After weeks of buzz and excitement, Nurse Jackie finally premiered last night, and as expected, star Edie Falco was, you know, excellent, and the show clearly has the balls to make her character interesting. She’s a no-nonsense ER nurse with a pill-popping problem. Somewhat unfortunately, everyone else on the show could be swapped in from an episode of ER, Grey’s, St. Elsewhere, Nurses, Chicago Hope, Green Wing, or the upcoming Mercy: the hotshot doctor is an incompetent jerk, and the new nurse is super naive. How totally unlike other hospital shows!
Showtime is touting Jackie as a “dark comedy,” but I didn’t get that aspect of it at all; it played more like House or Dexter to me than anything humorous. Yeah, there are some shenanigans — an inappropriate boob-grab, a casual Heimlich maneuvering — but I’d call the show a stylized drama before I’d call it a comedy.
Complaints aside, I can’t wait to see more episodes. There’s a lot of potential here, and as the show grows into its voice a bit more, it could be great, especially with Falco getting so much screen time. EW TV critic Ken Tucker seems to agree with me: “With Falco front and center, you don’t really care if Nurse Jackie gets silly, as with the patient whose cat attacked his scrotum (er, eek). You just want to keep on watching Jackie snort and snicker her way through another day and make it home with a tired smile.” (Check out the rest of Ken’s review.)
Did you watch last night? What’d you think? Did it feel like a “dark comedy” or more like a drama? Or maybe we’ve just had enough hospital dramas for one lifetime?
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But aren’t House or Dexter really “dark comedies”?
ste, you are right. house and dexter are dark comedies even though i think they are technically billed as “dramas”. sometimes dexter’s humor is so dark and disturbing people don’t get it.
I haven’t seen a nurse wearing a cap in 25 years.
I loved the episode, I usually steer clear of anything with lawyers, doctors or freaking cops cuz that seems to be all tv networks can produce but ever since I saw the promos, there just was something about this show that wink at you.
the little twist at the end was good and can’t wait to see more.
Wow, I really loved this! The humor is definitely dark but I found it still accessible, and it totally reeled me in. More Nurse Jackie!
I tell you what, with Dexter and Weeds and Californicatino and United States of Tara and now Nurse Jackie, Showtime is quickly becoming my favorite channel on the dial. Go Showtime!
Wow, Nurse Jacki is looking good! I need a probe! http://www.cuteguysandgirls.com/
I ABSOLUTELY HATE HER EXTRA-MARITAL AFFAIR. I’ll quit watching if she can’t get her act together quickly. Those two cute lil’ girls and a wonderful husband? It’s not right and I won’t support it.
Impossible not to compare it to House, I think it has promise/potential so I will stick with it. I love the line “god, make me good, but not yet”
@Adriene Escoe
You seriously need to calm down and take a pill. it’s a tv show, stop projecting.
The twist at the end was EXACTLY the same as the first ep of Mad Men. Not impressed.
what do you think’s gonna be better – nurse jackie or the new jada pinkett smith show hawthorne? i would say nurse jackie hands down, but the jada can bring it so and stranger things have happened, so…
The first episode was really captivating and I am already really excited about this show! Edie Falco was a brilliant casting choice and this show will definitely showcase her talent.
Showtime is now my favorite network with shows like Weeds, United States of Tara and Dexter. H.B. Who anyone?
There is a reason nurses don’t wear caps anymore. They are a carrier of germs- going from patient to patient.
Most hospitals leave a stethoscope in the pt room rather than take them from room to room again spreading infection.
I hate medical shows that are so far out of touch
I have to confess I haven’t seen the show, but from the reviews and promos I can tell you that as a nurse with 30+ years of experience: her attitude seems incompatible with the collaborative nature of health care. And she would definitely get caught with her hands in the drug cookie jar. Also, in this era of severe and worsening nurse shortages, I think it is deplorable to showcase this drug-addicted, caustic person as a role model. She may not be intended to be, but it happens.
I just watched the 1st episode. What a disappointment. I love Edie Falco but this show is a piece of junk and lacks technical accuracy. The major problem is that non medical viewers may think that all nurses are like Nurse Jackie. The Nurse Jackie show is offensive and insulting to nursing professionals who work so hard to achieve credibility and professional respect. If I used the F word as much as Nurse Jackie does I would be fired, not to mention falsifying an organ donor card, allowing a student nurse to take pictures of a patient’s injury with her camera phone (privacy violation), getting it on with a pharmacist in a supply room, or snorting stuff up her her nose etc. Nurses need to complain about this show. I wasn’t expecting Mother Theresa in scrubs but this is like Carmella Soprano goes to nursing school. I intend to contact nursing web sites and publications to voice my disappointment with the way that nursing is portrayed on this show.
nursekate…it’s time for for Vitamin P,homegirl.Yikes,that post was scary. You do know this is a television show,right? For all those people who are freakishly pre-occupied with her wearing a nursing hat,she does on this publicity photo,but she doesn’t on the show. As a pharmacist,I can tell you that there are plenty and I mean plenty of opportunities for nurses to take drugs on the job and I have seen it more times than I care to mention.It is very believable to me that this character could exist in any hospital in a large city.(I’m work in a large hospital in Chicago,trust me.) I like the show,loved Edie,dislike Momo and was disappointed with the ending. As someone else pointed out,it was the same as Mad Men’s debut episode. I’ll keep tuning in and see where this show goes from here. Showtime is the new HBO,huh? I’m loving it!
I’m not impressed.
The pilot was all over the place from a Drama to a bad comedy.
If they would have had scene’s of her throwing the ear down the toliet and then shaking off the though, it would have been more realistic.
Love affair with the pharmacist, and being a workaholic, and having a family with 2 kids? Not realistic. No one could last that long to have as much knowledge as she has and be a drug addict to function as well as she is potrayed, for a long period of time. Forging the driver’s license was totally unrealistic’s. How could she be moral and so nuts. She would make a good psych. patient though with a life like that. Maybe Greg House and her could share the ward. Now that would make a good comedy!!!
I am a registered nurse with 16 years of experience. I do not think that Nurse Jackie is suppose to be a role model. I liked the riddle: what do you call a nurse whose back goes out on her? Unemployed. I can totally relate to that. Also, I have witnessed nurses who have done drugs to cope. Drup and alcohol addiction among nurses is a problem, people need to open their eyes. I was working at a hospital where a nurse was found dead in the bathroom stall after overdosing on a narcotic. I also have known nurses who were put on probation because of drug abuse, stealing narcotics or arriving to work intoxicated. Furthermore, there are nurses out there who are burned out and take it out on physicians, other nurses, and patients.
Not all nurses are like this, but it does happen. This show is just showing a woman who is a nurse and is trying to live life the best she can.
I am a registered nurse with 16 years of experience. I do not think that Nurse Jackie is suppose to be a role model. I liked the riddle: what do you call a nurse whose back goes out on her? Unemployed. I can totally relate to that. Also, I have witnessed nurses who have done drugs to cope. Drug and alcohol addiction among nurses is a problem, people need to open their eyes. I was working at a hospital where a nurse was found dead in the bathroom stall after overdosing on a narcotic. I also have known nurses who were put on probation because of drug abuse, stealing narcotics or arriving to work intoxicated. Furthermore, there are nurses out there who are burned out and take it out on physicians, other nurses, and patients.
Not all nurses are like this, but it does happen. This show is just showing a woman who is a nurse and is trying to live life the best she can.
Just watched the 1st episode…I AM ADDICTED. I have not been this infatuated with a TV series since the Sopranos, and this is the perfect filler, specially with the brilliant Edie Falco. I would agree most of the other characters are forgetable, but I really enjoy the stereotypical gay nurse, and the innocent fresh meat nurse trainee. I am on the edge of my seat waiting for the series to begin and I actually have to buy a TV, cable, and Showtime and all purchases are worth it for me for this one program!
As a NYC nurse I think this show is right on. The relationship with docs and pts, personal issues, workload, etc…SHO has gotten it right on the head. I am a fan, all the nurses I know are fans! Jada is probably a hollywood version of nursing…we have enough of that.
Nurse Jackie has been said to be dark comedy. I agree with that. I’ve been in Nursing thirty years. I was anxious to see if the show would project a positive image of nursing.
Well it didn’t.
In light of the nursing shortage labyrinth, this projects a dark image of a noble profession.
We as nurse are practitioner of the Patterns of Knowing (Empirics, Ethics, Aesthetics, Personal Knowing, and Sociopolitical Knowing.
I can’t get beyond Edie Falco’s homely haircut.
loved it !!!
I’ve worked in hospitals for over 20 years and I don’t know of a single hospital that doesn’t randomly drug screen their employees every month. It may make for more interesting television – to portray health care professionals as pill popping drug addicts with easy access to the pharmacy – but in reality, no such an employee would last very long in that real world environment. I didn’t watch the show, I love Edie Falco – but I get annoyed very easily with poorly researched television programs.
Watch for Edie Falco–maybe the finest actress on tv. She makes Tiny Fey look like “the amateur hour.”
I loved it and I can absolutely see the comedic aspects. Like when the new nurse took a camera phone pic of that guy with the roman candle in his booty. I so didn’t see the last minute or so of the episode coming, though. That clinched the love for me. There is so much going on!
Kind of a crap show going for cheap shocks (drug use, adultery, severed ears) at the expense of the nursing profession.
One word for you real life nurses complaining….FICTIONAL!
I absolutely hate how people get insulted by what they see on TV. You can’t make a show with out a group of people protesting. We get it, not all nurses are pill popping, foul mouths. Just like we get that all Italians aren’t in the mob, all single mothers aren’t running grow operations, and all sponges don’t live under the sea and talk. It’s entertainment, it’s television. I thought the show was pretty interesting, if you didn’t that’s your opinion, but don’t say “the show didn’t do its research” or “it portrays nurses in a bad light.” Just don’t watch.