Monroe: Series 1

The title character in this British medical drama is a neurosurgeon every bit as brilliant and sharp-tongued as Hugh Laurie's House but much less angry (although he still has his fair share of personal problems). In the six episodes of this 2011 first season of the ITV-aired series, Monroe (James Nesbitt) is haunted by the death years ago of his daughter, and he's confronted by his wife, Anna (Susan Lynch), who decides to leave him due to her simmering resentment over a brief affair Monroe had. The domestic drama storyline—which also involves Monroe's estrangement from his son, Nick (Perry Millward), after the university-bound young man learns of his father's infidelity—is set against the backdrop of the doctor's frenzied work at the hospital, where he jokes with longtime male colleagues, including anesthesiologist Lawrence Shepherd (Tom Riley); dishes out abuse (and occasional words of support) to ambitious interns; and stands up for the value of emotional empathy against a hard-nosed, business-like female colleague, resident cardiologist Jenny Bremner (Sarah Parish). Monroe, which follows a familiar pattern of one major emergency case per episode (although there are always secondary patients), breaks no new ground in the genre, but it does benefit from sharp writing and direction, as well as the presence of Nesbitt—a magnetic actor who can rattle off his character's theatrical dialogue with flair and make him likable despite an oversized ego. Recommended. (F. Swietek)