Benevolent billionaire James Bell (Augustus Prew) recruits Dr. Walter Wallace (Dermot Mulroney) to join the Bunker Hill team in Pure Genius. |
“In a lot of the medical shows we’ve seen and loved over the
years, it’s all about the problems,” says Dermot Mulroney, who plays maverick
surgeon Dr. Walter Wallace in the new Thursday-night drama Pure Genius. “Our show is
all about solutions.”
Created by Jason Katims, the man behind the acclaimed TV
versions of Friday Night Lights and Parenthood, Pure Genius is a cutting-edge medical drama set at Silicon Valley’s
fictional Bunker Hill Hospital, which has been endowed by billionaire genius
James Bell (Augustus Prew) and charged with using emerging technology to treat
the trickiest of diagnoses – at no charge.
Recruited after failing to save a patient in his native Ohio with a
risky operation, Mulroney’s Dr. Wallace journeys west to join Bell’s staff, which
already comprises the best-of-the-best:
physician Dr. Zoe Brockett (Odette Annable), idealistic neurosurgeon
Talaikha Channarayapatra (Reshma Shetty), gang member-turned-med technician Dr.
Malik Verlaine (Aaron Jennings), Ivy League-educated neurologist Dr. Scott
Strauss (Ward Horton) and 3-D printing programming whiz Angie Cheng (Brenda
Song.)
“The show is set essentially ten minutes in the future,”
explains Prew, adding that “because much of the technology it shows” – like
ingestible monitors and virtual-reality patient environments, depicted in just Pure Genius’ pilot episode – “actually
exists.” In fact, Dr. Wallace himself is
partly based on one of Pure Genius’
real-life medical consultants, Dr. Brennan Spiegel, a surgeon at Los Angeles’
Cedars-Sinai Hospital. “Dr. Spiegel’s
specialty is infiltrating medicine with technology, finding new ways and
inventing new devices to track and monitor patients,” says Mulroney. “I’m sure you’ll see his influence in my
character, because when I met him, I noted how his body moved, and how he uses
medical tools. I tried to pick up a feel
for the guy, and put it into the part.”
Amid today’s debates over privatization versus more
government-sponsored initiatives like Obama-care, Pure Genius taps into “a very important part of the zeitgeist right
now,” Prew enthuses. “What if you could
have the best minds in technology and medicine paired together? How could we make the healthcare system
better? How could we change lives? The show is about what could be, and we’re
hoping to spur change.”
Mulroney, too, expects Pure
Genius to bring an inspiring dose of optimism to our screens each
week. “There’s a little magic” in the
show, he admits, because not all of the Bunker Hill doctors’ innovative moves
are yet completely possible. “But that’s
one of its great appeals. You’ll say,
‘Is that really happening?’ And instead of saying ‘No,’ we’ll get to say ‘Not
yet.’”
Thursdays at 10 PM Eastern
Begins October 27
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