A possible reason why so many films and TV shows are set in New York is the feeling that just about anything can happen here. And when you have that element working for you, it becomes a wide open canvas on which the characters in the story can play. This is an example of a program trying to be both realistic and fantastic all at the same time.
Patrick Wilson played Dr. Michael Holt, a quintessentially arrogant but renowned Manhattan neurosurgeon, whose practice was making money hand over fist because all of his patients had Blue Cross/Blue Shield coverage.
One night, he bumped into his ex-wife, Anna Paul, portrayed by Jennifer Ehle, who also happened to be a doctor, but a lot more down to earth: she ran a free clinic in Alphabet City. Michael and Anna instantly hit it off, just like old times, back in Alaska where they struggled when they were first married. So just when Holt thinks he might be rekindling things, he learns a horrible and bizarre truth: Anna died two weeks before he saw her that night.
The initial reaction was that Michael maybe should have a visit to the doctors on 379's "3 Lbs." and gotten a brain scan (if they could have done a crossover episode). In fact, he was seeing and connecting with the spirit of his former spouse and she had a bunch of stuff to share with him and some unfinished business of her own.
This changes everything for Dr. Holt who starts "taking meetings" with Dr. Paul, finding some empty room so he could talk to her about various elements of his job and about her former practice - it seems she left the Alphabet City patients in disarray and the staff needed access to her computer to make sense of some things. Some of the time, this is amusing as Holt is talking to himself as if he is speaking to another person. Other times it seems like the doctor is having a breakdown to the people around him.
Meanwhile, Julie Benz played Michael's sister Christina, who believes in the supernatural and is encouraging Michael to explore the factors involved in what he can see and how this is something that is both meant for him to be a part of and is proof of her philosophy. And it wouldn't hurt if Michael became less of a total jerk, with Anna's spiritual influence.
New York played a part in that classic "haves and have nots" way, with the wealthiest people who need medical help waltzing into Michael's gleaming hospital wing with every new medical device to help enhance or save their lives, and the people of the Lower East Side, barely able to cover their costs, struggling to get some doctoring for their health concerns at Anna's overcrowded clinic.
The always capable Margo Martindale played Michael's assistant and added some much needed gravitas and humor to the mix and Pablo Schreiber was a shaman Michael met, who worked part time at the Lower East Side clinic, and who helped Michael understand the elements of the spiritual, and was an ex of his sister.
Let's note the pedigree of the behind the scenes players on this series: Susannah Grant, who created the program, wrote the screenplay to Julia Roberts' Academy Award winning performance of "Erin Brockovich" and Jonathan Demme was one of the program's producers and directors.
I think it's difficult to have such an unsympathetic character at the center of a series. Yes, Dr. Holt is brilliant, but his bedside manner sucks and he treats his co-workers like meaningless underlings for the most part, even as he was learning to find his humanity again through his pro bono medical work. Maybe if he were a quicker study in human nature, more people would have been attracted to him, and to this show, which was, if you could stomach Dr. Holt, pretty good.
