I had heard good (no pun intended) things about The Good Doctor and I do enjoy medical dramas so I decided to give it a shot. I thought I would be really into this, it has an interesting premise and I liked the back story of how this was a real passion project of Daniel Dae Kim who I have been a fan of for many years.
How to Download The Good Doctor
You can download or stream the film from a digital platform. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice. If you medical drama TV series, check out also House and New Amsterdam.
The Show’s Diagnosis: An Insightful Review
The idea of the show is that we have this very talented surgeon called Shaun Murphy that is played by Freddy Highmore. Freddy Highmore is a fantastic actor, I loved him in Bates Motel and I can see based on that show alone why he was able to do such a convincing job here.
A Surgeon with a Unique Perspective
Shaun Murphy is a great surgeon, but he is also autistic and has a truly brilliant mind with such gifts as an amazing memory and understanding of surgery. However, his autism means that he has a hard time building connections with other people. I found his relationship with Lea to be one of the best things about the show in how he grows and how she deals with his unique gifts.
From Rural Beginnings to Big-City Challenges
Shaun leaves his small rural town and takes up a residency at a very prestigious hospital in the city. Some members of the medical board and even some of his colleagues are a little unsure about hiring someone like Shaun. However, he is willing to work hard and they soon realize just how an amazing surgeon he is.
Promising Premise, But…
The premise of The Good Doctor is way better than the show actually is. I found the first couple of seasons to be quite entertaining, but the show kind of falls into the same routine for most episodes where a medical problem shows up that no one has ever seen before, and there is a bit of conflict about how to treat it and then BAM it is all fixed and people have learned, but they have not as the same thing usually happens the following week.
Medical Realism: A Dose of Reality?
I am not a medical expert at all, but I do not think The Good Doctor is the show to watch if you want extreme realism in your medical drama. The reason I say this is that the doctors and surgeons in this show know everything there is to know about medicine. An alien parasite with a completely different biology could show up and they would know exactly what it is! I did a fair bit of eye rolling as the episodes went on.
A New Character Epidemic
I think that where The Good Doctor started to lose me was when they introduced a bunch of new characters around season 3 or 4. It was like the main focus of the show was now pushing these new characters and Shaun who is the main character just kind of fit in around them.
Mixed Feelings
The Good Doctor is not a bad show, but after season five, I decided that I was out so I cannot tell you if they wrap it all up perfectly. It is a shame too as I liked Shaun as a character and the growth that he had. Perhaps I will come back to this one day, but I have to be honest and say that I have seen far better medical dramas than this one.
