Dr. Max Goodwin walks into New Amsterdam and changes everything. He tells his staff they can save lives, make money and change the world. That sounds like a great idea. In practice, it plays out as a show about a hospital that wants to be a political drama and a medical drama at once, and it never quite decides which one to commit to.
The premise is simple. Max is a surgeon who becomes the new CEO of New York City’s public hospital, a place that serves everyone and gets paid for almost none of it. His goal is to fix the system from the inside, which means fighting insurance companies, city politicians and his own board of directors. The show is based on Bellevue Hospital, one of the oldest public hospitals in America, and it leans hard on the idea that health care is a social issue as much as a medical one.
Trailer, via Rotten Tomatoes TV.
Max Goodwin’s Mission
Max is played by Eric Dane, and he carries the show on his shoulders. He is calm, confident and often right, which makes him easy to root for. The problem is that his righteousness can become exhausting. The show trusts him so completely that it rarely lets anyone push back against his ideas, and when it does, those scenes feel more like plot devices than genuine disagreements.
His catchphrase, that doctors can save lives, make money and change the world, is meant to be inspiring. It is also the show’s clearest statement of intent. New Amsterdam wants to be a show about idealism in a broken system, and Max is its avatar. Whether that works depends on whether you believe the show can handle its own message.
The Hospital as a Character
New Amsterdam treats its setting as a character in its own right. The hospital is overcrowded, underfunded and full of patients who have nowhere else to go. It is also a place where people from all walks of life come together, which gives the show a chance to explore class, race and immigration in a way that feels grounded in daily life rather than abstract policy debates.
The show’s attention to detail is impressive. It shows the waiting room, the ER, the operating theater and the offices where decisions get made. It does not romanticize the hospital. It shows the chaos, the paperwork, the long nights and the small victories. That realism is one of the show’s strengths.
The Medical Cases
The medical cases are where New Amsterdam falls apart. They are competent, but they are rarely the point. Most episodes spend more time on Max’s political maneuvering than on the actual patients. When the show focuses on a diagnosis, it tends to be a standard procedural trope dressed up in a social justice wrapper. The result is a show that is more interested in what happens after the operation than in the operation itself.
There are exceptions. Some episodes lean harder into the medical mystery than the soap opera, and those are the ones that work best. But they are the minority. The overall pattern is clear: the show prioritizes its message over its storytelling.
The Supporting Cast
The supporting cast is where New Amsterdam finds its heart. Dr. Helen Sharpe, played by Jasmin Savoy Brown, is a brilliant surgeon who struggles with her identity as a Black woman in a field dominated by white men. Dr. Bell Shen, played by Kal Penn, is a doctor who left private practice to work at a public hospital, and his arc deals with the tension between doing good and making a living. Dr. Lauren Bloom, played by Simone Barbet, is a young doctor who is trying to find her footing in a system that is designed to grind people down.
These characters are the reason the show works at all. They are flawed, funny and relatable in a way that Max never quite reaches. Their stories are smaller than his, but they are more human. The show knows this on some level, because it keeps coming back to them even when the plot demands that Max take center stage.
The Political Plot
The political plot is where New Amsterdam loses coherence. Max spends most of the season trying to get the hospital paid fairly, which involves negotiating with the city council, the insurance industry and the state legislature. These scenes are often shot in a dark, gritty style that tries to make the politics feel dangerous, but they rarely feel that way. The villains are cartoonish, the stakes are vague, and the solutions are obvious.
The show wants you to believe that Max is a hero who is fighting a corrupt system. But the system never feels fully corrupt. It feels like a series of obstacles that Max can overcome with persistence and intelligence. There is no sense of a deeper structural problem, only a surface-level conflict that the show resolves with a speech or a vote.
The Tone Problem
The tone of New Amsterdam is inconsistent. One episode might be a tense political thriller, and the next might be a warm family comedy about Max’s relationship with his wife. The show jumps between genres without warning, and that makes it hard to follow. It is a show that wants to be optimistic but keeps undercutting itself with cynicism.
The show’s optimism is its biggest weakness. It believes that good people can win, which is a lovely sentiment. But it also believes that the system can be fixed by one man who is smarter and more committed than everyone else. That is not a realistic belief, and the show never acknowledges that it is asking the audience to accept an unrealistic premise.
What Works
There are moments where New Amsterdam succeeds. The pilot, for example, is sharp and focused. It introduces Max, his team and the hospital in a way that is both personal and political. The show is at its best when it trusts its characters to carry the story without leaning on the soap opera machinery. Those moments are rare, but they are memorable.
The show also handles its themes with a degree of honesty that is unusual for network television. It does not pretend that health care is simple or that the people who run it are saints. It shows the flaws in the system and the flaws in the people who work within it. That honesty is refreshing, even when the storytelling around it falters.
The Verdict
New Amsterdam is a show with a good idea and a weak execution. It is a show about a hospital that wants to be a political drama, but it does not have the discipline to make that work. The medical cases are competent, the characters are engaging, and the setting is vivid. But the plotting is loose, the tone is uneven, and the message is muddled.
The show’s score is 4.7 out of 10. That reflects a show that is better than average but far from excellent. It is a show that you can watch without feeling like you wasted your time, but you will not remember it fondly afterward.
Key Facts Box
– Title: New Amsterdam
– Network: NBC
– Premiere: September 24, 2018
– Creator: David Schulner
– Lead actor: Eric Dane
– Score: 4.7/10
Ranking the Episodes
Here is a rough ranking of the show’s strengths:
- The pilot, which sets up the premise with confidence and clarity.
- Any episode that focuses on a character’s personal growth, particularly the ones involving Helen or Bell.
- The episodes that deal with systemic issues, such as insurance company practices or hospital funding.
- The episodes that try to be a political thriller, which often fall flat.
- The episodes that lean on melodrama, which feel like filler.
- The final episode, which wraps up the season with a pat resolution.
The ranking shows that the show’s best work is at its beginning and its middle, while its weakest episodes are the ones that try to be everything at once.
Final Word
New Amsterdam is a show that wants to be important. It wants to say something about health care, about power, about the people who serve the public. It has the ambition to succeed. But it lacks the craft to deliver on that ambition consistently.
The show is worth watching for the performances, for the setting and for the occasional moment of genuine insight. But it is not worth recommending to anyone looking for a great show. It is a good show with a great idea, and that is a small comfort.
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