The new primetime show "Red Band Society," a show set in a hospital ward filled with sick teenagers, premieres Wednesday on Fox and the reviews are already in.

This dramedy is not "Grey's Anatomy," and it's not a replacement for Fox's hit "Glee," but something in between.

The society is made of six teens bound together in an inpatient ward in a Los Angeles pediatric hospital called Ocean Park, with their ailments ranging from broken bones and eating disorders to cancer. Mother-figure and feisty Nurse Jackson, played by Octavia Spencer, corals the group of teenagers while they spend their time trying to recover.

The New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley said the illnesses that the characters face are one of the "few obstacles left for middle-class teenagers to struggle against." The recent focus on childhood disease and injury in movies -- "The Fault in Our Stars" and the recent "If I Stay" -- is the new popular young adult emotional storyline.

"'Red Band Society' has a tone that is both sassy and sorrowful, a carefully calculated balance of humor and sentiment," Stanley wrote. "The pilot episode, however, leans too heavily on emotional tugs. The main hospital staff members are all caring, comforting and competent. Even the imperious Nurse Jackson [Spencer], a woman so sharp-tongued her nom de caffè on a Starbucks cup is Scary B****, is kindhearted."

The show itself is narrated by a boy in a coma. Time critic James Poniewozik explained the limitations and possibilities of the comatose Charlie as the narrator, comparing it Fox's last major teen smash, "Glee," which will be wrapping after this season.

"The pilot of 'Red Band' (like 'Glee's) has a ton of voice, but its tone wobbles wildly as it overcorrects away from sentimentality and then straight into it," Poniewozik said.