How Groundhog Day Inspired Prime Video's The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy

Let’s say you’re out in space exploring the galaxy and come down with some kind of rare interstellar illness and you need a special kind of medical care (but not the most special), where do you go? The Second Best Hospital in The Galaxy is the brand new animated series from Amazon Prime Video, and we interviewed The Second Best Hospital in The Galaxy’s Executive Producers, Maya Rudolph, Cirocco Dunlap, and Natasha Lyonne! Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyonne star as voice talent as Dr. Vlam and Nurse Tup respectively while Dunlop is the series creator. 

While other hospital-focused series might seem more conventional for dramatic and live-action television, it’s a little more rare to see a medical animated sci-fi comedy. 

“When I think of hospitals, I just think of laughs,” Rudolph joked to IGN. “Yeah, singing! Dance!” added Dunlap and Lyonne.

The series has actually been in development since 2020, and originally carried the shorter title, “The Hospital,” so obviously something shifted since then.

“Well, it was always the tagline,” Dunlap said, “‘The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy,’ and then at some point Amazon got very excited and said ‘Let’s make that the title!’ and I was like, ‘It does sound like Douglas Adams, and so we shall!”   

When we asked where the premise of the show came from, Dunlap quipped, “Have you heard of a little movie called Groundhog Day?”

She continued, saying it made her think of different ways someone could get out of Bill Murray’s cursed existence in that movie in which he’s forced to live the same day over and over for seemingly forever.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if there was accessible healthcare that you could go to and say, ‘Hey, I’m stuck in a time loop and you’re a sci-fi surgeon, what could you do to help me?’ And then I started thinking of all these classic sci-fi films like Alien,” she continued, “These main characters in classic sci-fi films become tertiary patients in our show.”

Rudolph, Lyonne and Dunlap also briefly ran down some of the series’ characters.

“I play a very, very old robot,” Rudolph said, “We’re talking like 20,000 years old so she’s had a lot of relationships. And she has so much pride in her job and really devotes herself to her doctors. She looks up to them, she wants to do nothing but good for them and would literally do anything including laying her own body down for them to cross as a bridge. She brings her many lives to every present situation. And she likes to talk about it a lot.”

Lyonne described her character, “Nurse Tup is not 20,000 years old but sort of has an attitude that could be similar plus or minus a few years.” 

“How old is she, Cirocco? You’re the creator,” Lyonne asked.

Dunlap only looked slightly incredulous when she answered, “She’s 22.”

“Twenty-two???” Lyonne asked in surprise.

“It’s hard to know with aliens what that means!” clarified Dunlap as she, Lyonne, and Rudolph laughed it off. 

“She loves her hospital and she’ll do what it takes as long as it doesn’t involve smalltalk. She’s a nihilistic optimist,” Lyonne continued, turning to Dunlop to add, “-and I thank you for that, ma’am!”   

The Second Best Hospital in The Galaxy comes to Amazon Prime Video on February 23rd.