An unfairly discredited but brilliant diagnostic surgeon winds up working with his cheesy brother in the Hamptons as a concierge doctor to the uber-rich and ultra-elite.
Mark Feuerstein stars as Dr. Hank Lawson, an up-and-coming emergency room physician in New York City who makes a defendable but politically costly judgment call. Unfairly taken to task by the hospital administrator (Adriane Lenox), Hank loses all political capital in the kind of minute named after the city. Out on the street and blackballed in the New York medical community, Hank holes up in his apartment growing a scruff of beard, drinking beer, and watching television all day. In the wake of his pity party, Hank’s girlfriend Nikki (Pascale Hutton) calls it quits as well.
Salvation of a sort comes unexpectedly in the guise of Hank’s brother Evan (Paul Costanzo), a CPA, who persuades him to crash a party in the Hamptons, the cloistered refuge of the condescending and affluent, located at the East End of Long Island. At a raucous evening party hosted by reclusive billionaire Boris Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz (Campbell Scott), one of the guests is found unconscious, apparently overdosing on drugs. After a cursory examination, the resident quack starts to administer Narcan to flush the girl’s system, as he has no doubt done many times previously with other partygoers on other nights. Hank, however, sees a different picture and intervenes with an alternative diagnosis. The young woman as it turns out reacted badly to a pesticide that rubbed off on her from plants in the nursery. Hank’s keen skills of observation impress Boris, who insists on rendering a reward.
Word of Hank’s medical acumen spreads quickly, and so begins his journey as a concierge doctor willing to make house calls while exercising much-valued discretion. Almost immediately and seemingly from nowhere, Reshma Shetty as Divya Katdare appears as his physician’s assistant, gleefully attaching herself to the newfound practice aptly named HankMed. Both Evan and Divya cheer Hank on as the personal physician to the obscenely wealthy, with perks and pay to boot, including the guest house at Boris’ mansion. Time and again, Hank’s phone starts to ring without warning, thus signaling the start of another adventure – one delightful and interesting exploit after another.
Complementing the series are periodic appearances by an array of supporting actors that include many familiar names. Teri Polo, Marcia Gay Harden, Annie Potts, Vanessa Williams, Andrew McCarthy, Timothée Chalamet, Martha Higareda, Bob Gunton, Henry Winkler, and Rosanna Arquette comprise but a few. The varied players from movie and television fame add gravitas to the entire production.
On display as much as anything are the lavish residences and lovely natural beauty of the Hamptons itself. The enclaves of the rich and powerful sprawl seemingly endlessly on enormous lots straddling miles and miles of dazzling beachfront property. The picturesque background, mostly filmed on location, constitutes an elaborate travelogue of sorts, injected with an engaging narrative that keeps things lively.
The series, which aired on USA Network from 2009-2016, is now available in a compact 15-DVD set. Often comical, appropriately breezy, and consistently engaging, “Royal Pains” invariably delivers just what the doctor ordered.
Now available on DVD from Mill Creek Entertainment
