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A.E.S. Hudson Street aired from March until April 1978 on ABC.
This medical comedy starred Gregory Sierra as Dr. Menzies, the harried chief resident of an inner city emergency ward. "A.E.S." stood for Adult Emergency Services.
The location was Hudson Street, New York City, an area as run down as the hospital itself. Perpetually short of funds and surrounded by a staff of lunatics, Dr. Menzies nevertheless dealt with the various accident victims coming through the door as best he could, with good humor and an occasional yearning to be somewhere else in the medical profession - anywhere else. Dr. Glick ( Allan Miller) was the resident psychiatrist and J. Powell Karbo ( Stefan Gierasch) the bureaucratic hospital administrator.
A Review of A.E.S. Hudson Street
Hospital setting for new comedy
BY JAY SHARBUTT
AP TELEVISION WRITER
Published: March 22, 1978
LOS ANGELES(AP)-Producer Danny Arnold, whose "Fish" and "Barney Miler " series air Thursdays on ABC, has a new comedy joining them tonight-"A.E.S. Hudson Street;" set in a big city hospital.
It stars a fine actor, Gregory Sierra, one of the original "Miller" cops. He now plays Dr. Tony Menzies a harried, dedicated sawbones who runs the hospital's emergency room.
Sad to say, the opening epic lacks the comedy cohesion of "Miller" and the spin-off of that series, "Fish," who's premiere effort was a good example of doing things right on the first try.
Tonight's "Hudson" has a funny premise-an ex Army medic, now a mental patient, escapes and poses as a doctor. But it's dissipated by a flurry of scenes introducing you to Sierra and the other regulars.
The roster includes the bumbling hospital chief J. Powell Karbo (Stefan Gierasch); a very pregnant nurse, Rosa Santiago ( Rosana Soto)and a gay male nurse, Newton (Ray Stewart).
The show starts in a rush of activity-a customer for the emergency room is rolled in, the mental patient (Jack Dodson)escapes, a doctor leers at a boxom nurse, medical students arrive for a tour.
It takes a while for Sierra to check in. When he does, he's busy repairing a sterilizing machine and grousing to Karbo about the hospital's critical shortages of medical goods.
Karbo, a penny-pincher, picks up a roll of used gauze and wonders why it can't be sterilized and used again.
"You can't wash out leprosy," Sierra tells him to great effect.
A better scene occurs when a robbery suspect is brought in. Seems he has stollen a $2,000 pearl, and upon being nabbed by police, stuffed it way up in his nose.
"You can't enter any part of my body without a search warrant," he informs the forces of law and medicine. Whereupon Sierra hands him a paper tissue and says Blow hard. Out pops the pearl.
"What a beauty," sighs Nurse Santiago. "You want a biopsy or an appraisal."
In time, the mental patient returns, having saved the life of a cardiac victim he saw drop on the street. He calls himself Dr. Fenton Coody. Nobody initially realizes he's the chap without all his marbles.
Karbo even has him do a secret vasectomy on a hospital bigwig. It prompts funny exchanges between Sierra and the guest cutter.
Unfortunately, it comes too late in the show, which generally suffers from a lack of focus, with too many desperate scenes afoot in 30 minutes.
On the positive side, the cast is excellent. And, as with producer Arnold's two other series, there's a consistent feeling of warmth and respect for all seen in the show, loon and non loon alike.
Despite its uneven start, this medicine show-booked for a five week tryout-shows considerable potential. I'd wager it'll improve, survive the spring and resume operating when ABC's fall season begins.
A Review From The Pittsburgh Press
Greg Sierra's Hudson Street Overdoses on Bedlam
But Comedy Shows Promise
By Barbara Holsopple
Press TV-Radio Editor
Published: March 22, 1978
In a couple of weeks, ABC's new "A.E.S. Hudson" should settle down into a funny little comedy.
But tonight's premiere at 9:30 is a hyperactive half-hour of bedlam with too many characters running in and out with too many one-liners.
Gregory Sierra stars in this series that, basically moves "Barney Miller" into a hospital emergency room. The resemblance is no accident: "Hudson" was co-created by Danny Arnold, who gave birth to "Barney Miller" and "Fish."
Sierra is a Puerto Rican physician with an "Albert Schweitzer complex" that ties him to a poorly-equipped, overcrowded New York hospital.
It's a city hospital and the city is broke, thus it stands to reason that Dr. Tony Menzies (Sierra) spends as much time fixing the broken sterilizer as he does fixing broken bones.
AN ODD assortment of staff and patients come through Dr. Menzies' emergency room, much as they wander in and out of Barney Miller's 12th precinct.
Highlighting the regular cast are Stefan Gierasch as the political hospital administrator and Susan Peretz as the ambulance driver whose skill may be limited to a lead foot. ( surely she didn't hit that pedestrian: "somebody would have said something")
Tonight they, and an assortment of interns and nurses, deal with a psychiatric patient who thinks he's a doctor. Jack Dodson is grand as Dr. Fenton Coody running around performing miracles.
As for medicine, that's strictly secondary to the weirdo characters. Marcus Welby and Ben Casey would never practice in this hospital.
Nor does "Hudson Street"bear any resemblance to the bittersweet comedy of "MASH." That lovely show is rooted in tragedy; "Hudson" is pure verbal slapstick.
Still, this one bears the promise of a solid character comedy, if ABC allows it a proper gestation period.
A Review From The Milwaukee Journal
Punch It Down, Danny
Published: March 23, 1978
Danny Arnold, who created and produces "Barney Miller" and "Fish," knows how to "punch up" a show. On the theory that each joke works with about 25% of the audience, you jam it with gags every 15 seconds or so.
That should work out to a laugh per viewer per minute. It's obvious that Arnold is aiming for that frequency on "A.E.S. Hudson Street," an ABC tryout series premiering Thursday night. This one is set in a New York hospital, as sick as its most terminal patient.For example, the administrator wants to recycle gauze through the sterilizer until his star doctor (Gregory Sierra) tells him "You don't wash out leprosy."
I'll concede that Arnold made me giggle a few times-despite the laugh-track's hard sell. But if Danny hopes to bring this one back next fall, he'd better provide some valleys between all the gagged-up hills.
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