Royal Pains

This is a very charming series unfortunately without much depth of plot or character development. Anyone stepping onto a ladder will inevitably fall and lapse into a seizure requiring complex emergency medical treatment. Once a character has been stabilized, they will subsequently be diagnosed with a rare disease and will eventually be cured after suffering numerous heart attacks, more seizures, various bacterial infections and so on. Almost no one dies.

The show is mostly ruined by Paulo Costanzo as "Evan". I don't know if Castanzo's mother is the producer, but the show gave him way to many scenes in exchange for his contribution to the series, which is a minus nothing. Constanzo "infects" mostly every scene with his distracting lack of talent.

Costanzo's "humor" is a hybrid mix of Seinfeld and Pee-wee Herman, both of which Costanzo channels in virtually every scene. Costanzo's delivery and timing are predictably predictable and downright annoying. Just as Evan annoys the characters in the show, similarly he annoys the audience with his predictable, unfunny antics, stupid facial expressions, using too many words, and childish Pee-wee manic behavior.

Here is my prescription. To enjoy the show you need to edit out Evan. When you see Evan entering a scene in one of his little pastel suits, and silly hat du jour, together with his little, puffy pee-we pout -- quickly FAST FORWARD through the entire scene until he is gone. Trust me, you will have missed nothing.

I give this show 10 stars for handling patient-doctor confidentiality a little bit more seriously. And having great storylines. But I'm going to have to give it 4 stars for the highly annoying brother.

Perfect fantasy show about how we'd all like the world to be. It's an "Ozzie and Harriet", "Bonanza" or "Waltons" for the 21st Century.

We have too much "reality" and "shoot-em-dead" TV already. This little show is an antidote to that sort of violence.

Highly recommended for anyone who wants to stay balanced in a violent world filled with violent TV.

The setting in the Hamptons is something most of us will never experience, but that's okay. It's something we all could get used to very quickly.

The doctor in the series is exactly who we'd love to have for our personal physician (hey, he makes house calls!)

Evan is just pain irritating. Kill him off and you have got a good show.

I really enjoyed this show for it's first season. I thought the characters were really likable, they were very funny, and some of the extremely exotic conditions rich people were coming down with (all on long island, who knew?) made the show fun and rewarding. The Dr (Hank) is great and the idea of saving someone at a rich recluse's house, then being given an amazing apartment, money, and the chance to rub elbows with the secretive elite plays on my fantasies terrifically. A lot of the rich characters fall into a typical neurotic mold but there are some like Boris the house owner that creates enough mystery to keep you watching for the next episode. The son with the distant father and crazy girlfriend is a great character. Evan the brother is Hilarious and has great chemistry with the main character. The Indian assistant Divya is really funny and I like the subplot of her dreams and her conflicts with traditional Indian cultural values. I thought the girlfriend character was OK but it didn't add much and the conflicts weren't very strong or justified. Overall a really fun show.