Exhaustion. Anxiety. The fact that you may be reading this article during another meeting that should have been an email.
Reports of burnout have been in the news for years, especially in fields such as medicine, education and — ahem — journalism. And yet, TV shows about people in these professions are powering through. Sometimes this is through the benefit of experience.
ABC’s “ Grey’s Anatomy, ” which returns for its 21st season on Thursday, has been on so long that it’s seen character Taryn Helm (Jaicy Elliot) leave the industry to work at a bar before returning to the high-stakes/high-drama world of medicine. She’s now co-chief resident at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. And sometimes, it’s about adding modern awareness to established genres and tropes.
The new version of “Criminal Minds,” fittingly subtitled “Evolution,” which recently completed its second season on Paramount+, follows its CBS forefather in being a show about criminal profilers. But it’s also blatant about the toll the job can take on characters’ mental health. In NBC’s new medical drama “ Brilliant Minds ,” which premiered Monday, burnout is omnipresent.
Zachary Quinto stars as Oliver Wolf, a dedicated neurologist known for bursting into locker room speeches — “Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can’t breathe,” deadpans one of his interns, played by Aury Krebs — but not everyone portrayed on the show is always so confident.
Oliver and the other doctors are fallible, be .