There are a lot of doctor shows on TV. And to qualify that very general statement, let me list all the medical dramas I can think of off of the top of my head that have aired this past year: House, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Off The Map, Combat Hospital, Body of Proof, HawthoRNe and of course, Royal Pains.

You see, there’s really no dearth of options. So what makes Royal Pains different from all these other medical dramas? I posed that very question to co-star Paulo Costanzo ("Evan Lawson") a few weeks back, and this is what he had to say:

“Well, you have all these other medical shows [and] most of them take place in a hospital, for the most part … So those actors have to spend 8 days [filming] in a dark room. We shoot outside, all the time. Almost all of our medical stuff happens outdoors, in amazing, beautiful locations, like houses that are worth tens of millions of dollars. That alone separates it. 

And we also have a lot of comedy. There’s a MacGyver element in that [Hank’s] outdoors -- he has to make medical instruments out of household items -- and there’s a detective element like House, as he has to figure out what the hell’s happening to these people. It just marries a lot of elements that already exist in the other procedural medical dramas, and then adds a whole other Hamptons, outdoor element.”

The originality of the Hamptons location is a fair sell, but I’m glad he brought up House, because Royal Pains shares a lot with that powerhouse drama. Not only does each episode contain an elusive medical mystery, but in this episode in particular, Royal Pains has an a-ha! moment that was seen in the most recent season of House as well. But let me backtrack a bit.

The patient of the week is movie actor Donald, also known as The Garbage Collector, the lead character in a very popular movie franchise. His medical symptoms include the loss of feeling in his legs, dizziness, and disorientation, causing him to topple over multiple times throughout the episode. When examining him close up, Hank notices some white in Donald’s beard and deduces that it has to do with copper deficiency (side note: this is why I’d be a terrible diagnostician – I’d immediately gravitate to stress or paint splatters), which turns out is due to increased zinc consumption from Donald’s denture cream.

Crazy, right? Well, actually, zinc overdose caused by denture cream was also the culprit in one of House’s cases this past year -- must be on the rise. But really, I can’t fault either show for sharing this condition. I mean, how many outrageous and hidden causes for medical drama can there really be? Of course there’s going to be overlap, and really, I doubt many people absorb these shows as intensely as I do to spot the déjà-vu. (Or do they...?)

But moving on, the biggest takeaway from this episode is the cliffhanger during the final moments of the hour. Boris Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz has hired another concierge doctor. A pretty blonde one, too. Is he firing Hank because of the little tiff they got into earlier in the episode? Or is she simply the Hamptons' second opinion? As usual, only time will tell -- but I have a very strong feeling that Hank (and Evan, Eddie R and all of HankMed) is here to stay.