‘St. Denis Medical’ Puts on a Workplace Comedy Clinic

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In the third act of “St. Denis Medical’s” fourth episode, “Salamat You Too,” a group of nurses are on break when the head nurse, Alex (Allison Tolman), interrupts to gently reprimand their previous insubordination. Earlier, the self-identified “Filipino Mafia” didn’t like when Alex split up their “clique,” so they simply ignored her orders and stuck together. Then, in an effort to reestablish her authority, Alex walks to the dry-erase board and tries to remind her colleagues that she’s the boss — a simple declaration that nevertheless requires a six-part written breakdown (including one particularly abstract acronym).

Alex is the focal point of the scene. She’s leading the meeting — issuing directives, speaking emphatically, gesticulating wildly — and Tolman’s ability to channel relatable frustrations through passive aggressive instructions is pretty funny. But even with her talent on full display, the funniest bits take place in the background. One even starts before the scene itself, when Matt (Mekki Leeper) takes a bite of his Filipino colleagues’ shared meal and says, “This chicken is really spicy. What do you call it?” Staring pointedly back at him, Rene (Nico Santos) replies, “Costco rotisserie chicken.”

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A few minutes later, as Alex is writing the word “RESPECT” on the whiteboard, the camera catches Matt taking a swig of water and gasping in relief, as if his mouth is on fire from the mass market retail store’s lightly salted lunch option. If this is the first episode of “St. Denis Medical” you’ve seen — or if you simply weren’t paying close attention to Matt’s introduction — then you may not know the young male nurse hails from a sheltered religious community in the mountains of Montana, where one can imagine most meals were as simple and straightforward as only an Old Testament God would provide. But knowing this about Matt only enhances a joke that’s humor is clear regardless. Why? Because Matt is a white guy sampling cuisine he believes to be Filipino in origin. Not only is it funny that he doesn’t recognize a chicken dish as plain and pale as his alabaster skin, but it’s also funny that even after he’s told of it’s origins, he can’t help but be overwhelmed by the heat.

As a white guy routinely taken down by food with the slightest spice to it, perhaps my appreciation of this joke is a bit overblown. But what’s great about “St. Denis Medical” isn’t this joke specifically; it’s how many of these sly little moments are peppered into every episode. Like “Superstore” before it, Justin Spitzer and Eric Ledgin’s new NBC workplace sitcom understands that modern TV comedies can’t exist on a single comic plane. The scene’s focal point can’t be its only source of comedy, just as the comedy itself can’t always be a set-up, then a punchline, set-up, punchline. Humor has to be layered into the performances, baked into the staging, evoked in the blocking, and elevated by the editing.

To put it bluntly: Comedies that you can listen to without watching won’t cut it. To hold the attention of today’s audiences — who are involuntarily tempted to check our phones or driven to multitask during whatever downtime we can get — the jokes have to come from anywhere and everywhere. They have to fly in so consistently, so multilaterally, that viewers who glance away from the screen will worry they missed a good one.

So whether you liked the chicken joke or not, “St. Denis Medical” knows to have another gag on the way, stat. In that scene alone, after a cutaway to catch up with the episode’s other storylines, we come back to see Alex has scrawled three more rules on the board, two of which repeat the same thing (that the head nurse is in charge), while the last one simply reads, “Have fun.”

Elsewhere, the hospital’s executive director, Joyce (Wendi McClendon-Covey), is looking to name a new Featured Employee, but she can only find “turds.” One such unqualified candidate is a nurse trying to pop her own pimple. Another is a janitor smoking in the hospital hallway, and the last is a doctor eating yogurt with his fingers. None of these characters have lines, but all of them provide audible laughter. It’s the montage — and Joyce’s disgusted expressions — that bring on the giggles.

Later, episode writers Bridget Kyle and Vicky Luu flex the series’ ear for dialogue — via an exchange that includes “I was the victim of your note” vs. “You were the recipient of my note” — while taking proper advantage of David Alan Grier’s cantankerous charm. (The way he ends the increasingly hostile argument with, “I. Like. YOU.” is a nice little cherry on top of the debate sundae.)

There are plenty more examples scattered throughout Episode 4, but I’ve repeated enough comedy for one article. (How’s that old saying go? “Jokes are funnier when you have to explain them”?) What matters is that even though “St. Denis Medical” is still in the early stages of its sitcom life, it’s showing off a sturdy set of legs. Characters will change, dynamics will shift, and storylines will come and go, but Spitzer and Ledgin (who serves as showrunner) have earned the audience’s investment in a series only four episodes old by showing a clear grasp of the fundamentals — of what separates a passable comedy from an unmissable one. (Don’t be scared to jump in now! It’s OK to watch TV weekly! It can even be fun sometimes!)

After all, how awkward would it be if these overworked, underpaid hospital staffers were serving up under-worked, over-simplified jokes? Aren’t the 9-to-6 grinders depicted in “St. Denis Medical” also the show’s target audience? Don’t the people doling out medicine all day and night also deserve the best medicine themselves? And we all know what that is: laughter. Laughter is the best medicine. Yes, OK, I’ll see myself out.