New Amsterdam

“New Amsterdam tries to turn the white savior trope on its head.”

Title: New Amsterdam
Episodes Reviewed: All (Seasons 1-5)
Creator: David Schulner 👨🏼🇺🇸
Writers: TV scripts by David Schulner 👨🏼🇺🇸 (89 eps), Joshua Carlebach 👨🏼🇺🇸 (22 eps), Shanthi Sekaran 👩🏽🇺🇸 (22 eps), Mansa Ra 👨🏾🇺🇸 (18 eps), Allen L. Sowelle 👨🏾🇺🇸 (22 eps), Leah Nanako Winkler 👩🏻🇺🇸 (18 eps), Aaron Ginsberg 👨🏼🇺🇸 (13 eps), David Foster 👨🏼🇺🇸 (12 eps), Graham Norris 👨🏼🇺🇸 (11 eps), Laura Valdivia 👩🏼🇺🇸 (10 eps), Shaun Cassidy 👨🏼🇺🇸 (8 eps), Erika Green Swafford 👩🏾🇺🇸 (6 eps), Y. Shireen Razack 👩🏽🇺🇸 (6 eps), Cami Delavigne 👩🏻🇺🇸 (2 eps), Marc Gaffen 👨🏼🇺🇸 (2 eps), Mona Mansour 👩🏽🇺🇸 (2 eps), Brandy E. Palmer 👩🏾🇺🇸 (2 eps), and Giselle Legere 👩🏼🇺🇸 (1 ep), based on the book by Eric Manheimer 👨🏼🇺🇸

Reviewed by Ishmeet Nagpal 👩🏽🇮🇳🌈♿

Technical: 3.5/5

Based on the book “Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital” by Eric Manheimer, medical drama New Amsterdam tries to turn the white savior trope on its head. And over its 5-season run, it even almost succeeds. It follows a wide-eyed Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold) who joins a flailing public hospital in New York and proceeds to cause chaos with his socialist policies. He fails more often than not, and the show leans heavily on Goodwin’s sincere charm to highlight the systemic inequalities in American healthcare.

While charming indeed, the show spoon-feeds the audience too much. (The name “Good-Win” is anything but subtle, for starters.) And comparisons with other hospital-based shows like Grey’s Anatomy (2005–) and The Good Doctor (2017–24) are inevitable, and deserved, with familiar stories of medical mysteries and emergencies.

But to its credit, New Amsterdam sets itself apart by centering important issues in almost every episode: Racism, misogyny, mental illness, addiction, poverty, and medical misinformation are just some of its recurring themes. Early seasons especially hit on real-world issues. While the makers chose not to air the Season 2 finale because it fictionalised the then very new COVID-19 outbreak, Season 3 makes a point to address problems faced by people during the global pandemic. The show starts to go downhill after that though, with Season 5 attempting to tie up loose ends so rapidly, we’re left with more questions than answers. Still, New Amsterdam manages to hold up quite well as a whole. Re-watches come easily, the ideas put forth feel genuine, and the earnestness works.

Gender: 4.5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES

New Amsterdam’s storytelling centres the male lead, Goodwin, but female characters drive most of the narrative. They not only represent diverse communities, they also foster meaningful relationships with one another. In the first few seasons, Dr. Helen Sharpe (Freema Agyeman) navigates fertility treatments and a high-achieving career as Chair of Oncology and Deputy Medical Director. She’s compassionate, helping her friend Dr. Lauren Bloom (Janet Montgomery) in her struggles with drug addiction, and mentoring other women of colour like Dr. Agnes Kao (Christine Chang), a Chinese-Filipino American who takes over another department.

On the other hand, Bloom is less of a saint. She displays the occasional white privilege, indulges in corruption, and becomes controlling towards her live-in girlfriend. But we see her eventually take accountability and suffer the consequences of her actions. She redeems herself, slowly, and reveals where her dysfunction stems from. The portrayal of her tumultuous relationship with her mother and her sister, who also struggle with addiction and trauma, is quite well done. Despite the mistakes these three women make, we are allowed to see their humanity.

The show also calls attention to the various ways misogyny seeps into the medical setting. In Season 5, Episode 7, the implications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade are tackled head on. Characters hold a nuanced discussion about abortion, find ways to accommodate the wishes of a patient who thinks abortion is murder, and then witness a heartfelt speech by Bloom talking about her own terminated pregnancy. The show takes a brave stance here about the Right To Choose. In Season 3, Episode 8, we also see how the birthing experience can be harrowing when women aren’t listened to in medical settings, especially if they are Black women. Other issues like rape, sexism, body image, and pregnancy complications crop up frequently across the seasons and are treated with sensitivity.

Race: 4/5

There’s plenty of diversity in New Amsterdam. Alongside white and Black main characters are supporting actors from Indian, Pakistani, Korean, Chinese-Filipino, and other backgrounds. There’s even hijabi, one of them being Sharpe’s niece, Mina (Nadia Affolter), who helps her aunt reconnect with Islam. The show also tackles racial themes, such as in Season 3, Episode 10, aptly titled “Radical,” where Goodwin finds a way to make reparations to the Lenape people who have been struggling for hundreds of years since colonisation.

Sharpe, arguably the series’ most interesting character, is half Iranian-Kurdish and half Ghanaian, reflecting the identity of actor Agyeman. The show spends quite a few episodes on her heritage, as she struggles with the social implications of her race. However, towards the end of Season 5, viewers find out that she used unethical practices in her research by excluding racial diversity. Without a believable explanation, this plot point feels bizarrely out of character, especially because Sharpe had already been written off the show at the end of Season 4.

In contrast, Dr. Floyd Reynolds (Jocko Sims) brings up very nuanced discussions about race. In the show’s first episode, he explains why he doesn’t want to marry a white woman. He says, “You can’t understand how confusing it was growing up watching every Black athlete have a white girl on his arm. Or how betrayed Black women felt—my mom, my sisters watching it happen time and again.” His choice makes sense in the context of these feelings. In Season 1, Episode 11, he also delivers a moving monologue about being wrongfully arrested while in medical scrubs. This scene underscores how his identity as a Black man trumps all the so-called privileges his education and achievements afford him. It is heartbreaking, and all too real, based on New Amsterdam writer Mansa Ra’s own experience with the police.

While there are many episodes that tackle systemic racism and its effects, it was a clip from Season 2, Episode 14, that went viral for being too “woke” as it shows a child developing tumors due to the stress caused by racism. Multiple right-wing websites and commentators picked up this clip and turned it into a joke, even though the premise of race-based stress causing unhealthy outcomes is based on truth.

However, New Amsterdam does show some inconsistencies when it comes to identity politics. In Season 3, Episode 4, the trauma of international adoption is portrayed extremely well. Dr. Cassian Shin (Daniel Dae Kim) tells Sharpe about losing his Korean culture because he was adopted by German-Irish parents, saying, “I actually had to teach myself to be Korean. Still really don’t know how.” But these same issues around interracial adoption are glossed over when led by one of New Amsterdam’s main characters, Dr. Iggy Frome (Tyler Labine).

Frome and his husband, both white, adopt three refugee children from Bangladesh and make no visible efforts to preserve their kids’ native culture. Later, Frome tries to adopt yet more refugee children. The showrunners frame his interest in “rescuing” displaced kids as a demonstration of his magnanimity. But it feels like a major oversight that New Amsterdam never pauses to acknowledge the role that America’s own military plays in causing such widespread evictions in the first place. For viewers who are aware of American war crimes, it’s incredibly disconcerting to watch Frome, along with other medical staff, lead support groups for veterans and glorify the United States’ armed forces without ever interrogating the military-industrial complex. As long as there are white people out there to adopt refugee children, the show seems to consider the problem solved.

And finally, we come to Dr. Vijay Kapoor (Anupam Kher). As an Indian, it was a bit disorienting for me to see Anupam Kher in a show that purportedly leads with love and harmony. Given that he is the darling of divisive propaganda films in India that lead to real life violence, it’s difficult to separate his persona from the character. He might have been a good look for diverse representation in an American show, but looks aren’t everything.

LGBTQ: 3.5/5

Out of the main characters, Frome is a married and proud gay man, and Bloom is a bisexual woman. Frome’s husband, Dr. Martin McIntyre (Mike Doyle), is portrayed as a mature and gracious husband, and it’s easy to root for the couple as they navigate the many ups and downs in their relationship. Even when they separate temporarily, they manage to provide a loving and wholesome environment for their four kids.

As for Bloom, after a failed romance with a man, she proceeds to take an unhoused woman—Leyla Shinwari (Shiva Kalaiselvan)—into her home and help her out financially. The catch is that Shinwari used to be a doctor in Pakistan, and when she ultimately manages to land a residency in a different city, Bloom uses corrupt means to get Shinwari a residency at New Amsterdam instead. The slow progression of Bloom’s feelings—from charitable intentions, to love, and then to obsession and control—is nuanced and well depicted.

I also loved the portrayal of a supporting character, Nurse Kai Brunstetter (Em Grosland). A trans man with he/they pronouns, Brunstetter features in a number of episodes where people easily use his pronouns correctly. In Season 4, Episode 9, Brunstetter helps out another trans man, Temi (Rizi Timane), garnering some insight into the nurse’s personality and seeing his empathy in action. It is a treat to watch.

Bonus for Disability: +1.00

In addition to several episodes that examine physical and mental disabilities, the last two seasons of the show welcome a main character who is Deaf. Portrayed by Deaf actor Sandra Mae Frank, Wilder performs surgeries and chairs the Oncology department with her interpreter by her side. Fellow doctors wear masks with a transparent window to allow her to see their faces, and Wilder exudes confidence as she deftly commands them in sign language. Influenced by her presence, Goodwin starts to learn sign language and shows us why inclusion is not only important, but also enriching.

Mediaversity Grade: B+ 4.13/5

In terms of inclusivity, New Amsterdam comes out strong. Sure, the show revolves around a white man and his efforts to better the world, but it also calls him out for falling into the white savior stereotype. The cast is also diverse, composed of people of different ethnic backgrounds, genders, and sexualities. That said, even though the storylines tend to favor liberal and socialist ideas, idealism itself isn’t radical.

Perhaps conceding to its mainstream audience on NBC, showrunners toe some lines, such as avoiding criticism of the U.S. military and its war policies. But its heart is in the right place, serving as both uplifting and optimistic entertainment while showing us the injustices that surround us. Goodwin’s endearing, “How can I help?” catchphrase is immensely comforting. New Amsterdam might not be able to change the world, but it can try.

Like New Amsterdam? Try these other long-running NBC series.

Grade: BLiMarch 10, 2025Great for: Disability