closest family and friends, to wrestle with the decision to talk about his sexuality publicly. (He didn’t.) During the media tour for his film “Margin Call” a year later, Quinto heard about the suicide of Jamey Rodemeyer — an LGBTQ teenager who, like Quinto, had recently made a video for the It Gets Better Project. Quinto was staggered to learn of Rodemeyer’s death and said he was forced to confront his own hypocrisy.
“I felt like I couldn’t any longer shoulder the burden of disparity between living this privileged and charmed life at the time, and these young people who were killing themselves,” Quinto explained. He knew how much the act of seeing an openly gay actor would have meant to his younger self. “If I could make a difference in anybody’s life, then I had to move in that direction. It wasn’t about trying to obfuscate the truth or hide myself in order to advance my career. So if it was going to have a negative impact on my career at that point, so be it. That wasn’t really a consideration that I was willing to allow to hold me back anymore at that point.”
In the decade since he came out publicly, Quinto has marveled at the evolution of LGBTQ representation, while acknowledging that there is still more work to be done. “I think the broadening of the spectrum of stories that we’re telling now, and the people who have had opportunities in the last five to 10 years that never would’ve had them previous to that, is really exceptional,” he said.
But with the impending presidential election, Quinto said he believes the LGBTQ community is in “a fight for our lives.” After recently attending this cycle’s Democratic National Convention, the actor wants to encourage all people — but especially members of the queer community — to get politically active.
Quinto, who canvassed for President Barack Obama in both of his presidential elections, said he will vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
“When you consider the options before us and how those options each relate to our community in particular, there’s only one way that we can go to preserve the hard-won and essential progress that we’ve made within our community politically in the last 10 years,” he said.
Since the release of “Star Trek Beyond” in 2016, Quinto and his castmates have expressed a desire to return to the Enterprise, but any future sequels have yet to come to fruition. Quinto said he would still be “more than happy” to reprise his version of Spock, adding that his time in the franchise played an instrumental role in his personal and professional development, but he also feels “absolutely no attachment” to the character anymore.
During the making of his “Star Trek” films, Quinto developed a close relationship with Leonard Nimoy — the actor who originated the role of Spock and handpicked Quinto to play his younger self — whom Quinto considered a preeminent father figure. Following Nimoy’s death in 2015, Quinto maintained his friendship with Nimoy's widow, Susan Bay Nimoy, and even cast her as an 80-year-old nymphomaniac patient in the upcoming eighth episode of “Brilliant Minds.”
“I feel so grateful that the legacy of storytelling continues with Leonard’s loved ones,” Quinto said with a fond smile. “The legacy of storytelling with him, my connection to him, and the fact that he’s a part of this show is really, really moving and meaningful to me.”
Based on the real-life work of neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks and created by Michael Grassi, NBC‘s newest medical drama, “Brilliant Minds” follows Dr. Oliver Wolf (an enjoyable Zachary Quinto), an unorthodox physician hellbent on solving his patients’ neurological and mental health issues. Dr. Wolf’s methods often come at the expense of traditional protocols, and even his own personal well-being. While the series adheres to the formulaic case-centered cadence that has anchored the genre for decades, fascinating neurological mysteries, intricate character backstories and true advocacy for the human mind sustain the show as it struggles to find its rhythm.
“Brilliant Minds” opens with Dr. Wolf going rogue. In a rather far-fetched scene, he jailbreaks an Alzheimer’s patient from the hospital before zipping the man away to a lavish wedding on the back of his motorcycle. Despite the implausible sequence of events, Dr. Wolf’s patience and diligence spark a few minutes of lucidity, enabling the elderly man to play the piano at the wedding and even recognize his granddaughter, if only briefly. Though he manages to give his patient and his family some moments of joy, it’s the final straw for the higher-ups, and Dr. Wolf is immediately terminated.
As the audience soon learns, this is all par for the course for Dr. Wolf. A loner and Luddite who has also been diagnosed with prosopagnosia, a.k.a. face blindness, Dr. Wolf seems content in his massive City Island home, surrounded by his books, weights and VHS tapes. However, when his best friend, Dr. Carol Pierce (Tamberla Perry), tempts him with a new case and a position at Bronx General Hospital, Dr. Wolf is too enticed to turn it down.
Overcrowded and lacking funding, Bronx General isn’t exactly the shiny glittering hospitals viewers are used to seeing on series like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Chicago Med.” Dr. Wolf has his own personal reasons for avoiding the health center, and since his condition makes it challenging for him to recognize faces without real effort, mentoring medical residents as an attending doctor isn’t exactly something he’s looking forward to. Because of Bronx General’s high turnover rate and a lack of oversight, residents Dr. Van Markus (Alex MacNicoll), Dr. Ericka Kinney (Ashleigh LaThrop), Dr. Jacob Nash (Spence Moore II) and Dr. Dana Dash (Aury Krebs) are enthusiastic about being under Dr. Wolf’s charge — yet aren’t quite prepared for the kind of chaos he brings.
The first couple of episodes of “Brilliant Minds” are standard fare. Dr. Wolf tries to work within the structure of the hospital, and the interns attempt to keep up with his harebrained theories and plans of action. The cases — one following a young woman who doesn’t remember her children and another which centers on a woman who believes her body has died — are interesting enough, but the show doesn’t quite find its flow until Episode 3, “The Lost Biker.” In it, Dr. Wolf treats a patient who risks never making a new memory again. Revelations about Dr. Pierce and Bronx General’s head neurosurgeon, Dr. Josh Nichols (Teddy Sears), who isn’t thrilled with Dr. Wolf’s presence, are revealed, steering the series’ narrative in a different direction.
Episode 6, “The Girl Who Cried Pregnant,” has one of the more interesting plots. When a group of pregnant teen girls turns up at Bronx General, Dr. Wolf and the residents find themselves on a strange path involving friendship bonds and the witchy side of TikTok (called WitchTok). Also, the audience slowly begins to observe who the interns are outside of the hospital walls. Like Dr. Wolf, the foursome have distinct stories and journeys that led them into the medical field (Dr. Markus’ past is particularly compelling).
Though Dr. Wolf has some of the eccentricities of Dr. Gregory House from Fox’s long-running drama “House,” his compassion and care align more with the persona of Dr. Shaun Murphy of ABC’s “The Good Doctor.” Guided by his wealth of knowledge and intuition, Dr. Wolf offers the residents the opportunity to build their trust in themselves. The series also highlights the nuances of Dr. Wolf’s childhood, where In flashbacks we see a young boy ostracized for his neurological condition and sexuality. These scenes clearly illustrate how the events and traumas that shaped us in our earliest years affect who we are today.
The medical drama is one of network television’s most overdone and overblown genres. “Brilliant Minds” draws directly from Dr. Sacks’ work, but there are very few truly shocking cases depicted. Still, as more of Dr. Wolf’s childhood and upbringing are unveiled, and the interns grow closer, viewers may find themselves drawn to the show, wanting to discover what neurological anomaly the crew will tackle next.
