Man with a scan: Zachary Quinto solves mysteries of the brain in Brilliant Minds

Zachary Quinto is the brains of the operation.

He's only been on set for a few minutes, striking poses for Entertainment Weekly's cameras with the precision of a scalpel cut — and it's abundantly evident that the actor knows his craft as well as a surgeon. Looking at the monitor in between takes, Quinto can tell exactly how to raise an eyebrow or turn his chin to achieve the effect he wants as he examines skull X-rays and superimposes his face behind them.

Quinto has always had a thing for brains. The actor broke out on Heroes playing a super-villain who eats them as a power source, starred as one of pop culture's most iconic brainiacs as Star Trek's Spock, and even played a (seriously disturbed) mental health specialist on American Horror Story: Asylum. But if he seems like a natural with the various medical scans he's using as props, it's because Quinto's been honing that skill as Dr. Oliver Wolf on Brilliant Minds, a new drama heading to NBC on Sept. 23. Dr. Wolf is a neurologist who uses unconventional methods to solve his patients' medical mysteries, while also wrestling with his own mental health, his sexuality, and his prosopagnosia (a.k.a. face blindness). Still, he might be the most "normal" character Quinto's ever played.

"Wolf has not got any ulterior darkness to him," Quinto muses to EW, on a lunch break in his Brilliant Minds Toronto trailer. "He is iconoclastic, he's rebellious, he sometimes acts before he thinks — but at his core, he is a good person. It's nice to be playing a character who maybe colors outside the lines a little bit, but who is always doing it in service of people and improving their lives."

It's that opportunity to play a character "rooted in light" that attracted him to Brilliant Minds. "This idea of how far he is willing to go to honor his patients, to help them rediscover some degree of integrity and dignity in their lives — I was fascinated by the dynamics of that storytelling," he adds. "That's what brought me back to network TV."

Quinto was initially resistant to returning, largely because the notion of being the lead on a medical procedural felt daunting in more ways than one. "The idea of signing on to something that could go on for years gave me pause," he admits. Not to mention the fact that since Heroes ended, streaming entered the landscape, pushing network TV into a state of decline from which it's only beginning to emerge. And Quinto is hopeful that a doctor will be able to keep network TV on the path to recovery. 

"The conversation around network versus streaming has shifted, and the industry has experienced a return to [a type of] television it had departed pretty significantly from," Quinto says. "There's something about the reliability of [network procedurals]. Audiences are more interested in appointment television than they were for a little while."

It can be somewhat hard to quantify this beyond vibes (given that streaming platforms provide limited data when it comes to ratings — and rank things by minutes streamed rather than total number of viewers), but Quinto isn't wrong. According to Nielsen, broadcast and cable television still account for more than 50 percent of TV usage throughout the year, and broadcast series consistently outpace cable shows by several million viewers.

While streaming's share of total TV usage time has grown year-over-year (hitting a new high of 38.8 percent in May), there's signs it could be slowing down as resentment grows over the habit of most streamers releasing their originals in small batches, sometimes years apart… or at least signs that viewers are more interested in network procedurals, even if they're watching them on streaming platforms. Most notably, after Stranger Things topped all streaming ratings in 2022, the following year saw a return to acquired network properties vastly outpacing streaming originals, with the unexpected success of repeats on shows like the USA original Suits (which broke streaming records for months), and Young Sheldon (which shot to the top of the Nielsen streaming chart after the CBS comedy was added to Netflix last November). 

When it comes to network medical dramas, Grey's Anatomy consistently still charts in the streaming top 10, while Chicago Med has crept from its initial broadcast rank of 37 in season 1 to a spot inside the top 10 — landing in 9th place for season 8, before falling back to 12th place for season 9. Like a trusted family doctor, perhaps nothing is more familiar than the medical drama. Since the earliest days of television, they've been as essential to networks as an MRI is to a neurologist. "Networks are a great home for medical dramas," says Brilliant Minds creator Michael Grassi. "They're such a comforting landing spot for audiences because they deliver on something that's familiar. I want to honor the genre and all the medical shows that came before and carry the torch forward. My intention with Brilliant Minds is to deliver on all those things that audiences love about medical dramas, but in a way that feels new and exciting."

"Medical shows are a beloved format because the high stakes are inherent in every case, whether it be life or death stakes or emotional stakes," adds Lisa Katz, president of scripted content at NBCUniversal Television. "You have these cases coming in the door every week, very organically, and the stories are able to illuminate the characters and their relationships. You create characters that people want to spend time with, and the best shows — even the ones that have these procedural engines — you can follow the plot, but you care about how it impacts the characters."

For Brilliant Minds executive producer Greg Berlanti, who has often bet on network series, the key is finding that perfect intersection between the procedural formula and unique characters. "TV that is not trying to be movies is the lifeblood of television," he says. "There needs to be more shows that are just great characters and storytelling for people to keep watching." There are plenty of shows right now that answer that remit if you're into lawyers or cops, but a medical drama has barely cracked Nielsen's broadcast top 10 once in the last five years (in part because there simply aren't that many of them airing currently). So, to contradict TLC and their 1999 banger, it seems that audiences may indeed want scrubs after all.

Hoping for another medical miracle

If anyone knows how to strike the balance Berlanti describes, it's NBC, who prescribed just what a medical drama should be — from early series Dr. Kildare (1961-66) to ensemble drama St. Elsewhere (1982-88) to TV juggernaut ER (1994-2009). Dr. Kildare, starring a young Richard Chamberlain, was the first true hit in the TV genre, establishing a template of a single leading man and his healing prowess with often little focus on the patients and their backgrounds. Over time, the shows evolved, moving toward a greater emphasis on verisimilitude.

"It was very important to us to show some degree of the reality of what it was to be a doctor and a patient," says Joshua Brand, the co-creator of St. Elsewhere — the first major medical ensemble drama, which launched the careers of Denzel Washington, Mark Harmon, Howie Mandel, Ed Begley Jr., and more. This devotion to reality included addressing the issues of insurance company interference and how insurance was beginning to dictate what doctors could or could not do.

St. Elsewhere was so groundbreaking (and of such a high caliber) that in the early 1990s, when then-NBC president of entertainment Warren Littlefield was tasked with developing a new medical drama, he struggled to find something that could measure up. "We had been gun shy ever since St. Elsewhere," Littlefield tells EW. "We developed plenty of medical shows, but nothing that we felt we could put on the air that could stand up against our past. We had a lot of respect and fear."

That all changed in 1994 when Littlefield was presented with Michael Crichton's screenplay based on the writer's own experiences as an emergency room doctor. Littlefield put the wheels in motion to adapt the story into what would become ER, recognizing that it filled a gap in both the genre and television at large by addressing healing and healthcare as a national crisis. "Hillary Clinton was [first lady], and one of her platforms was, 'We have a national health crisis, and we need better medicine. We need medicine for all.' It was a real hot button issue," he says. So, the idea was, 'If you have a medical crisis, this is where you go and you'll have a chance to survive.' It was for the world we were living in. A crisis with an expert and a resolution is wildly satisfying. Even when you don't have that happy ending, it's like, 'You know what? They had their best possible chance.' That episodic satisfaction, that kind of problem and resolution — those are vitamins and minerals that audiences have coveted for decades."

Littlefield, who left NBC in 1998 to become an independent producer, suspects the need for that kind of storytelling is now stronger than ever. But for some time, NBC hasn't been the home of TV's most-talked about medical series — that title goes to ABC, whose Grey's Anatomy premiered in 2005 and is still running as the longest scripted primetime medical drama in history. That's not to say NBC hasn't aired any shows in the genre — paging anyone who remembers Inconceivable? Or Mercy? Or Trauma? Anyone? That's a code blue. Still, there have been some successes: Chicago Med has been running since 2015, and New Amsterdam lasted five seasons from 2018 to 2023. But nothing has hit the way that ER did.

So, NBC is donning a freshly starched white coat in pursuit of the next big medical hit. "The bar is very high," says Katz. "If you're going to do a medical drama, it needs to be exceptional. What stood out about Brilliant Minds was it had a very unique character at the center with a unique point of view. The tone was so special. It's very dramatic, but also has humor and levity. It has all the ingredients for what would make a hit medical drama."

Sacks appeal

While showrunner Grassi grew up watching ER and found its notions of teamwork aspirational, he sees Brilliant Minds as less of a successor to that medical juggernaut than he does two other NBC hits — This Is Us and Will & Grace. "I really want people to be able to come to this show and find themselves in it, and find their own stories and know that they're not alone," he reflects. "I want the subject matter that we're tackling to be in conversation with things that we are talking about today, but I really want to deliver emotionally for audiences. I always imagined this being This Is Us: Medical, in terms of the emotional storytelling. There's medical mysteries, but it's also an emotional procedural."

As for Will & Grace, well, it changed everything for Grassi, who is openly gay. "I don't know if I'd be sitting here today if it wasn't for that kind of groundbreaking show," he confesses. "In a lot of ways, Brilliant Minds is picking up that mantle. A gay lead at the center of a network medical drama feels really special, new, and exciting."

The notion of an LGBTQ+ lead on a network medical drama is also what drew Berlanti to the project, and it marks his first project in the genre in his prolific 26-year career. As for Quinto, who came out publicly in 2011, he's most intrigued that Dr. Wolf's sexuality isn't the focal point of his story.

"It's a real honor for me to be playing an openly gay character on a primetime network television series where the character's identity is a comfortable aspect of who the character is," the actor says. That said, "It also is the source of a lot of personal conflict for the character. His relationship to his sexuality, to intimacy, and to his family is complicated. All things that are very relatable and understandable from a human experience."

Dr. Wolf's sexuality, indeed his story as a whole, is inspired by Dr. Oliver Sacks, a neurologist and science writer who The New York Times dubbed the "poet laureate of medicine." As Grassi explains, "Oliver Sacks is our North Star every step of the way. How do we honor him and keep the show exciting, but also grounded? This show is a love letter to him and his work and what he dedicated his life to." Many of the cases and patients featured on the show come directly from Sacks' writings and cases (albeit updated to reflect contemporary evolutions in medicine and technology).

Sacks died in 2015, but Berlanti and Warner Bros. Television optioned his life rights, which led to Grassi developing Brilliant Minds. Grassi grew up loving Awakenings, the 1990 film (starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro) based on Sacks' nonfiction book of the same name, but he threw himself into reading the neurologist's work to prepare. "I completely steeped myself in his world," the Riverdale and Katy Keene producer says. "And I fell in love with his work and his life. I saw a tremendous opportunity to create a medical show that we hadn't seen before through this new lens of Oliver Sacks and how he approached medicine and mental health."

That includes the aforementioned fresh lens of Wolf's (and, by extension, Sacks') sexuality, which is also a key component for Sacks' estate. The doctor turned author didn't come out publicly until his autobiography, On the Move: A Life, which was published the same year as his death. "[The estate] was trying to find a safe place for Oliver Sacks to be out and gay," Grassi explains. "And this show is the safe place they've always wanted."

Quinto finds that aspect of the storytelling particularly moving. "There is something beautiful about us telling this story about a character who is essentially a version of Oliver Sacks and asking the question, 'What would it have been like if he had been born at a different time?'" he reflects. "What would it have been like if someone so brilliant and tirelessly committed to his career and vocation as a doctor could have also opened up that part of himself? That quieter, more personal and intimate part of himself — to experience that kind of love and freedom at an earlier age."

Better head space

If St. Elsewhere looked at the realities of a teaching hospital and ER delved into healing and the healthcare system, Brilliant Minds wants to turn people's attention to the ongoing global mental health crisis. "Brilliant Minds deals with mental health in a way that's very topical, timely, and elegant," notes Katz. "It can explore issues of mental health, anxiety, and things a lot of people are experiencing in a way that normalizes it. When shows can do something that feels very relevant in that way, they have the opportunity to be part of the zeitgeist and more than just entertainment."

"If the mental health aspect of it can generate any dialogue, then we've accomplished what we set out to," adds Quinto. "I'm not putting out a story about space voyages or serial killers or super-powered heroes, I'm putting out a show that is relevant and relatable to audiences right now."

He continues, "At a time in our culture where mental health has become a more prominent part of social discourse, it's really exciting to be a part of a show that could potentially enhance that. If people watching our show see themselves in our stories, see their experiences and the experiences that they've had with loved ones and are encouraged to start dialogue with those loved ones, then we're doing our job. People are entertained ideally, but also maybe a little bit moved to consider their own experience."

With mental health on the brain, maybe Brilliant Minds can do something network TV used to do best — bring audiences together. Many have surmised that the rise of streaming platforms reflects the ever-more fractured nature of our culture. Quinto is optimistic that a show like his can cut through that noise to address an issue that touches all of us. "One of the things we've stopped doing is listening to one another," he says. "Times aren't getting any easier, and the challenges we're being presented with — as a country, culture, and civilization — are only going to get bigger and more complicated. If we're able to open up conversations about mental well-being and what we can do to take care of ourselves, it's a perfect moment to be telling these stories."

Maybe then, it's not about whether Dr. Wolf can revive network TV, but whether Brilliant Minds can be more than another medical procedural — something healing. In short, just what the doctor ordered.

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Directed by Alison Wild + Kristen Harding

Photography by JD Barnes

Motion - DP: Maddie Leach; 1st AC: Kyle Summers; 2nd AC: Jonathan Maurer; Gaffer: Tate McCurdy; BBE: Mayur Patankar; Key Grip: Tiger Whitesides; BBG: Sam Satossky

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