The networks continue flogging the corpse of the medical drama this summer, with two premiers last night.

As is par for the course for NBC these days, The Listener is as interesting as its title. Paramedic Toby Young (Craig Olejnik) can hear people’s thoughts (say hello to True Blood’s Sookie Stackhouse, Toby!) and, occasionally, access their memories. That’s it, except for the mandatory icy-until-you-get-her-warmed-up doctor who had a relationship with Toby (Mylene Dinh-Robic) and an angry but curious detective (Lisa Marcos) who spars with Toby while he investigates the cases she’s working on using his unorthodox skills. The writers assume that Olejnik and Marcos are generating sparks together. They are decidedly not.

Even if one didn’t know The Listener is a Canadian drama, something about this misfire would still seem tonally off. In last night’s premiere, Toby and his partner (Enis Esmer) rescue a woman from an overturned car. And despite the fact that they seem to be on a fairly wide stretch of street in front of what looks like a café, not a single car or person can be seen in the vicinity. Seconds later, the reason is revealed: the car explodes, and extras or set dressing would have incurred too high a cost.

Most of the show reflects this low-budget aesthetic, with ambient noise replacing actual bodies in scenes and the unknown Olejnik’s good lucks substituting for real leading man charisma. With his slack-yet-chiseled jaw and big blue eyes, Olejnik seems to be waiting for something to happen as he sleepwalks through his scenes. Utterly lacking in magnetism, he’s just another lean young actor with a pretty face, one who looks like a two-dimensional magazine ad sprung to life among three-dimensional people.

Meanwhile, in their so far successful attempt to own summer programming with their smart and sunny shows, USA may have another hit on their hands in Royal Pains. This time, the medical professional at the show’s center is Hank Lawson (sitcoms’ Kryptonite Mark Feurstein), who finds himself unemployed, broke, and single in the pilot’s first half hour after a wealthy hospital patient dies while he saves the life of a teenager instead. Within the blink of an eye, his CPA brother Evan (Paulo Costanza) has convinced him to ditch his apartment—and a maxed-out Netflix account—for a Memorial Day weekend in the Hamptons. Hours after their arrival, Hank has endeared himself to the wealthy and bizarre by saving the life of a woman at a party thrown by German trillionaire Boris (Campbell Scott, clearly enjoying slumming it in a cable series). First diagnosed by the summer retreat’s “concierge doctor” as an overdose victim, the woman turns out to have been exposed to a pesticide while sniffing rosebushes, a horticultural hazard that is subsequently never fully explained.

The next morning, Hank finds himself with more clients, a lovestruck patient, a brisk applicant for the position of physician’s assistant in his nonexistent practice, and a romantic prospect in the Hamptons Hospital’s administrator. Hank stubbornly refuses to accept his newfound position as a concierge doctor for slightly longer than the usual allotted time in a pilot, but that hospital administrator (played by a winning Jill Scott) convinces him otherwise, mostly just by smiling at him.

Still, for all of its obviousness and clunky “The rich are different from me and you” jokes, there’s a certain amount of pleasure to be derived from Royal Pains, mostly thanks to Feurstein. A talented actor who’s been saddled in mediocre sitcoms for a decade (remember Good Morning Miami?), he doesn’t so much branch out of his usual shtick here as he finally finds a suitable project for it. And right now, for all the criticism and mocking of the pre-recession pilot, there’s some perfectly fine escapist entertainment to be had in the story of man who lost his job rebounding with a new gig that involves living in the bungalow on a Hamptons estate. If only we could all be so lucky.

The Listener airs on NBC Thursday nights at 10pm.
Royal Pains airs on USA Thursday nights at 10pm.