Medical dramas are a tried-and-true staple of network television and the question that always arises with every new iteration is how will this one be different from all of the others that have come before? Doc, the newest in the subgenre, has set itself out to be different enough to set itself apart but still has enough familiar staples to be somewhat safe.
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for Doc Season 1, Episode 1
This series premiere is in an odd spot where it functions if you don't know anything about the conceit going in but also that hook is also the reason to watch it.
Doc follows Amy Larsen (played by Molly Parker), an insensitive and cold Chief of Internal Medicine that generally rubs people the wrong way, to put it mildly. Few people care for her style or bedside manner but, as her Chief Resident and discreet partner Jake Heller (played Jon-Michael Ecker) puts it: "Do you want a great doctor or a warm and fuzzy one?"
Doc series premiere review: Introducing us to the characters
One of the best aspects of this premiere is the way that it doesn't exposit a bunch of information onto the audience at the outset so that you immediately have the knowledge and context for a lot of the character dynamics. It does this so that when it reveals the nature of certain relationships, it does legitimately feel like a twist.
A great example of this is found in Michael Hamda (played by Omar Metwally), who is the director for the hospital and we initially meet sternly yet somewhat gently berating Amy for her bedside manner and puts an emphasis on trying to build a better and less toxic environment at the hospital. At first, we get the impression that he is someone she has known for a while and is tolerating but just that.
When the actual episode kicks into gear and Amy — on her drive back home —crashes and flips her car, we get to see something entirely different. When she wakes up, she discovers that she has a form of retrograde amnesia and has forgotten the last eight years of her life. That's when Michael steps back into her life, not as her superior but as her estranged ex-husband that she only knows as someone she loves and loves her back.
From there, the episode has the unenviable task of giving Amy trauma and then placing more upon it. Quickly, it's revealed by Michael and their teenage daughter Katie (played by Charlotte Fountain-Jardim) that what caused their divorce was the death of their young son, Danny, and the intensity that Amy shut everyone in her life out and threw herself into the hospital.
A large part of what makes not only that plotline work but also the episode as a whole is the strong performance that Parker is giving throughout it that really grounds it in a substantial way. Amy is a rather unlikable character and she should be allowed to be, but Parker keeps her from the edge of being unbearable while at the same time not removing any of her rough edges.
A clear antagonist in the Doc series premiere
This premiere is not without a clear antagonist and it's shaping up to be a delicious one. Upon Amy's accident and her inability to practice this decade's medicine, Richard Miller (played by Scott Wolf) is named the new Chief, who noticeably has too much excitement about that. Prior to her accident, Amy confronted Richard about a recent procedure he performed that resulted in a patient's death and a threat to ruin his career if the autopsy came back with certain results. This now puts him on top and gives him incentive to stay one step ahead of Amy indefinitely.
Wolf plays that with just the right amount of sleaze and smarm, too. You can see how patients would find him charming but to anyone else he would be just that right amount of unsettling. It's a nice departure from his character on Nancy Drew, someone whose presence was always pleasant and calming, and now here is profoundly punchable.
The other intriguing aspect of this premiere is the way it handles patients. There is a running mystery of a pregnant woman and why might be ill but it is, if anything, an afterthought. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but pregnant woman and her husband are not characters and they also aren't presented in that manner. They exist here purely for the sake of pushing the plot along and see how Amy deals with patients or how Richard uses a complication in their procedure to his advantage. It will be interesting if that flavor keeps up as the season goes along to be more focused on the doctors and their emotions and pathos.
Doc airs on Tuesdays at 9/8c on FOX. Catch up the following day on Hulu.
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