The CW premieres its new Mamie Gummer-led doctor drama Emily Owens, M.D. on Tuesday at 9 p.m. The following are reviews from TV critics around the Web, compiled by B&C.
“The idea that the dynamics of high school become the dynamics of life has been around for a while. It makes an amusing short book. It doesn’t necessarily make a good TV show, because real life also includes a lot of differences.”
–David Hinckley, New York Daily News
“Over-emphasizing your theme to make sure the audience gets it can be annoying, but it’s not a fatal sin. The problem isn’t just that Emily Owens the show is overflowing with references to its theme, but that Emily Owens the character drowns in the theme.
–Alan Sepinwall, HitFix
“Although the role is a sad waste of Gummer’s skills, she makes Emily both believable and likable against impossible odds. The rest of the cast is fine, but without Gummer, they couldn’t begin to rescue the series from its enormous burden of predictability and cliche.”
–David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle
“The problem is more likely to be the generic nature of Emily’s misadventures, and the soap opera implausibility of the medical stories, which is extreme, even for the genre.”
–Mike Hale, The New York Times
“There is not one smart or endurable moment in this series. It starts from the preposterous notion that medical school graduates who go into residency at a prestigious hospital would pretend it’s high school. All the insecurities and interior dilemmas are the stuff of high school kids. And yet, here they are, completely forgetful of a very long college experience.”
–Tim Goodman, The Hollywood Reporter
