Why You Should Watch “Royal Pains”

If you’ve been watching any of USA Network’s other shows, you’ve probably seen the promo trailer for the new series, Royal Pains, starring Mark Feuerstein. Maybe that trailer was enough to peak your interest. Perhaps you’re on the fence about it and would like to know a bit more about the show. I may be able to help you. In a recent conference call with the show’s executive producers/writers, Andrew Lenchewski and Michael Rauch, I asked them to tell us, in 20 seconds or less, what Royal Pains is about.

I wonder if you could describe for us in 20 seconds or less, the show, Royal Pains?
M. Rauch: Has the clock started ticking? That’s a lot of pressure. Royal Pains is a show about, basically, a guy, Hank Lawson, who is a doctor, who had some choices he made in his past life have come back to change the direction of where he thought his life was going. Did you see the pilot?

BethAnne: I haven’t yet, no.

M. Rauch: You have not yet, okay. Then let me rephrase that, if you haven’t seen it, because I was referencing off of that. It’s a show about a doctor, that does not take place in a hospital, and his new practice is basically making house calls to both the wealthy and people who do not have as much wealth, in the Hamptons. And it’s a show that deals a lot with medicine, but it’s much more than that, for him as a doctor, in that it’s not just about healing sicknesses, but also helping to heal people. And it’s also a relationship show and because it’s on USA, it’s very strong in character. Andrew, do you want to add anything?

A. Lenchewski: I think that covers it, although I will say I think your shock clock expired at about halfway in, so penalty.

So, this is not just your typical hospital/doctor/ER drama, it’s something quite different. How does one come up with this concept?

A. Lenchewski: The idea came, actually, from a friend of mine who was telling me about a concierge doctor that his family had begun to use, and he asked me whether I thought it would be a good idea for a TV show and I said it wouldn’t, I thought it would be the perfect idea for a TV show. And so we, along with two of our other executive producers, Paul Frank and Rich Frank, we went off and pitched it to a few networks, and USA was the one that really, most strongly embraced what it was. And I went off and wrote the script, we shot the pilot last September, got picked up the series in January, and we’ve just begun production within the past couple months and we’re now about to start shooting our fifth episode.

Andrew is the creator and co-executive producer for the show. Before creating the show, Lenchewski was chief curator of the Lenchewski Archives, one of Hollywood’s biggest private collections of unsold scripts. He survived years of profound unemployment with the endless support of his loving family. He proudly graduated from the Communication Studies program at UCLA (fyi ~ UCLA has 11 national titles in men’s basketball – 11 more than USC). Lenchewski will make his feature film debut in 2010 writing the matrimonial comedy “The Big Question,” helmed by “30 Rock” Emmy nominee Michael Engler. He also has writing credits on the award winning NBC show “UC: Undercover.”

Michael is the executive producer for the show. Rauch has written, produced and directed numerous projects in both film and television. He created and executive produced the CBS series “Love Monkey” with Tom Cavanagh, Judy Greer, Larenz Tate and Jason Priestley, as well as the ABC Family series “Beautiful People” with Daphne Zuniga and the CW series “Life is Wild.”

Rauch also wrote and directed the independent feature “In The Weeds” for Miramax starring Ellen Pompeo, Bridget Moynahan, Molly Ringwald and Eric Bogosian. He also directed and produced Bogosian in the filmed version of the performer’s off-Broadway show for IFC, “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee.” Rauch resides in New York City.

Watch Royal Pains on Thursday nights at 9:00 p.m. CT, on USA.