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An Inside Look at How Brilliant Minds Updated "The Disembodied Woman" for 2024
Brilliant Minds advisor Kate Edgar explains how this week's case now connects more than ever.
A fascinating and unique aspect to NBC's new medical drama, Brilliant Minds, is that the neurological cases treated in each episode by the fictional Bronx General Hospital Neurology Attending, Dr. Oliver Wolf (Zachary Quinto) are actually all based on the real case studies of world-renowned neurologist and writer, Dr. Oliver Sacks (1933-2015).
Showrunner Michael Grassi plucked many of the A-story cases right from Sacks' non-fiction books: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales (1985) and An Anthropologist on Mars (1995). For example in this week's episode, "The Disembodied Woman," the predicament of beloved basketball coach Jesse Williams (Nedra Marie Taylor) is based on a case with the same name featured in Sacks' 1985 book about a patient with acute polyneuropathy. However, the now 40-year old case has been updated to reflect modern times and how medicine treats the condition with the benefit of four decades of new research.
NBC Insider recently spoke with Kate Edgar, Sacks' friend, former editor, and the current director of The Oliver Sacks Foundation, to find out how the changes make the show more relatable for audiences today.
Dr. Oliver Sacks' Original Case Study for "The Disembodied Lady"
In Sacks' case study chapter of "The Disembodied Lady" in his book, the patient, Christina, is a young 20-something mother of two. She's about to have gallbladder surgery when she dreams that she can't feel or control her body, which makes it impossible for her to connect with the floor beneath her. When Sacks digs deeper into what she details is happening to her, he orders a spinal tap which reveals that she is experiencing a rare form of acute polyneuritis affecting her cranial nerves. She has lost her sense of proprioception, which is her sense of body parts in relation to one another.
The Brilliant Minds version of "The Disembodied Lady"
In the series, Grassi and his writers turned Christina into Coach Williams, an award-winning player and current coach who is beloved by the community and well-known for her sporting achievements. It's how she defines herself as a person.
"To make [the case] in 2024 about a beloved coach and athlete, it was a really brilliant move," Edgar explained. "It really helped the audience understand how important movement is. It's important to all of us, but especially to this woman whose whole life has been about that."
She continued, "The thing about Oliver's stories is that they tend to focus on a single patient, or maybe a couple who represent a much larger number of people who have similar conditions. But every condition is something that's happening to an individual person, and that's why people love Oliver's stories. There's a unique situation, but there's also a universality."
By framing Coach William's case through the lens of today, Edgar said there's a potential continuation of what Sacks' work has always done.
"It's a huge thing in helping people to understand what they may have, or what their loved ones may have," she said of the mystery that surrounds many neurological disorders. "And one of the things that constantly happened in Oliver Sacks' world is that whenever a piece was published, or a book was published, he would get a deluge of mail saying, 'Oh, now I know what I have!' So, it's very important to have the media telling these stories."
New episodes of Brilliant Minds premiere on Mondays on NBC at 10/9c and are available to stream on Peacock.
