Necessary Roughness [Wednesdays, 10/9C] is the newest series to premiere on USA Network – and yet another one that raises stakes beyond the expected for the so-called blue sky network.
The premise can be boiled down to a USA Network tagline: Dr. Dani Santino (Callie Thorne) is a Long Island psychotherapist whose personal life unravels when she finds her husband cheating. That seems simple enough. But there are other lives than Dani’s being impacted by her decision to toss the cheating hubby out on his butt – and that’s where things get interesting.
Dani has two kids – a son, Ray ‘Ray J’ Jr. [Patrick Johnson], and a daughter, Lindsay [Hannah Marks] – both in high school. Ray J is on the football team and Lindsay, well, she’s got a habit of ditching class and forging her mom’s signature on notes from her teachers.
Then there’s Dani’s best friend, Jeanette [Amanda Detmer], who is determined to get her back into the swing of things, and her patients [the first one we meet has a problem losing weight because she’s addicted to carbs] – plus her nosy, judgmental mom, Angela [Concetta Tomei].
To the mix add her husband’s decision to contest the divorce, cancel her credit cards and empty their bank accounts. Suddenly her practice is making enough money to do much more than pay the mortgage or require mortgage advice.
Six weeks later and Jeanette has taken Dani clubbing, where the pain she’s feeling from a pinched nerve attracts the attention of Matthew [Mark Blucas], the trainer for the NFL New York Hawks. One thing leads to another and Dani finds herself with an outsized check for providing therapy for the team’s should-be superstar, Terrence King [Mechad Brooks] – a guy with serious anger issue and a tendency to drop perfect passes. His anger issues cause problems for Dani and her family.
If Dani can help TK, then she’ll probably find herself with more patients than she can shake a stick at – but that’s a pretty big if.
Necessary Roughness is based on the experiences of psychotherapist, Dr. Donna Dannenfelser and, given some of the headlines we see in the sports pages, it almost feels like the show isn’t really taking all that much dramatic license with the professional Dani/TK relationship.
The premiere was written by series co-creators Liz Kruger and Craig Shapiro, and although they necessarily shorten the time it takes Dani to make a decent start on TK’s problems – and for other plot elements [the ex siccing a private eye on Dani; the Dani/ Hawks’ Coach confrontations/Lindsay’s problems] – in order to bring maximum impact to the ep, pretty much clicks.
Thorne more than able to play the tough yet fragile Dani; Brooks captures the volatility of TK beautifully; and Detmer is classic as Jeanette. Johnson and Marks nail Ray J and Lindsay, and Tomei steals every scene she’s in as Dani’s way-less-than-perfect mother. I even enjoyed Blucas’ work as yet another nice guy, mostly because he has really good chemistry with Thorne – and he seems to have really grown into his looks, not unlike the way Robert Urich did.
Of this summer’s USA Network premieres, Necessary Roughness is a match, quality-wise for the network’s heavy hitters – and that’s saying a lot.
Final Grade: B+
Photo of Justin Stephens/courtesy of USA Network