Mental Gets Thumbs Down Here

I watched the first ten minutes of Fox's " Mental " last night. The show opened with a psychotic guy being admitted to the psych unit. Accompanied by police. In my 11 years on the unit, I never saw anyone admitted to the unit accompanied by cops. The psychotic guy, a wild eyed Charles Manson lookalike ( Psychotic people are most likely to look like high school principals, grocery clerks and golf pros ) breaks away, strips all of his clothes off. The cops draw their guns. Again, these are cops, not hospital security people who, in my experience, were always called in as a last resort. We ( staff ) could handle just about anything. Psychotic people broke loose all the time.

So. How does this get handled? You guessed it ( You actually did not, nor did I ) The new Medical Director strips all of HIS clothes off and approaches the psychotic guy. " Trust me, " says the psychiatrist. The guy trusts him. Immediately. Talk about the ability to build rapport quickly.

From the little I saw of this show, virtually all of the main characters, key players on the unit, are shrinks. No nurses. No counselors. All terrific looking doctors.

Talk about medical models.

I didn't see one character playing the kind of role I played. Or Senor Collins played ( He's a psych nurse ) Or Jennifer Warner Cooper played ( she was a counselor ) Another character in the drama is a hospital administrator whose outfit is , in a way, perfect for a show about psych. Psych, at least part of it, is about getting things off your chest. The female administrator literally gets things off hers. Low cut doesn't even begin to describe the dress she was wearing in her first scene with the new Medical Director, who had just put his clothes back on.

All in all a ridiculous show. What's next Fox? A show about dentists?

Coming soon:

Dental.

The denstists will do everything. Greet you at the desk in the lobby. Clean your teeth. Low level front line troops like receptionists and hygienists?

Who needs 'em.