The Most Unhinged Moment of the St. Denis Medical Premiere was Improvised

The world has officially been given its first taste of NBC’s newest comedy, St. Denis Medical, and has now gotten to know a little about these characters and their strange but heartfelt antics that'll be on display in each episode. Boasting an all-star cast of talented actors and comedians, some may not be shocked to learn that the most surprising moment from the first episode was a genius bit of improvised physical comedy. 

SPOILER ALERT: This article will discuss the first episode of St. Denis Medical

The first episode, "Welcome to St. Denis," saw the staff deal with a catastrophe every modern hospital fears… its entire computer system going down.

The error was caused by Joyce (Wendi McLendon-Covey) and her new, ambitious, and expensive mammogram machine overloading the system. Ever the optimist, Joyce knew she had to rally her troops to catalog all the patients' records by hand as a Band-Aid solution until IT could fix the computers. So, she did what any good boss would do: delivered a rousing speech complete with an acrobatic feat to cap it all off. 

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, co-creators Eric Ledgin and Justin Spitzer noted they originally wanted Joyce’s character to be “a little more sputtering” and “nervous.” However, when they cast McLendon-Covey, they knew they had a powerhouse comedic actress on their hands and adjusted the character accordingly. As an example, they noted the ill-advised cartwheel she pulled off that had the staff shouting about her safety (in real life and on the show).  

“She just went for it — in heels!" Ledgin gushed. “The whole group of actors were like, 'Whoa!' And it was totally genuine. That's in the show now because it was just so surprising and weird."

It’s just one example of McLendon-Covey going the extra mile to make St. Denis Medical the comedy it is. The back-to-back premiere episodes also included a moment in which Joyce shows off her unique hobbies, including playing the marimba, which would have been easy to fake.

However, she didn’t.

"I'm not ready to give a concert yet, but it was fun playing that and having that at my house for a little bit," she told the outlet, revealing that she actually learned to play the marimba. 

You can see more of Joyce’s antics as well as the whole cast’s wild times at St. Denis Medical every Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET. 

The show will stream new episodes one day after they air on Peacock.