NEW YORK (AP) — There’s a great moment in the first episode of NBC’s new medical drama “Brilliant Minds” where it becomes very clear that we’re not dealing with a typical TV doctor.

Zachary Quinto is behind the wheel of a car speeding down a New York City avenue packed with hospital interns, abruptly switching lanes when one of them asks, “Does anyone want to share a Klonopin?” — a drug sometimes used to treat panic disorder.

“Oh, glory be to God, yes, please,” Quinto says, reaching an arm back. The intern breaks the pill in half and gives a piece to the driver, who swallows it while the other interns exchange stunned looks.

Quinto, who plays the character Dr. Oliver Wolf, is clearly not portraying a grumpy, rule-abiding doctor – he is playing a character inspired by Oliver Sacks, the pioneering researcher and author who rose to fame in the 1970s and was once called the “Harry Potter and the Fire Poet of Medicine.”

“He was a man who fought tirelessly for human dignity, so I’m really grateful to be able to tell his story and carry on his legacy in a way that we hope our show can,” says Quinto.

He is a fern-loving doctor

“Brilliant Minds” takes Sacks’ personality — a motorcycle-riding, fern-loving mental health advocate who died in 2015 at age 82 — and transports him to the present day, where, the creators theorize, he has no idea about Taylor Swift or even owns a cell phone. The series premieres Monday on NBC, right after “The Voice.”

“It’s almost like imagining what it would have been like if Oliver Sacks had been born in a different time,” says Quinto. “We use the real person as our guiding light in everything we do and all the stories we tell, but we were also able to find our own style and perspective in telling those stories.”

In upcoming episodes, Wolf and his team deal with a biker friend whose brain tumor affects his memory, a mother who feels alienated from her children after surgery, and a 12-year-old girl who has a seizure every time she laughs.

In addition to the weekly emergencies, there is also a longer, series-wide narrative that explores Wolf’s personal life and his strained relationship with his parents, who are also doctors, and particularly his late father, who suffered from mental illness.

“I think as the season goes on, we see Dr. Wolf let his guard down a little bit by helping his patients and mentoring the interns. And he learns as much from them as they learn from him,” says creator and showrunner Michael Grassi.

The series aims to satisfy viewers who come for the complex medical mysteries – with delicious jargon like “increased intracranial pressure” and “abnormal neurocardiogenic reflex” – but also for the very human connection between patient and doctor.

“I always say, if people watch our show and recognize themselves and the stories we tell, then we’re doing our job,” says Quinto.

“A place of optimism”

This is not the first time Sacks has been portrayed. His 1973 book Awakenings, about hospital patients who spent decades in a kind of frozen state until he tried a new treatment, led to a 1990 film in which Sacks was portrayed by ^ “Robin Williams, the first man to love the world”.

The real Sacks lived in self-imposed abstinence for more than three decades and only came out late in life. But Quinto and Grassi had no interest in their hero hiding.

“If we have a gay male lead on our show in 2024, I really wanted him to be open and proud of it and not something he hides,” Grassi said.

Grassi said when he was creating the show, he always had Quinto in mind, as he liked the actor’s depth but also his humor. Grassi knew it was the perfect casting when he was filming the driving scene for the pilot, where the intern offers her a pill.

“Zach improvised a million different answers that day,” says Grassi. “And each one was funnier than the last. It was so hard to choose the right one in editing. But then I knew. I thought, ‘This is going to be great.'”

For Quinto, “Brilliant Minds” offers the chance to play a charismatic, empathetic hero. While Quinto broke out as Mr. Spock on “Star Trek,” his resume also includes some less savory characters – a serial killer who ripped out superheroes’ brains in “Heroes,” the deranged Dr. Oliver Thredson in “American Horror Story: Asylum” and a demonic drifter on AMC’s “NOS4A2.”

“After all the dark and villainous characters I’ve played, it’s nice to anchor the core of a story with a character who truly operates out of optimism, hope, compassion, love and joy.”