Those who love medical dramas will want to check out Brilliant Minds on NBC. It’s the latest medical drama with a lead character with a twist.
Zachary Quinto stars as Dr. Oliver Wolf, who has a medical issue of his own. He suffers from face blindness, which means that he doesn’t recognize people he meets. This can make it difficult to do his job, but fortunately, he’s found a way to make it work for him.
He is a neurologist, who is more interested in helping people. However, an incident at a hospital leads to him being fired and moving onto another job with interns to teach. Can they keep up with his unconventional ways?
Brilliant Minds may be on at 10 p.m. but it is a TV-14 series
When a show airs at 10 p.m. ET/PT on a broadcast network, it can come across as a dark show for adults. Well, despite this, the series is rated TV-14, and it earns that age rating. Let’s take a look at the breakdown to see why it got the rating that it did.
Sex & nudity: The first episode doesn’t have much in the way of sex or nudity. There is a moment when Oliver strips down to his underwear to swim in the Hudson. There is also a scene in the locker room and in various states of undress.
However, we don’t see any full-frontal nudity or any sex. There are likely going to be some moments where sexual relationships are referred or mentioned, but this is still an NBC series. There are limits on what can be shown on broadcast TV.
Violence & gore: The first episode didn’t have much in the way of violence and gore. There were some scary moments and some implied potential violence, but nothing shown on the screen. This series focuses on issues within the brain, and the first episode includes a patient who feels like her sons will harm her and are evil, and we have scenes where we see what she sees.
There’s an intriguing element to the medical issues already, especially with the way the show is filmed. It takes away from the scary and focuses on the real issue to raise awareness of some problems.
Language: As this is a broadcast series, the language is kept to a minimum. The B-word is the harshest of the words uttered, and even that’s not that often. “Goddamn” and similar words are used regularly, making it mild in terms of language.
Alcohol & drugs: This is where you’ll want to monitor the kids. The lead character makes it clear that he takes drugs now and then. When one of the interns offers for everyone to split a prescription pill with her, Oliver takes him up on the offer. Some of the characters used prescription medications to cope, which is an issue within the medical field.
This isn’t glorified in any way. The series focuses on the issues for doctors with easy access to medication.
Of course, there are mentions of other drugs and medications. This is within a clinical setting, but the names of some drugs can trigger some people.
Overall verdict: Who is Brilliant Minds appropriate for?
While the series is rated TV-14, this is going to be something more for older teens than the younger ones. There are a lot of medical topics that come up in just the first episode alone. It is heavily character-driven, which can lead to younger teens and tweens tuning out the series. As for the factors that make up the age rating, the series is most definitely suitable for your teens.