Netflix's also-ran ER hospital drama

An interesting week for TV.

First up, you have Netflix’s Pulse. There is a shift underway with TV right now where TV networks and streamers are falling back in love with the procedural. Audiences are consistently turning up for them and the TV powers that be are happy to indulge the hunger for it. After all - they can be much cheaper to make than a show with a bit more… uh… ambition.

And frankly, I’m very okay with this. Like many viewers, I am fed up with shows purporting to be an 8-hour movie rather than just being good-to-great TV. Nobody wants to sit through an 8-hour movie.

Pulse is Netflix’s first crack at an American hospital drama and it comes off as a weak tea Greys Anatomy. It’s not that the show is terrible (it isn’t terrible… it just isn’t good), but it really fails under the burden of expectation coming out just a few months after the considerably better The Pitt.

Back in 1994, Chicago Hope had the misfortune of debuting within days of ER. And look, I really liked Chicago Hope back in the day, but the show just wasn’t in the same league as ER. Pulse is no Chicago Hope, but it’s most certainly not in the league of the excellent The Pitt.

If you want a lightweight hospital soap where instead of doctors doing medicine you are very conscious that you are watching actors pretend to be doctors doing medicine, Pulse will make you happy.

THE show of the week is without a doubt the Michelle Williams dramedy Dying For Sex. I’m yet to press play, but reviews have all been uniformly very supportive of the show, which is about a woman exploring the boundaries of her sexuality after being diagnosed with cancer. Importantly, the show is written by Liz Meriwether, who is best known for New Girl and her 2022 mini-series The Dropout.

The show is just 8 episodes, with episodes hovering around the 30 minute mark. It’s all available to stream now.

Why haven’t I pressed play on Dying For Sex yet? Well, I got sent by Amazon screeners for the new Amy Sherman-Palladino drama Etoile.

I’m very much under embargo, so I’m not going to say a peep about the show, which (I can tell you because it’s in the trailer) is about ballet companies in New York and Paris doing a talent swap as a PR play to generate some interest in ballet once more.

It doesn’t debut until April 24, so my advice…