TV Reviews : ‘STAT’: Medical Comedy Is on Laugh Support

ABC’s new medical comedy “STAT” arrives tonight with more potential than pulse. It premieres at 9:30 on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42.

Set in a trauma center where gags and illness coexist, “STAT” is formatted somewhat along the lines of the irreverent former CBS series “E/R,” but its comedy agenda seems nearer the inspired dark looniness of Paddy Chayefsky’s script for the 1971 theatrical movie, “The Hospital.”

The unfortunate difference is that tonight’s opener is simply not very funny, despite a good ensemble cast led by Dennis Boutsikaris as senior resident Dr. Tony Menzies and Alison LaPlaca as first-year resident Dr. Elizabeth Newberry. The central bits--a surgeon frets that a finicky lawyer patient will sue for malpractice, and a man experiences his wife’s labor pains--have little wit.

Menzies tells the suffering psychosomatic: “Your contractions are coming two hours apart.”

Ditto the laughs.

Much funnier (despite the presence of a repellingly stereotyped gay male nurse) is a yet-unscheduled episode in which the hospital halls are stalked by such neurotic characters as a normal-acting psychiatric patient (David Opatoshu) who believes he’s the psychiatrist.

Unlike the premiere, it has edge and just enough outrageousness to keep you interested.