TV is the New Reading

‘Mental’ a bit too quirky

I’ve never dropped trou in the front offices of anywhere I’ve worked.

I feel no shame in making this announcement, which happens to be true. I imagine most people would be able to say the same thing confident in the truth of their statement.

So when the new boss of a psych ward encounters a mental patient who is apparently reacting to a delusion of reptilian features on his fellow men by stripping naked and insisting he is not one of them, the new psych director – as new as can be, actually having just arrived – stripping down in solidarity to convince the man he’s human too, well ...

... OK, there’s lots of ways that could backfire. For one thing, since the delusion was in the patient’s head, there’s nothing to say he wouldn’t project the same delusion on the psychiatrist – Dr. Jack Gallagher played by Chris Vance – despite the fact that he stripped down to nothing in a place where there were camera phones and an instant YouTube uplink.

As the day continued we got to see the good doctor invite the patients into the staff meeting (a great idea except I imagine it’s harder to share information about patient care with them in the room, especially given doctor-patient confidentiality) and oh yes, disrupt a day clinic and let all the patients – some of them suicidal – dance outside and play near the pool – because, he said, life isn’t orderly and they need to be able to react and adjust, although one suspects some of them are in a psych ward because life outside got too disorderly for them to handle and they’re in a process of rebuilding themselves.

But never mind, because the earlier patient, Vince Martin, played by Silas Weir Mitchell (who also played mental patient Haywire in “Prison Break”), is scratching artwork on the walls and is generally disappointed by the results.

Gallagher spends some time with Martin to determine why he went off his medications, but is hampered at every turn by Martin’s custodial sister and second-guessing by his staff, who he sends forth from the hospital – Wharton Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles – to interview Martin’s family.

It’s not until Gallagher breaks into Martin’s home and sees Martin’s artwork that it becomes clear to him what’s going on. Martin is an artist, but his medications make it impossible to do anything creative, so he just trudges unhappily through a menial job.

Gallagher wants to balance his meds so that he can function, but also continue to create. A lovely goal. In fact, I’ve encountered Martin before – a brilliant artist with schizophrenia – and it’s a fine balance indeed to find a regimen that allows for a creative outlet but also controls the neuroses, and that’s as much a priority for Martin as it is for everyone else.

So maybe I’m the wrong audience. I don’t see the neuroses as wacky fun – one of the patients in the day clinic was an older woman who seemed to be suffering from nymphomania – but rather as scary, debilitating concerns that can take months and years to recover from. One patient’s problems with perception affect potentially everyone they encounter. They can destroy lives, there are serious stigmas attached, and they are rarely wrapped up in a one-hour show, even by a brilliant young doctor breezing into a new situation and removing all of his clothing.

While it’s a clear metaphor for joining the patients at their level to demonstrate empathy, I wonder: Would the same approach have worked with Ms. Nymph, or might that actually have made things somewhat worse?

No matter. The show seemed bent on establishing Gallagher as the psychiatric version of Dr. House on “House,” a brilliant diagnostician and loon whisperer, who knows instantly what’s wrong with all the patients just by looking at them and positing a brilliant course of treatment that’s always successful.

What will the other psychiatrists do?

“Mental” airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on FOX.

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