Some shows allow humor and drama to balance each other out, lest the story becomes too heavy or the tone too light. Three episodes into Showtime's Nurse Jackie and it's fairly apparent that this is less of a balancing act and more of a tug-of-war. "Chicken Soup" spent all of its time on the wrong things, even if the intent was noble.

Jackie spends her morning trying to retrieve a pill she lost down the drain of her bathroom sink, only to be interrupted by her husband and his concern for their 10-year-old daughter. It seems she's been obsessed with gloom and doom lately, working herself into a nervous wreck by watching documentaries about killer diseases and world wars. If only that story, or even the themes surrounding it, had any presence beyond the very beginning and very end of the episode, "Chicken Soup" might have been more interesting.

So, where do we spend most of our time? With Eli Wallach, Nurse Jackie's first high-profile guest star. Little do many TV viewers know, an obscure but important contractual agreement from 1956 requires all old Jewish actors to appear on medical shows as cuddly but sage Yiddish folk who impart bittersweet wisdom to the main cast. During our secret national meeting last year, we drew Wallach's name, so it was his turn. In this episode, he plays a man dying of chronic heart problems, refusing any further medical treatment in favor of his wife's chicken soup. It's all a big lesson about comfort and acceptance, writ small. Too small, actually.

In this week's drama bomb, Jackie's pharmacist lover/drug dealer says he's being replaced with an automatic pill-dispensing machine. Aside from a quick, almost fruitless discussion with Dr. Cooper, we never really hear about this again. If they're trying to plant seeds for future episodes, we're gonna need more than a shrug.

The two other patients in "Chicken Soup" (I think we can expect three per week at this point) are sadly much more interesting than anything else that happens in the entire episode. One guy comes in with a deeply embarrassing injury involving nudity, his cat and a terrible cleaning accident, then we never hear from him again. Meanwhile, a couple from Ohio on their first anniversary vacation come in when Mrs. Ohio starts experiencing severe cramps. After some initial tests, it appears that she's been abusing Vicodin and is now going through withdrawal. For what little time we spend here, there's a decent amount of drama. Jackie's knowledge of opioid abuse definitely comes into play, as does the hint that she can easily procure pills over the Internet.

The episode closes with Jackie bringing home chicken soup and feeding it to her nerve-wracked daughter in a pretty blunt parallel to Wallach's wife. The motif doesn't even make much sense, seeing as Wallach and his wife were just trying to comfort one another in the face of the inevitable, while Jackie is trying to figure out how to help a child who doesn't seem too far gone yet. Oh, well. They can't all be winners.

Best Moment: Cat-guy explaining how he got his injuries. His humiliation is palpable and moving, while not at all cringe-inducing. That's quite an accomplishment.

Notes: Two things tonight. First, can we please get rid of this useless administrator character? Jackie doesn't need a boss just so she can buck yet more authority and this character has yet to do anything interesting. Also, are the writers actively trying to make us hate the new girl? Her simpering nitwit routine wore thin at the end of the pilot. Now it's just insufferable.

Episode Rating: 2.5/5- There was a lot of wasted time in this episode and way too much of the tired TV tropes that have cast the shadow of mediocrity over this show from the beginning. Nurse Jackie is pulling its punches, steering the story away from what's interesting, like Jackie's drug abuse or the daily trials of the medical profession, in favor of bite-sized bits of inconsequential tap dancing. In short, we need more scenes of Jackie snorting painkillers and fewer plots about the intern trying to get her stethoscope back from the Sex in the City doctor.