St. Denis Medical is the funny twin of The Pitt — and season 3 is coming November 2
The mockumentary nobody hyped has quietly become NBC's only growing comedy, and its new trailer hands Ron a rival played by Damon Wayans.
St. Denis Medical season 3 premieres Monday, November 2, at 8 p.m. on NBC, with episodes streaming on Peacock the next day. The mockumentary about an underfunded Oregon hospital comes from Justin Spitzer and Eric Ledgin — the Superstore team — and the whole core cast returns: Wendi McLendon-Covey, David Alan Grier, Allison Tolman, Josh Lawson, Kahyun Kim, Mekki Leeper, and Kaliko Kauahi.
The trailer picks up where season 2's cliffhanger left off. Ron (Grier) returns from heart surgery to find his ward covered by Dr. Highland, a guest-starring Damon Wayans, and their first meeting instantly becomes an intimidation contest between two alpha doctors. Ron also discovers his old desk is now storage for urine samples, which is about as Office as a hospital gag gets.
The other thread is Matt and Serena, the will-they couple who became a they. Joyce (McLendon-Covey) scolds them for dating at work, and Serena commits to Matt while refusing to say the word "boyfriend" — the kind of low-stakes, high-chemistry problem this show runs on.
The quiet numbers behind it
Here's the stat that should get more attention than it does: St. Denis Medical is the only primetime comedy on any broadcast network growing its 18-49 audience season over season, up three percent. NBC renewed it while season 2 was still airing, with scripted content president Lisa Katz crediting its "comedic brilliance" in the renewal announcement.
The audience, meanwhile, has settled on its own way of describing the show — not as a Superstore heir but as a companion piece to TV's biggest hospital drama:
«…when The Pitt is airing, it's a fun hospital companion show to act as a palette cleanser…»
— a commenter on r/television (6 upvotes)
That framing is more useful than it sounds. The Pitt made the hour-by-hour ER grind prestige television; St. Denis covers the same understaffed, underfunded reality and plays it for laughs, and watching them side by side is the closest TV currently gets to a double feature about American healthcare.
Previously we wrote: I couldn't finish the Minimum Wage trailer — and I still think Netflix has a hit
The growth arc fans noticed
The reception shift between seasons is the real story of this renewal. Season 1 was received as pleasant; by the season 3 trailer, the thread reads like this:
«This show has really grown into a great sitcom... It's not on the same level as a Parks and Rec or Brooklyn 99, but it's got similar vibes and it's an easy watch.»
— a commenter on r/television (22 upvotes)
That's the classic trajectory of every beloved NBC mockumentary — The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Superstore itself all needed a season or two to find the voice fans eventually missed. My position: this is currently the best network sitcom almost nobody writes about, and a third season arriving right as The Pitt discourse ramps back up is its best shot at getting the hype to match the ratings line.
Every broadcast comedy on TV is shrinking except one. The one is about a hospital that can't afford anything.