Reviewer Rating: 4.2/5.0
4.2
We’ve learned over the years that real doctors and their work often inspire the best, most compelling medical dramas.
Will Doc join the ranks of the breakout hit Brilliant Minds, telling great stories and reinventing medical dramas, or will he be as deceptive as New Amsterdam and just break our hearts and leave us frustrated?
We’re not sure how to answer that question, or what the future holds, but it’s safe to say Doc is a welcome addition to Fox’s slate, especially among TV Fanatic favorites After the end of “The Station”.
The impression given by the pilot episode of “Doc” is that it will focus heavily on the characters and their interactions, and then on to the medical cases.
At least there’s nothing wrong with that. We have entered a new era of television, and the best way to tell diverse stories and explore complex characters and dynamics is through more traditional programming formats.
The best character studies are the gems hidden behind status quo programming, which is how the Internet has found new ways to successfully reinvent the wheel.
The core cast of the series is strong. While we didn’t get to spend much time with all the characters because it was a pilot and definitely suffered from “pilotitis,” Doc has a talented cast.
Everyone has settled into their roles, which is promising for the show going forward.
Ultimately, there wasn’t much interest in Felicia, as scary as that sounds. Admittedly, this case is an hour-long plot device, mainly to compare Amy’s situation before and after the accident, and to cause conflict between the other doctors.
Luckily, Felicia ends up okay, thanks in large part to Amy’s talents, despite her terrible bedside manner.
“Doc” doesn’t pretend to be a series that uses case studies for shock effect or to keep viewers on their toes.
The series follows Amy Larsen as she explores a world now alien to her after partial retrograde amnesia robbed her of the past eight years of her life.
She’s a complex and flawed woman, and a personal favorite archetype of the series. Molly Parks has balanced these complexities well.
Through flashbacks, we see how warm and happy Amy was as a doting working mother of two who was head over heels for her handsome husband.
But more importantly, lest we conclude that these flashbacks are just a fluke or a trick on Amy’s mind, we still get to watch when she was with Jack (Jon-Michael Ek) To that version of Amy.
She was always there; sadly, her sadness took over, causing this once warm woman to become cold and distant in nearly every aspect of her professional and personal life.
“Doc” is a primetime soap opera disguised as a medical procedure, I say fondly.
In the premiere, they gave us a lot of shocking revelations to set the course for the season. In many ways, Doc puts us in a similar situation to Amy.
We follow this new world through the eyes of a woman who was once a part of this world but doesn’t remember it. Everything is new to Amy as well, making her a compelling and sympathetic character.
What does it look like to lose eight years of your life to be surrounded by people who know you better than you do, and how have you fared in the last ten years?
That’s bad enough on its own, but Amy is such a polarizing person within the walls of West End Hospital that it’s overwhelming to not know who has good intentions.
To be fair to many people who are put off by Amy, from what we know of her before the accident, she’s not the easiest person to share space with or work with.
She comes across as emotionally distant, cold, condescending, and rude. Whether the other person is a doctor, nurse or patient, her behavior is the same.
On the surface, Amy appears arrogant and rude. You always get the sense that she thinks she’s the smartest person in the room.
Interestingly, these are common traits we’ve seen in similar series of male characters, and we’ve come to accept and even embrace them for who they are.
But society is still not ready for women to show the same confidence or possess the same traits. As a result, people’s reactions to Amy were interesting.
Sure, she’s disgusting, but to at least a handful of men in any professional environment, the same behavior is just another Tuesday. Still, her behavior was an issue the hospital couldn’t ignore.
Despite how good she is as a doctor, a person’s bedside manner is a critical part of the job, and enough complaints can cause problems for the hospital. I don’t envy her ex-husband for having to maintain this.
It’s especially heartbreaking for him when he knows and remembers who Amy was before and realizes that her grief has made her into this emotionally cold and unapproachable person.
The hospital is an unusual place for Amy because there is great uncertainty about how many people actually support her and how many people are eager to see her fail.
The head nurse and other doctors chatting and teasing Amy at the nurse’s station is hard to watch. Regardless of their personal beef with Amy, most people wouldn’t blame their worst enemy for what Amy went through.
Even though TJ was an intern, he still had the guts to speak out against them, which endeared me to him. Essentially, they all appear hypocritical because of their lack of basic empathy for Amy, despite all their problems with her.
We later learn that she is the reason he became a doctor, which makes his strong reaction even more valid. Seeing TJ is one of the few genuine smiles we see from Amy after the accident.
But Jack stands out the most by far because of how complicated things are for him. He is not only Amy’s most proud student, but also her secret lover.
While the chemistry between the two needed more work to be convincing, I sympathized with Jack’s difficult situation throughout.
He fell in love with the woman he had secretly dated for five months and even worked up the courage to tell her how he felt before the accident.
Unfortunately, no one knew about them other than telling Sonia, and he was left alone with the devastation he felt over the woman he loved, who was in his arms and had no idea he was No one knows what he means to her.
Jack completely disappears from Amy’s mind, taking all of the love and their feelings for each other on his own while watching her miss her ex-husband.
Now, we have a love triangle with an unusual power dynamic at play. Jake isn’t supposed to be secretly dating his boss, and one has to wonder how the relationship came to be and whether he’s the first good thing Amy has met in four years.
But Amy, who has lost her memory, only remembers that he loved Michael. They were a very happy family and couple before Danny passed away. Amy has a hard time coming to terms with how they broke up because she doesn’t remember.
Things get even worse when she realizes that Michael appears to have remarried and is expecting another child. Seeing this ending, my jaw dropped and my heart broke for Amy.
The accident turns her whole world upside down, and she hasn’t yet begun to experience all the ways it happened. It’s about how people hide things from her in order to spare her.
This won’t do you any good in the long run. Amy will face real challenges as those she loves try to protect her and make her overly tolerant, while those who don’t like her try to take advantage of her.
We don’t learn much from Gina in an hour, other than that she’s Amy’s best friend and that she’s wary of revealing too much to her. But I’m curious about their friendship, and it’s nice to see strong female friendships in this series.
But Richard Miller must have been frothing at the mouth about the position of chief of medicine and was happy to fill the position by any means necessary.
Miller won’t side with Amy when she has a vested interest in her not regaining her memory. If she remembered the night of the accident, she would have continued to push for an investigation into him that could have cost him his job and his license.
It’s great to have Scott Wolf back on screen, even if he’s playing a scheming opportunist like Miller. One wonders how far he would go to cover up his crimes.
He’s excited about this temporary promotion and is willing to accept it as if he has the job permanently, but he already seems to be trying to undermine and undermine Amy as a doctor and as a person in taking on this role.
Jack is too “supportive of Amy” when it comes to advocating for her skills and her overall, and he does come across as biased at times, but he and Amy are right.
If he had to work for Miller, his job would be difficult. In addition, Sonia also expressed support for Amy.
What happened between Amy and Sonia? Sonia goes to great lengths to get revenge on Amy, which feels very personal.
The writing is on the wall that Sonia will work closely with Richard. He would take her under his wing.
I can’t wait for them to realize that they will still be working with Amy despite her accident. Whether they were prepared for this is questionable.
Doc is off to a bit of a slow start, but the potential for a great drama is there.
The characters are already interesting. I have more episodes locked down. And you?
Doc Fanatics, how did you feel about the premiere? Will you come and tune too? Which part of the love triangle do you belong to? Turn off the sound below!
