I like the special effects too, but if every week we’re going to be treated to patients primarily suffering from delusions or types of schizophrenia, it’s going to get real old, real fast.

I don’t like that it uses the same formula as House MD whatsoever. Same boss lady, same eccentric yet brilliant doc, same interns “learning” as they go. Focus on a single, “challenging” case, with a few side stories thrown in for good measure. I mean, if I wanted to watch a light-weight and more boring version of House, I’d watch something like Grey’s Anatomy.

As for involving patients in their care, of course professionals — even in inpatient psychiatric hospitals — do so. But they also have staff meetings (case conferences) in order to get other professionals’ views on a patient’s case. And yes, sometimes patients do attend those — that’s not all that extraordinary or unheard of. But that’s a different meeting than the weekly (or daily) staff meeting where the professionals are basically checking in with one another and trying to quickly flag significant issues for the day/week/whatever.

I’m willing to stick with “mental” for a bit longer and give it some time to marinate. I think it has potential and I realize that a lot of my gripes are the exact same gripes regular docs have with House MD (a show I very much enjoy, mainly because of the actor who plays House).