6 Reasons Pure Genius Is the Next Best TV Show, According to Star Odette Annable
CBS's newest TV series Pure Genius is not your average medical drama. The show centers on a young Silicon Valley tech billionaire (played by Augustus Prew) who runs a technologically advanced hospital that focuses on treating rare medical mysteries at no cost to the patient. He assembles a group of genius doctors and cutting-edge, state-of-the-art equipment to help the cause, but it's his own secret illness that's fueling the fire.
Odette Annable also stars in the new series as a doctor who works in the hospital. InStyle caught up with Annable at the Television Critics Association and she told us six reasons why this show is worth watching. Pure Genius premieres tonight, Oct. 27, at 10 p.m. ET on CBS, but before tuning in, scroll down to find out what those reasons are.
—with reporting by Carita Rizzo
Her Character is a Bad Ass
"She is super frank," Annable tells InStyle. "She is honest to a fault. She has an interesting relationship with James [Augustus Prew] because I feel like she's probably one of the only people that stands up to him, mostly because she's a doctor and he's not. And he can be rude sometimes, and she doesn't tolerate any of it."
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There Might Be a Love Triangle
"It's interesting but I think they're developing a love triangle right now with James [Augustus Prew] and Zoe [Annable] and Malik [Aaron Jennings], which is great because they're two such different characters," she says. "I think Zoe is painfully unaware that James is so infatuated with her and she has such a different relationship with Malik because they're both doctors."
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This technology is actually happening in real life
"I read the script initially and I certainly thought that there's no way this could be real," Annable says. "But we had an opportunity to go to Cedars-Sinai and we sat in on a seminar with Dr. Brennan Spiegel, who's actually one of our consultants on the show, and he was talking about digital health. He showed us so many examples of what they were doing at Cedars-Sinai and it's exactly what our show is doing. It made me realize that this isn't just a script, something made up. It's an important story to tell, and it's something that, sure, we're not quite there yet, but it's five minutes into the future. It's a few years away which is really exciting to think that any family member could go to a hospital like this and possibly be cured. It's reachable."
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They have to learn medical jargon
"The thing that screwed me up is that I went online to a website called howjsay.com," Annable explains. "I was doing my work by listening to the word back to me. So then, I was working on set and one of our medical advisors comes up to me and says 'You're just saying the word wrong.' I'm like, 'No, no, no. I'm not because I did my research. I know what I'm talking about.' He's a doctor. So there was that. And then, because I had memorized it a certain way, it was so hard to do it the right way because it was already stuck in my head. So it's those things that really sort of jar you."
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The wardrobe is not strictly lab coats and scrubs
"Every so often I get out of the lab coat but I'm really comfortable in that thing," she says. "So I'm cool with it."
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The showrunner is a genius
"I'm working with such fantastic people and the show is so great," she says. "It's got that special Jason Katims [showrunner] magic fairy dust sprinkled all over it. So it's such a different show and I'm really excited to see where it goes."