New Amsterdam: Why Our Favorite Netflix Show Is About To Get Even More Relevant

REVISION: Two and a half years after its debut, some Kiwi viewers are just discovering the delights of New Amsterdam.

An American medical drama with a bevy of memorable characters, something to say about the state of modern medicine (particularly in America) and offers a solid dose of “the sensations,” it has been hiding in Sky TV’s Neon and SoHo ( and even open on Prime) until the last few weeks, when its first season finally made its appearance on Netflix. It’s been the number one show seen here on the global streaming service pretty much ever since.

It seems like a whole new audience is lapping up the lives and loves of staff and patients at “America’s oldest public hospital.” Inspired by the memoirs of real-life medical director, Dr. Eric Manheimer Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital, follows the idealistic Dr. Max Goodwin (The blacklistRyan Eggold) as he tries to transform the fragile institution into something that can better serve his patients, the people of New York, often those without insurance. “How I can help?” is Max’s chorus practically throughout the first season, as he criticizes injustice, inequality, and attempts to hold his failed marriage together.

Of course, as has been the case with the “soap operas” set in primetime hospitals in St Elsewhere to Chicago Hope, IS, Grey’s Anatomy Y The residentThere are many other crises among support staff, be it drug addiction, relationship problems, cultural differences, and genetic disorders. But unlike their counterparts today, De Gray Y The resident, there is a tranquility, a subtlety and abundance of sensitivity and heart that makes her stand out.

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The good news for the new Amsterdam Fans who have recently seen their way through those 16 episodes on ‘Flix is ​​that not only is there a second season on Neon, but the third begins in the US today (March 3 NZ time). and on that New Zealand owned streaming service and Sky Go next Thursday (March 11).

With the latest series truncated by Covid-19 flooding real-life New York hospitals, writers even had to replace a pandemic episode because it was too close to reality, events resumed with the worst seemingly over and vaccines. they are now administered to front-line hospital workers.

But unlike The residents In a recent and unique approach, the effects of the virus still linger and are likely to do so over the next few episodes. That’s not just in the immediate and troubling view of beloved neurology expert Vijay Kapoor (Anupam Kher) hooked up to a ventilator, but also in the emotional cost, as oncology chief Helen Sharpe (formerly) put it. Doctor who star Freema Agyeman) and the head of the Emergency Department Lauren Bloom (Janet Montgomery).

“Friends, restaurants, intimacy, it all feels so strange, it feels so bad,” Sharpe laments, as she struggles with life after the lockdown and tries to rekindle a pre-Covid spark with newcomer Cassian Shin (Daniel Dae Kim) .

Bloom feels just as adrift. “I miss the worst of the pandemic. When ED was above my capacity, I felt like I had spent my entire life training for a moment that finally came. Now, I’m supposed to pretend to patients like it doesn’t matter. “

“We were at war, Lauren. It’s okay to miss the fight, ”assures him the head of the psychology department, Iggy Frome (Tyler Labine). However, he has problems of his own, trying to suppress an eating disorder, somewhat estranged from his partner, and, in the season-opening episode, trying to solve the riddle of whether a 747 pilot with bipolar disorder deliberately abandoned his plane. in the nearby river. It is up to him and Max to try to determine what really happened, before the authorities take the captain away.

If that case of the week looks a bit like 2009 (when US Flight 1549 ended up on the Hudson under the command of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger), it’s the dated portion of an episode that seems surprisingly up-to-date. the minute and relevant to our “new normal.”

There are no feverish flights of fancy here (well, maybe just a small one, but it doesn’t involve characters long gone from the show), just candid discussions and sobering evaluations of what we’ve lost and the hardships that await us. A scene that is both hilarious and outrageous involves Max negotiating with other hospital bosses about the exchange of supplies. Forget toilet paper, life-saving and health-enhancing drugs are critical shortage points. They all confess to going to Home Depot to get an extra vent tube, while one laments that “my 15-year-old daughter has better access to drugs than I do.” All this frustration and the feeling that “the system left us when we needed it most” has given Max a new determination.

“I don’t want to fix the hospital anymore. I want to tear it down and build something better. “

That their idealistic schemes don’t always work, it’s part of New Amsterdam charm. As your long-suffering board chair Karen Brantley (Debra Monk) observes, “All of his wonderful ideas cause the most chaos.”

Along with a diverse set of performers whose creations are nuanced and complex, rather than simply black and white, a writing that may err on the side of sentimentality, but is never less than crisp, medical scenes that are visceral without leaving you feeling. apprehensive, and it’s easy to see why New Amsterdam it’s gaining more fans all the time and has been renewed for at least another two seasons.

Season 1 of New Amsterdam is now available to stream on Netflix and Neon. Season 2 is available on Neon, and Season 3 will debut on Neon and Sky Go on March 11.