DVD Reviews

Royal Pains: Season One – DVD Review

By Dana Rae Jun 3, 2010, 15:21 GMT

Hank is a rising star in the New York City medical community, until he loses everything fighting for the life of a patient. With his career stalled and his personal life in shambles, Hank is in need of a new beginning. That’s where his younger brother Evan (Paulo Costanzo) steps in. Fed up with Hank’s personal pity party, he convinces Hank to join him on a last-minute trip to the ...more

Royal Pains Season One comes to DVD and introduces its Hampton-set cast and premise: a doctor down on his luck finds new love and adventure when he begins to administer medical help and advice to the very wealthy.

It is simply entertainment, but I tend to like my fictional shows to be more reality-based. I’ll explain in a bit.

Mark Feuerstein plays down-on-his-luck doctor Hank Lawson. The pilot episode sees him on the verge of the rest of his life: he is about to be married and his career is taking off. Everything seems to be falling into place. He makes a very wrong call for his future career and allows his hospital’s mainstay philanthropist/trustee to die.

Lawsuits follow and he gets fired – which also costs him his fiancé. The audience sees him swirling downward into depression and his apartment really suffers. But don’t worry, we never see the apartment again. It’s a dead issue, as is his old life.

His brother, Evan Lawson (Paulo Costanzo) is probably the saving grace of the show. He is the sleazy brother who never gets the girl, always has the bad pick-up line, but remains positive and up-beat in a goofy, adorable way. I actually kind of liked him!

Anyway, little brother Evan convinces the good big brother doctor to take a vacation and get out of that wretched apartment and visit the Hamptons. They two take off in their convertible with the wind in the hair and arrive only to find that WOW the rich really need medical help! And the rich pay well, too.

Mysterious rich guy Boris (Campbell Scott) is mysteriously sick with some mysterious illness (you get the idea) and gives the brothers the use of his guest house after Dr. Hank helps him. And then the medical work comes rolling in.

Along the way he picks up others to help with his on-the-go medical business (you have to be ready to roll when your wealthy clients call!) and Divya Katdare is introduced (played by Reshma Shetty).

She is the brains of the operation and procures a van complete with med-i-vac equipment for them to use. She is quite rich herself (her parents come into one episode) and knows the local people. Very useful she is and quite the hottie in some of her outfits.

Dr. Hank also starts to fall in love with a hospital administrator Jill (played by Jill Flint), who runs the emergency room of the Hamptons that is open to the not so privileged. Through her, Hank finds that there are other patients out there besides the ones with oodles of money and ridiculously big houses.

I had to turn my brain off and keep telling myself that it is just mindless entertainment. No need to think or to find the hidden intelligence (there is none) in this. The episodes are very formulaic: rich people need help, Hank does a medical MacGyver on them and they are extremely grateful and pay very well.

Royal Pains isn’t a series that strives to be medically factual, but instead uses its cast of good looking actors and its rich setting to gloss the entertainment value. If you are looking for a series more grounded in reality, this might not be for you.

If you want a fun show that only requires you to turn the brain off to enjoy, Royal Pains is the one for you. The ensemble cast does a solid job in their roles and the season ends with a cliffhanger that will keep you wanting to see where the series is headed.