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How Brilliant Minds Is Taking Inspiration from This Is Us and Will & Grace Over ER
Series creator Michael Grassi calls Brilliant Minds more "This Is Us: Medical" than ER.
When NBC's new medical drama Brilliant Minds premieres on September 23, audiences will meet Dr. Oliver Wolf. Played by Zachary Quinto (Heroes, Star Trek), Dr. Wolf is unlike any other lead in a medical procedural series. And that's because Brilliant Minds is a different kind of medical procedural altogether.
RELATED: Zachary Quinto's Dr. Wolf Has a Unique Skill in Medical Drama Brilliant Minds
Creator Michael Grassi explained in a new cover story with Entertainment Weekly that, while he grew up a fan of medical series such as NBC's OG hit ER — which ran for 15 seasons from 1994 to 2005 — he was much more interested in creating something inspired by the likes of This Is Us and Will & Grace.
Brilliant Minds is closer to "This Is Us: Medical" than ER
"I really want people to be able to come to this show and find themselves in it, and find their own stories and know that they're not alone," he told EW. "I want the subject matter that we're tackling to be in conversation with things that we are talking about today, but I really want to deliver emotionally for audiences. I always imagined this being This Is Us: Medical, in terms of the emotional storytelling. There's medical mysteries, but it's also an emotional procedural."
The series' emotional core revolves around not just Wolf and his fellow doctors at Bronx General Hospital but the patients as well. Dr. Wolf believes more than anything that treating the person behind the affliction is his true mission.
RELATED: Brilliant Minds' Tamberla Perry Reveals How the Series & Characters Are Changing Her Life
That compassion comes from the real-life inspiration for Wolf, Dr. Oliver Sacks, a groundbreaking neurologist perhaps best known for Awakenings, his 1973 non-fiction book that was later adapted into the 1990 Robin Williams and Robert De Niro film of the same name. Grassi was a huge fan of the film and later immersed himself in Sacks' work.
"I completely steeped myself in his world," Grassi said. "And I fell in love with his work and his life. I saw a tremendous opportunity to create a medical show that we hadn't seen before through this new lens of Oliver Sacks and how he approached medicine and mental health."
In addition to his academic and medical work, Grassi explained, Sacks' estate was also "trying to find a safe place for Oliver Sacks to be out and gay. And this show is the safe place they've always wanted."
The Will & Grace Factor
That's where the other big inspiration for Brilliant Minds came into play. Grassi wanted to create something that paid homage to what Will & Grace — which ran for 11 total seasons on NBC from 1998-2005 and 2017-2020 — meant to him as a young gay man.
"I don't know if I'd be sitting here today if it wasn't for that kind of groundbreaking show," he said of Will & Grace. "In a lot of ways, Brilliant Minds is picking up that mantle. A gay lead at the center of a network medical drama feels really special, new, and exciting."
RELATED: Brilliant Minds' Zachary Quinto: It's a "Significant Honor" to Play Openly Gay Doctor
Quinto, who came out as gay in 2011, is of the same mindset.
"It's a real honor for me to be playing an openly gay character on a primetime network television series where the character's identity is a comfortable aspect of who the character is," Quinto said of portraying Wolf.
But that doesn't mean Wolf's life is hunky-dory. Wolf's identity as a gay man, Quinto explained, "is the source of a lot of personal conflict for the character. His relationship to his sexuality, to intimacy, and to his family is complicated. All things that are very relatable and understandable from a human experience."
Brilliant Minds premieres on NBC on Monday, September 23 at 10 p.m.
