Season Review: The Second Best Hospital In The Galaxy Season One

Overview:

It’s never fun to have to go to the doctor, and this is even truer if it’s some space parasite or nebula rash that’s wreaking havoc on your system. Enter Sleech and Klak, two of the best doctors in the galaxy who just so happen to be stuck at the second-best hospital that the universe has to offer. Sleech and Klak may not always love their job, but they’re there in a pinch and ready to do whatever it takes to cure the galaxy’s aliens of whatever ails them. Even if it’s gross.

Our Take:

Space can be both infinite and intimate. It’s rich territory that television and cinema loves to explore, but this means that it also runs the risk of being overdone and a genre that’s running out of things to say. A series with a premise like The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy is tailor-made for television due to its ability to feed into procedural storytelling, but use its inventive twist to zig whenever audiences expect it to zag. It’s both familiar and foreign, personal yet perverse, and heartfelt but hilarious. The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy may sound like a sketch punchline, but it’s got what it takes to be Amazon Prime Video’s number one animated comedy.

The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy is created by Cirocco Dunlap, who has an enviable TV resume that includes Man Seeking Woman, Miracles Workers, and Russian Doll, all of which exhibit a rich flair for subversive genre-bending storytelling. She’s very comfortable in this wheelhouse and the perfect fit for a radical and outlandish series like The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy that’s able to truly take advantage of the limitless medium of animation. Many of her previous shows give off an animated feeling even though they’re live-action. The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy is both deeply funny and original (and at times feels deeply reminiscent of Ugly Americans, albeit with aliens in place of demons), but this is a show that’s also just beautiful on a visual level. It’s one of Titmouse’s most attractive series.

The Second Best Galaxy in the Hospital is full of rich, neon color palettes and creative character designs for its litany of aliens, all of which feel like they’re from distinctly different quadrants of the universe. Not a single creature feels phoned in or ordinary, which is all-too easy in a series of this nature. The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy puts to shame other animated sci-fi series that are set in space, like Star Trek: Lower Decks, Final Space, or even Star Wars: Visions. It sets a new standard that its peers should aspire towards. It’s incredibly satisfying to see just how much The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy cares about visuals and art designs, not to mention that Amazon Prime Video is willing to support the series’ unbridled mayhem. 

Prime Video has had a curious, but exciting relationship with animated programming between more avant-garde fare like Undone and commercial series like The Boys Presents: Diabolical and Invincible. The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy comfortably falls in the middle of this spectrum, but it’s easily the most aesthetically pleasing out of Prime Video’s animated slate. There are many moments that feel reminiscent of The Midnight Gospel or Arcane where the freedom of self-expression and visual ambition is as important as the storytelling, character development, and jokes. 

On the topic of character development, The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy quickly establishes Sleech and Klak’s characters, but never gets ambivalent on this front. It’d be very easy for Sleech and Klak to function more as ciphers that facilitate each episode’s incredulous space illness, so it’s encouraging that the series takes the opposite approach. There’s genuine growth and development across the season’s eight episodes. They might be kept at a distance due to their unusual looks, but audiences will connect with these empathetic doctors as if they’re humans. It also doesn’t hurt that The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy has a totally stacked voice cast, all of whom elevate their characters beyond crude caricatures. Stephanie Hsu, Greta Lee, Natasha Lyonne, Maya Rudolph, Keke Palmer, Kieran Culkin, and a rotating cast of excellent guest stars are clearly having so much fun in this heightened sci-fi world. 

The same is true for Sleech and Klak’s support staff as well as the myriad of patients that they tend to across the first season. It’d be very easy to reduce these patients to their comedic ailments, but genuine emotion and characters emerge from them like a Xenomorph from a chest cavity. All of this helps The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy feel fleshed out and grounded — despite its zero gravity status — and that there’s a real sense of community between the patient and practitioners. Sleech and Klak are often the most entertaining characters, but The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy makes sure that they’re not the only entertaining characters. What’s so special about The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy’s cases is that it doesn’t just set out to heal wild space illnesses, but broader ailments like anxiety and the human condition as a whole. Dunlap and company really excel in this department and it’s the difference between The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy being a strong piece of television that has staying power and room to grow and not just a disposable source of one-liners and visual gags. 

The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy is one of the best surprises to come out of 2024. It’s like House, Alien, and Tuca & Bertie got an elective skin graft to be one organism. The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy is bold, brave, and beautiful with the stories that it chooses to tell and the visuals that it expresses them through. It delivers such a fun and fearless freshman season that establishes a clear voice for itself and also still has so much more to say and explore. This is a series that could run for many years and never repeat itself, which is a breath of fresh air in the current television landscape and it’s exciting to feel like The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy is just getting started rather than already showing signs of fatigue. There’s a whole lot more space STDs and galaxy bronchitis out there to discover, diagnose, and cure.

The entire first season of ‘The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy’ is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video on February 23rd