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Perhaps no moment reinforced this more than when Tony Soprano narrowly avoided incarceration when the New York don was busted. After the dust had settled and Soprano had emerged on top, the law enforcement agent monitoring him cheered in victory. A man paid to bring Tony Soprano to justice actively rooted for him over another felon. In 1990s television, The Sopranos trained viewers to root for the bad guy, at least occasionally.

Any program that follows in the footsteps of The Sopranos presumes that the viewer willingly embraces this philosophy. Given that medical dramas have been the bread and butter of network television for several decades now, The Mob Doctor wins in a pitch meeting. The Sopranos + Grey’s Anatomy is a marketable premise. And this is where we live the difference between when a show works in theory versus in execution.

I should preface my statements about The Mob Doctor by mentioning that I love My Boys. It was exactly the sort of jovial escapism that cable television manages so much better than network programming. Every cast member of My Boys is talented and charismatic. Still, anyone who watched My Boys immediately recognized that the glue, the superstar in waiting, was Jordana Spiro.

When I heard that Spiro had been cast in a new mob drama on Fox, my first thought was that she would finally have the hit series she so richly deserves. Given the above, this clearly has not happened, which means some enterprising casting agent needs to scoop her up for the upcoming pilot season. Yes, it is already time for the next cycle of this madness to begin anew. The sooner The Mob Doctor is put out of its misery, the sooner Jordana Spiro can go back to finding the project that makes her famous.

Why is The Mob Doctor not that project? The pilot is a good enough. This is not high praise, of course, but considering how strong my hatred was for the Revolution pilot, this series is definitely a step up. Spiro portrays Grace Devlin, a doctor whose troubled upbringing continues to be her downfall. Grace’s brother, Nate, mirrors his father too closely. Grace wanted her father dead and now she is frustrated to know that her brother is walking the same path.

This is the first issue with The Mob Doctor. Grace already has a deal with the mafia at the start of the series. She performs surgeries for them at rotating locations as a payment for an existing debt. I presume that the show would have gradually demonstrated the backstory that led to this situation over a series of episodes unlikely to air now. Without this origin detail, what is revealed is that Grace did no wrong. Instead, her troubled brother wound up owing a debt to Paul Moretti, the current kingpin of Chicago. In order to save her brother, Grace accepted Nate’s debt as her own.

What The Sopranos handled deftly was finding the interesting aspects of horrible people. The Mob Doctor instead chooses to establish its lead character as an innocent. This concept is much less interesting than a generally good woman whose mistakes lead her to an untenable agreement. By absolving Grace of blame, the storyline options are prematurely truncated.

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