Monday Mornings

Monday Mornings is Kelleyesque in all the best and admittedly worst--melodramatic, manipulative, shocking--ways. But it's also intelligent, particularly well-written and acted, and above all interested in matters other than what's directly mounted on the screen before your eyes, most notably ethics, human nature and human fallibility.

The cast is solid and admirably diverse.... While never as engaging as Grey's Anatomy nor clever enough to make us forget the void left by House's departure, Mornings at least does no harm.

Monday Mornings spends a fair bit of time probing controversial and ethically complex issues like organ donation, informed consent, health insurance and advance directives. But that, coupled with a cast of characters who don't become all that compelling after three episodes, isn't enough to elevate the series above the rest of the pack.

Not all the cases turn out badly, but enough do that the show takes on a rather grim formula.... That's a lot of talent to work with and the good news is that Monday Mornings shows signs of finding its voice by episode three.

If this show is to breathe, someone should take a scalpel to the malignant melodrama. [8 Feb 2013, p.69]

It's a typical David E. Kelley creation in all the wrong ways: ensemble drama as a steel-cage match of emoting and moralizing, with lectures and grand gestures given precedence over coherent storytelling. His usual saving graces, sharp characterization and unforced humor, aren't in evidence through three episodes.

Kelley is known for cre­ating wonderfully mem­orable, sometimes deliriously neurotic characters. Judging from the writing here, it’s as if he’s been medicated into a stupor. Diagnosis: Waste of time.