ABC will air its new multi-camera comedy drama, "Dr Ken", at 8.30 pm on Friday, 2 October. It is a semi-autobiography of standup comedian Ken Jeong, who was a doctor before entering the entertainment world.
The television drama, which will be live streamed here, has been written, created and co-produced by Jeong and it tells the story of a lovable and cranky head medical officer. It features Suzy Nakamura as his wife Allison Park, Krista Marie Yu as their teenage daughter Molly Park and Albert Tsai as son Dave Park.
The official synopsis of episode 1 states, "Dr. Ken's staff includes a sharp tongued receptionist, a faithful nurse who is a confidante and partner-in-crime, and his nemesis, the hospital administrator, who never misses a chance to put the screws to him and his staff."
Here are some of the early reviews of "Dr Ken" that briefly explains what to expect from Jeong and team:
At first glance, Dr. Ken sounds like a show tailor-made for Community and The Hangover star Ken Jeong. Unfortunately, his new multi-camera sitcom on ABC is a grind, top to bottom. Between the eye-rolling "humor" and cookie-cutter characters, there is nothing funny or memorable about this show. The only lasting impression Dr. Ken's premiere will make is getting Katy Perry's "Roar" stuck in your head again.
Based rather loosely on star and co-creator Ken Jeong's own prestardom background as a doctor, Dr. Ken has ample components that could be the basis for a good sitcom, and even the show's biggest flaw is not without potential, but the alignment is so out-of-sync that it's easier to imagine viewers tuning out at the first commercial break than sticking around for 13 or 22 episodes to see if Dr. Ken becomes the best, or even a better, version of itself.
Like ABC's returning sitcoms from last season, Fresh Off the Boat and Black-ish, Dr. Ken is built around a group that has too seldom been given pride-of-place in an American comedy: In this case, an extended Korean-American family. Unlike those shows, it's trying to do so with a star who seems incapable of breathing fresh life into stale material.
Written by Jared Stern and directed by the sitcom veteran Scott Ellis, the "Dr. Ken" pilot is a tough watch - a relentlessly mediocre and formulaic half-hour of family comedy that appears to have no aspirations to satire. Ken is one of those clueless television misanthropes who insults and bullies his patients, ignores his staff and lectures his children but can be counted on to go marshmallowy before the end credits.
On the plus side, "Dr. Ken" is essentially colorblind, inasmuch as this could be any American family. On the down side, everything about it is equally generic, and one could argue that ABC's "Fresh Off the Boat" is much richer because it makes the show specific to the Asian-American experience without sacrificing those universal qualities.
