Pure Genius

Said writers prove to be less than slouches in the pilot, pushing several medical subplots through a meaty hour that are different and interesting enough to keep viewers tuned in until the final moments. As far as new CBS dramas go, that’s a breath of fresh air worth celebrating.

The cancer/pregnancy storyline unfortunately takes a rather predictable turn in terms of the woman’s hard-praying husband. But the dynamics between the willful Bell and his staff are well-played throughout.

The medical deduction stuff is entertaining, just as it was on “House,” and here it’s done with more high-tech gadgetry in the room. But the regular characters aren’t particularly interesting.

A formulaic medical drama. [21/28 Oct 2016, p.97]

Nobody registers much of a connection. What’s missing from this show is heart.

The show has potential, if only because with so many ideas floating around, something is bound to stick.

Without either dramatic stakes or grounded reality, Pure Genius is flat and saccharine, a longer version of the carefully pristine world seen in pharmaceutical commercials.

Pure Genius is a formulaic procedural posing as a TED talk, a standard case-of-the-week medical drama gussied up with high-tech gear and dubious science. ... It also doesn’t help that Pure Genius is built around not one, but two inert leads.

This is just a doctor drama with C.G.I. and without interesting character dynamics. Bell, at least, is a distinctive lead personality--he’s not at all likable, but that could be by design, and Mr. Prew commits to his precious smarminess.

The science behind Bell's confidence isn't complete fantasy, according to Katims, although the producer acknowledged that it's not yet available. ... That's great--at least for those who aren't facing imminent death from causes that happen to interest the writers of Pure Genius--but that lack of immediacy also means the stakes aren't as high as they are for most medical dramas, even if the graphics are much, much better.

In other words, all the same stuff you've seen on every TV medical drama back to the days of Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare, from which Pure Genius is indistinguishable except for the color photography.

A rare and probably untreatable case of a premise that comes off far more creepy than it intends.

The script is assembled from cliches, some so hokey the actors seem to have trouble keeping straight faces. The plot rarely holds together, and the technology is more new age (a real-life "Vulcan mind meld"?) than cutting age. Worst of all, both Prew and Mulroney are horribly miscast, and neither is a satisfactory entry point into the drama.

Pure Genius takes the human heart of Katims’ storytelling and replaces it with the CBS procedural’s coldly pristine machinery. It might net Katims his biggest audience to date, but it’s unlikely to make it feel much of anything.

A show so ludicrously risible, it could be mistaken for an extended Saturday Night Live sketch.

The best thing about Pure Genius is that it's laugh-out-loud funny, which CBS can't say about any of its new sitcoms. Of course, Pure Genius is a drama that's not actually supposed to be funny, so there you go.

I found Bell to be one of the least likable protagonists in a prime time series in a while, which is really saying something in a season that has given us Notorious and Bull. ... Mulroney, not one of the liveliest of TV leading men, doesn’t just bring gravity to his role, he weighs it down with cement blocks.