Intolerant Television: Brilliant Minds | The North State Journal

At Intolerant TV, we watch every new show on network television during the fall season – so you don't have to. However, we don't watch them for long. Instead of giving thumbs up/down or a certain number of stars, we'll tell you how long we sat through the pilot before turning it off.

Hey, it's Zachary Quinto! We begin with him looking at his reflection in the elevator doors, which distorts his face and turns it into a metaphor.

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Not that we need any metaphors, because Quinto tells us in the second sentence of the entire show, “I don't think you can treat a patient without understanding who they really are.”

If you still don't know exactly what this show is about, the third sentence is: “Sometimes the only treatment is to break the rules.”

Look, other medical shows might waste time showing you this, but Brilliant Minds just gets it all out of the way by telling it. His fourth sentence should be: “There was a patient who we had difficulty diagnosing and was about to die,” followed by “But I found out what it was and saved him.” Then they could We'll finish the pilot before the elevator doors open.

The exhibition elevator reaches its floor and Quinto leaves the room looking just as crazy as he did in Heroes. He sneaks into a patient's room, disguises him and tries to smuggle him out of the hospital in a wheelchair. We're only a minute into it and we've already seen an elevator scene and a scene with the kidnapping of the disguised patient. All he has to do is meet someone in an on-call room and there's “Medical Show Bingo” before the opening credits.

The nurses catch him, but Zachary jumps into the elevator and speeds away with the patient on a motorcycle… because he's breaking the rules.

Zachary brings the patient who was on the Alzheimer's floor to his granddaughter's wedding. Because he feels a connection to the guy. Because he also has a cognitive problem – he can't recognize faces. How do I know this? Because one of the nurses tells us directly. You won't have any trouble interpreting this show, that's what I'm saying. It's House with Cliff's Notes.

I really should have pulled the plug on this before the cold show ended, but I loved Zachary Quinto as Sylar and tolerated him as Spock. I also liked house music.

Hospital supervisors call Zachary into a meeting to yell at him. He gives another speech explaining the premise of the show, but they decide

to fire him anyway. Twist! Opening credits!

Zachary is home – he likes ferns. They're lying around everywhere, hoarder-style, including in the newspaper clippings in the fridge. Tamberla Perry shows up and tries to get him to take a job. The exhibit continues to be hot and heavy, including Tamberla telling us that Zachary likes ferns.

Then Zachary says he can't take a job at the Tamberla hospital. “You know why.” And the subject changes.

Won't you tell us? After everything else was served to us in an unsavory mush of dialogue? We have a flashback to Zachary's childhood. His father had a similar problem and swimming was important to him. Back in the present, Zachary thinks about this while swimming… in the Hudson River. OK. I tried. We're done here.

Time of Death: Extremely generous 12 minutes.