‘St. Denis Medical’s Co-Creators Tease A Slow-Burn Romance For Matt And Serena: “Definitely A Thing That We’re Tracking Throughout Season 1”

For fans of beloved mockumentaries like The Office and charming sitcoms like Superstore and American Auto, NBC’s new workplace comedy St. Denis Medical is just what the doctor ordered.

Creative duo Eric Ledgin and Justin Spitzer assembled a stacked cast of comedy greats — including David Alan Grier, Allison Tolman, Josh Lawson, Kahyun Kim, Mekki Leeper, and Kaliko Kauahi — as the doctors, nurses, and staff working at an underfunded hospital in Oregon.

The first two episodes of the series, which premiered on Tuesday, November 12, introduced a fresh but familiar characters, delivered a delightful balance of humor and heart, and set the groundwork for St. Denis Medical to become a new favorite comfort show.

During the Television Critics Association’s Summer 2024 Press Tour in July, Ledgin and Spitzer sat down with Decider to discuss their hopes for St. Denis Medical, why a hospital was the perfect setting for their show, their endurance of the mockumentary format, and what to expect from the season ahead.

“If we’ve done our job, you will see different sides to every one of these characters. And you’ll see everything from prisoners in the hospital, to a live performance by a TikTok-famous singer, to a fundraising gala, and several dance sequences,” Ledgin teased. “A remarkable amount for a show that takes place in the emergency room. But in a way that I pride myself on saying feels organic to the setting we’ve created.”

While you wait for new episodes of St. Denis Medical, read on to hear the co-creators and executive producers chat about everything from their careers and future Superstore guest appearances to a Matt (Leeper) and Serena (Kim) slow-burn and more.

Photo: Danny Ventrella/NBC

DECIDER: From a big-box store in Missouri to an automobile company in Detroit, there’s been so much range location-wise in your shows. What made a hospital in Oregon the perfect next setting?

ERIC LEDGIN: I essentially wanted to do a show in a hospital because any time I’ve been to a hospital — whether it’s for myself or someone else — it’s a core memory. We’ve all been to the hospital. We all have a story. Some of them are really funny, some of them are scary, some of them are awkward, and they’re happening every day. And just thinking about the people who work there, who can’t possibly keep up that type of extreme stimulus. It becomes just a job, and you’re there every day dealing with the same stuff people deal with at any other job, like who stole the sandwich from the fridge? There’s something really interesting about that contradiction.

When you start talking to healthcare workers, they’re all very interesting to me, because they work in this fascinating place, but they’re dealing with their own drama with the person who runs the hospital, and what they care about, and making money, and efficiency. It’s in direct opposition to someone who just wants to care for people. So there was a lot that was interesting about the setting. And Justin and I started talking about what a show that takes place in a hospital might look like, and the ideas came out pretty fast as we talked, which is usually a good sign. 

JUSTIN SPITZER: That’s a great sign, when it’s just easy right from the start and you just fall into it. You feel like you’re writing something you’ve already written — no, that sounds bad. [Laughs] It just feels familiar, like you have a sense of the characters right away.

Photo: Ron Batzdorff/NBC

I definitely felt that while watching — that sense of familiarity and comfort that I have with shows I’ve been watching for years. Justin, before your time on The Office I know your wrote a spec script for Scrubs, so I feel like you’ve come full circle with this show. 

SPITZER: I really did. Yeah, I wrote a spec script for Scrubs that they actually ended up producing. That was my first credit. And so St. Denis does have a little bit of both. And I love that show so much. 

Unlike Scrubs you decided to go the mockumentary route. Fans of the format were so thrilled when Abbott Elementary premiered and pulled off an epic revival. Why did you want to go back to the mockumentary after Superstore and American Auto? Why do you think it’s just such a lovable, timeless format? 

SPITZER: It’s funny. When I left The Office, I thought every show was going to be a mockumentary for a while. It’s a really fun format to do. You can get technical into all the advantages —  you can get out the exposition of the story more easily, because the character can tell the camera what’s happening. One thing I like about it is that if you like grounded comedy, the fact that it’s a mockumentary gives us a sense that it’s really happening. So you don’t need to go into a crazy broad place to get comedy. It’s the same way if you tell someone a story about your day — it doesn’t have to be wacky, because it really happened. And if you’re writing something from scratch, you feel like the comedy has to be bigger. So you have a more grounded environment to explore. Also with mockumentary, no matter what arena it’s set in, there’s always a theme of how we are perceived versus how we really are. And that’s a really fun theme to explore. 

LEDGIN: I think similarly to that, there’s this added thing of feeling like you are the camera person. It’s this extra feeling when the camera’s drawn to something, you understand the reason that the camera person’s looking at that, and there’s something that feels so voyeuristic in the best way. It makes it a little more exciting. And because it has that sheen of reality of all those like Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, all those Christopher Guest movies. There’s a certain excitement to them, because you feel like you’re really spying on people. I just think that elevates things in a way that I’ve always loved and am really drawn to. 

SPITZER: The last thing is mockumentary used to feel more unusual. Now that reality TV is so much a part of our lives, those mockumentary or documentary motifs are things we’re more familiar with. It’s how we’re used to seeing comedy. I think a lot of people scratch that comedy itch by watching a reality show. So we’re kind of tapping into that a little bit, too. 

Photo: Ron Batzdorff/NBC

With St. Denis I like that you just start filming on like Day 1 and we don’t even need a grand explanation of the camera crew’s presence.

SPITZER: Now and then someone will suggest something like that, and I think that’s more than we need. 

LEDGIN: I think there are shows where that would be necessary or additive. I think in this show it’s like, hospitals are inherently interesting. If a documentary crew has the ability to be in the ER, why wouldn’t they want to show what life is like in the ER, to me it’s fundamentally fascinating. So it felt in the pilot we wanted to have that feel of them settling in with people and that it felt like the first episode of the documentary in a way that hopefully we accomplished.

SPITZER: I do think we recognize the documentary more than most mockumentaries. Occasionally the cameraman or the documentarian say a line off-screen, which The Office didn’t do until Season 9 a little bit. I don’t remember Parks and Rec doing it. I also think the way we shoot it has a little more of sense of the camera than other shows. 

LEDGIN: To your point about reality TV, there are so many of these shows now where people are familiar with that language. I always go back to Below Deck because that’s a show that I watch kind of obsessively, and I think it’s really well done. The documentary part of it — the way that there’s more speaking from behind the camera or searching for something in a way that is fun and exciting… 

It’s no secret that St. Denis Medical has such a stellar cast. Were you writing with any of these stars in mind? 

LEDGIN: No. There was no one that we were writing with any specific cast member in mind. We had some prototypes, but what was so wonderful and also arduous about the casting process was that we went in with, justifiably, very high standards for each of these characters that we’d fallen in love with. It was a combination of extreme luck and also a refusal to settle that helped us end up with dream cast members in every role. It felt so special to us that we got the cast that we got. It was very exciting.

You got Mekki Leeper right off of Jury Duty, what a win.

SPITZER: Yeah! Ruben Fleischer, who directed the pilot, produced Jury Duty as well, and even before it came out he was like, “This guy is great.”

LEDGIN: Susie Farris, the casting director, also brought him at the same time because they worked on that together. And Mekki was someone who, for example, what he brought to the role was a little different than what we were envisioning. Not night and day, but it was a different flavor. It was just one of those situations where you’re like, “Well, we have to write to that, because he’s so good.”

Photo: Ron Batzdorff/NBC

You also have several familar Superstore faces, which I loved seeing. Can we expect to see some more Cloud 9 employees as the series progresses?

SPITZER: Josh Lawson and Kaliko Kauahi, we were so excited to have them. We certainly hope there will be more. We have some things in mind.

There are too many dream guest stars to name, but as always, fingers crossed for more Jon Barinholtz.

SPITZER: [Laughs] I mean, we love Jon. 

LEDGIN: He’s always in the conversation for any role that comes up. [Laughs]  We’ll find the right thing for him, hopefully, if we get to keep making the show. 

Mockumentaries have such well-written scripts, but with so many comedic geniuses is there any room for improv on the show? 

LEDGIN: There is some. Every showrunner has a different philosophy on how far they want to go in that direction. There’s a part of me that’s always like, “Let’s just get it though the way that we planned it, just to be safe.” But we’d be foolish to not let some of these actors improvise. They’re all fantastic at it, and it brings things to life. I would say there’s a healthy amount of improv that we try, and whenever it ends up in the show, it always gets me. It’s always surprising and fun. But it’s also very scripted, and these actors are uniquely incredible at nailing the scripts that we write as well. 

Having brought such beloved series to life over the years, is there any major takeaway or lesson you had in mind when making St. Denis?

SPITZER: One thing that I’m always reminding myself of, it’s don’t do something for one episode that you’re going to regret long-term. I think that’s a good thing to always keep in mind: What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Not that I’ve had any major regrets, but you’re trying to develop the show for 100 episodes, not one. 

LEDGIN: For me, this is my first time running a show, and so I’m trying to come in with it with all of the lessons that I’ve learned. The biggest asset, I think, is having Justin and all of his experience and wisdom to weigh in on things. Something I’ve always been very aligned with Justin on that I’m hoping to carry through this show is never taking ourselves so seriously that we’re killing ourselves to make the show [to the point where it’s] not a happy thing to make — while also trying to make it as good as we can. That’s surprisingly not a balance that you always find, though it seems that’s everyone should be going for. So I think that’s the biggest thing I’m trying to achieve. 

Photo: Photo by: Ron Batzdorff/NBC

In so many fan-favorite workplace comedies and mockumentaries like Superstone, there’s often an early romantic aspect introduced that sets the stage for an epic slow-burn or will-they-won’t-they type situation. St. Denis Medical has that with Joyce and the corrections officer. 

SPITZER: [Laughs] Oh, that’s not what I thought you were going to bring up. 

No, no I’m kidding. Of course with Matt crushing on Serena in the pilot. [Laughs] Is that an element you gave a lot of thought to or a relationship that people can expect to evolve down the line? 

LEDGIN: I think Matt and Serena are definitely a thing that we’re going to be tracking throughout Season 1. We have a plan for it, and I hope that we are unfolding it at a pace that is fun for people to watch. And Joyce’s love life continues to be an onion of layers that I think are fun to peel back. You never know, that corrections officer — he’s a very good actor and a handsome man. [Laughs]

SPITZER: I think we’re allowing ourselves some space to explore. Superstore was originally pitched as the greatest love story ever told. That was a Jonah and Amy thing. So Matt and Serena can be fun, and we’ll see where it goes. 

LEDGIN: In an effort to avoid feeling cookie-cutter in any way, we really didn’t want it to be like, “Here’s the central will-they-won’t-they.” We both felt strongly that you don’t need to do that to make a show compelling. Alex is a great example of that, where she’s married and she’s not in a toxic marriage, she’s in a functioning marriage.

Before we wrap, after people get hooked on the premiere, what can they expect from Season 1?

LEDGIN: If we’ve done our job, you will see different sides to every one of these characters. And you’ll see everything from prisoners in the hospital, to a live performance by a TikTok-famous singer, to a fundraising gala. And you will also see several dance sequences throughout the course of the season — a remarkable amount for a show that takes place in the emergency room. But in a way that I pride myself on saying feels organic to the setting we’ve created.

New episodes of St. Denis Medical premiere Tuesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET on NBC.