Take Three: Carol’s Second Act

Carol’s Second Act: Season 1, Episode 3 “The Zebra” (C)

Color me unimpressed and officially ready to move on from this show. It’s a wonder that this show lasted two full episodes before getting to the idea of the zebra, a patient with an unknown diagnosis that each of the interns wanted to have the honor of assisting. Raise your hand if you knew that Carol would be the one to determine that it was actually her patient, the one who seemed to be in the hospital with nothing other than normal symptoms, who was the zebra. This show follows a very traditional and predictable sitcom setup, and it’s getting tiresome. Daniel is arrogant and it always ends up being detrimental for him, like in this case where he had to try to find the perfect blueberry muffin for Dr. Jacobs to replace the one he accidentally ate. Caleb is an idiot, but that won’t stop Dr. Frost from acknowledging him first at every turn and allowing their lifelong relationship to turn into clear favoritism. Lexie will be subverted by that favoritism and manage to guilt him into giving her some credit and opportunity, but not enough for Dr. Frost to truly recognize her existence. And Carol is going to be peppy as ever, unflappable until she realizes that her friends aren’t actually looking out for her best interests. It’s a lot to take, and there isn’t enough in the way of funny lines or substantial scenarios to make this show worth watching. If Patricia Heaton earns an Emmy nomination, I might check back into it for an episode or two, but I’m good otherwise.

Round Two: Carol’s Second Act

Carol’s Second Act: Season 1, Episode 2 “You Give Me Fever” (C+)

I had wanted to like this show, since Patricia Heaton’s very likeable and unusually positive performance surprised me a lot during the pilot. This second outing, however, indicates that there’s not much creativity to be found here, with lots of recycled humor, expected plotlines, and absurd situations that would never actually be able to take place in a hospital. “Grey’s Anatomy” popularized the idea of supervised surgeries akin to film screenings, and in this episode, we actually got that, with doctors and nurses sitting down to enjoy laughing at a colleague who never learned how to do a blood draw, something that should probably be more cause for serious concern than just mockery. Carol also seems to get infinite chances to disregard instructions, though Dr. Jacobs should probably yield a bit more to her instincts since discharging this patient without properly addressing the red flags she raised would have been deeply irresponsible. Lines like “she has an irreversible case of old” seem particularly flippant and unrealistic, but I guess I don’t watch sitcoms to find real life mirrored back at me. This episode was big on the milk metaphors, with the very timid Caleb eager to be like almond milk, not nearly as hot as oat or anything else but ready to survive at the back of the fridge. That might work, though he’s sure to be taken advantage of, something Carol was more than happy to do when she got assigned a bunch of punishment work. I’m not optimistic about this show but might give it one more shot.

Pilot Review: Carol's Second Act

I'm trying something new with my pilot reviews, so from now on, check out video takes on each new series, which I'll embed below and you can also watch by subscribing to movieswithabe on YouTube.