Smart show near death
The operation was a success, but the patient died. Monday Mornings, David E. Kelley and Sanjay Gupta’s effort to inject a little intelligence into prime-time TV with a medical drama about neurosurgeons, ends the season a noble failure — well-written, deftly acted and not likely to return.
Always thoughtful, often emotional, occasionally overwrought and sometimes a little too melodramatic, Monday Mornings provided an antidote nonetheless to witless sitcoms and increasingly tiresome cop shows.
Week in and week out, Mornings’ cast — Alfred Molina, Ving Rhames, Jamie Bamber, Bill Irwin and Jennifer Finnigan, among others — were individually unique yet uniformly fine.
In the end, though, it wasn’t enough. When Mornings ends this week, it probably won’t be back.
This is one case where a season finale is in fact a series finale, by any other name.
The episode follows transplant chief Buck Tierney (Irwin) and Chelsea General chief-of-medicine Harding Hooten (Molina) to court, after a grieving son refuses to comply with his mother’s final wishes.
The legal issue — who has final say when organ donation is at stake — is the kind of moral conundrum Monday Mornings tackled on a weekly basis. (Bravo — 8 p.m.)
Jay Leno’s Tonight Show guests include Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Anthony Jeselnik with a performance by Vintage Trouble, too. (NBC, CTV Two — 12:35 a.m.)
In a rerun from January, David Letterman welcomes Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) and animal handler Jack Hanna to The Late Show. (CBS — 12:35 a.m.)
Heir to the Tonight Show throne and king-in-waiting Jimmy Fallon, meanwhile, invites Keith Richards to Late Night, along with Edie Falco. (NBC, CTV Two —1:35 a.m.)