It’s official! The doors of Westside Hospital will remain open for another year, as Fox has officially renewed Doc for season 3.
The renewal, which was first confirmed by Deadline, is of little surprise, as Doc was all but a guarantee for renewal with its second season. In its second season, Doc remains the most-watched program on Fox, averaging 7.4 million total viewers this season, where it continues to perform incredibly well in delayed viewership.
“Doc has become a true breakout for Fox, delivering our largest scripted multi-platform audience of the season and building remarkable momentum across Fox, Hulu, Netflix, and internationally — earning it another 22-episode order,” said Michael Thorn, President of Fox Television Network. “That success is a testament to the exceptional creative leadership of Hank Steinberg and Barbie Kligman, our terrific partners at Sony, and the talented Molly Parker, whose deeply nuanced performance gives the series its soul.”
We expected that Doc would be renewed for a third season given its continued status as Fox’s top show, but the renewal comes with a piece of major news that fans should be thrilled by. For the second year in a row, Fox has handed out a super-sized renewal for the show!
Season 3 will once again consist of 22 episodes, an episode order that is quite rare in the current TV landscape. While a 22-episode order used to be standard for broadcast shows, with some series securing episode orders that went as high as 24-26 episodes, the average episode order for broadcast shows has been slowly declining.
This decline has come as part of cost-cutting measures from studios, with long-running shows in particular being hit hard with these cuts. These cuts have led to shows that once did 22 episodes or more a season dropping their episode orders by varying degrees, with many shows now producing 18-episode seasons.
Seeing Fox hand out yet another 22-episode season to Doc is really exciting, as it shows the series remains a priority for Fox. In a world where so many shows are seeing their episode orders cut and having to undergo cast shakeups, it’s nice to see a network betting big on a show and rewarding the fans with increased episode orders.
Looking ahead to season 3, the biggest question likely to be on the minds of fans is which members of the cast will be coming back. At this time, Fox has not confirmed the season 3 cast; however, we imagine most, if not all, of the series regulars will be back for season 3 including Molly Parker (Dr. Amy Larson), Jon-Michael Ecker (Dr. Jake Heller), Amirah Vann (Dr. Gina Walker), Anya Banerjee (Dr. Sonya Maitra), Omar Metwally (Dr. Michael Hamda), Charlotte Fountain-Jardim (Katie Hamda), Patrick Walker (Dr. TJ Coleman), and Claire Armstrong (Nurse Julie). The two biggest question marks for season 3 are Scott Wolf’s Dr. Richard Miller and Felicity Huffman’s Dr. Joan Ridley.
Huffman joined the cast in season 2, and her character has become a central part of the show as the hospital's new Chief of Internal Medicine. Joan has been secretly battling Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS), which could compromise her ability to perform surgery, raising the question of whether her arc could become self-contained to one season.
Meanwhile, Wolf's character, Richard, missed most of season 2 after his character was fired in the season 1 finale. Richard managed to weasel his way back and has officially rejoined the hospital staff, suggesting he's not going anywhere. However, given that Wolf took a step back in season 2 as part of the character's story arc, it'll be interesting to see what his season 3 status ends up being.