Doc Check-Up: Fox Medical Drama Is Spinning Some Juicy Stories
The following contains spoilers from the first four episodes of Fox’s Doc, which airs Tuesdays at 9/8c.
Fox’s Doc makes you wonder if the 1991 Harrison Ford film Regarding Henry would have been better received, its premise better explored, as an ongoing TV series.
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Inspired by a true story and based on Italy’s Doc: Nelle tue mani, Doc stars Molly Parker as the titular Amy Larsen, a hard-charging and icy-cold Chief of Internal Medicine who, following a car accident, cannot remember the past eight years of her life — including but not limited to the facts that 1) she and her husband Dr. Michael Hamda (Omar Metwally) divorced after 2) their young son died, 3) she and their daughter are estranged, 4) she has been sneaking off for hook-ups with younger colleague Dr. Jake Heller (Jon Ecker), and 5) that rival Dr. Richard Miller (Scott Wolf) did a potentially career-ending thing… that only Amy was aware of.
TVLine readers gave Doc‘s Jan. 7 premiere an average grade of “B+,” and across the first three episodes nearly 2.4 million people are tuning in each week — which is good enough to rank No. 3 amongst all Fox entertainment programming this TV season, behind The Masked Singer and 9-1-1: Lone Star‘s farewell season.
In every episode since the premiere, Doc has interestingly explored nuances related to Amy’s “new” (old) persona, and also her demoted standing as a medical professional. Stripped of her lab coat and back in scrubs, Amy Larsen cannot be addressed as “doctor,” she cannot prescribe medications, and she can only offer medical guidance in a roundabout way. She herself has accepted the new status quo, but colleagues have differing takes on it. Dr. TJ Coleman (Patrick Walker), whom the stern, old Amy mentored, is inclined to cut her some slack and offer an audience for her out-of-the-box ideas, whereas Dr. Sonya Maitra (Anya Banerjee) clearly locked horns with the old Amy, and Dr. Miller — the new Chief of Internal Medicine — is taking small steps to slow if not derail her rise back up the ranks, all while keeping her from “re-discovering” the bad thing he did.
There’s very little black-or-white with Doc, which is refreshing for a broadcast drama. Yes, Miller (cheered on by his Lady Macbethian wife) is out to sandbag Amy, but the show also let’s us see that her ballsy-but-brilliant calls register with him nonetheless. He’s the villain of the piece, for sure, but we also see the slightest hints of, “Wait, am I right to doc-block this esteemed peer…?”
Similarly, Doc has zagged with Jake where other shows would have been content to lazily zig. The young doctor hasn’t been dead-set on reigniting his and Amy’s illicit romance, at least not yet. Instead, we see Jake quietly, almost wistfully miss what they once shared — especially when he casually offers up knowledge (her laptop password, based on a child’s favorite toy) that the old Amy shared with him once upon a time. And this week, when Amy had to “role play” as her former, curt self to placate an ornery patient, Jake shot her a wink that contained multitudes.
It’s early goings yet, so there are still questions to be answered. (What is Sonya’s beef with Amy, that JT went out of his way last week to keep Amy from shadowing her?) And I anxiously await seeing the great Amirah Vann get something meatier to do as Amy’s shrink and best friend, Dr. Gina Walker. (Thus far, Gina has had to toe a line of “Don’t let Amy know too much!”)
But this week we did finally get the 411 on Danny, Amy and Michael’s son who tragically died during her memory gap. Amy confronted Gina and then Michael with a home video from a birthday party of Katie’s, where Amy was caught on camera being a bit vicious to her husband. Gina had to again stonewall her friend on the details of Danny’s death, but then put the squeeze on Michael, essentially saying, “You tell her, or I will.”
Michael was loathe to take himself back to that time in their lives, nor did his pregnant wife Nora want him to. But after a series of flashbacks teasing a school field trip where Michael agreed to chaperone in busy-busy Amy’s stead, Michael called in a favor to get after-hours access to the museum where Danny breathed his last breaths.
On the day of that fateful field trip, Danny had vomited after getting off the bus, but he chalked it up to too many pancakes + car sickness. Later, inside the museum, Danny suddenly collapsed. Michael rushed to his son’s side and tried CPR, then defib, but to no avail.
“It was my fault,” Michael admitted to Amy there at the museum — and at the time, the old Amy indeed blamed him. “When he got sick, I should have known it was his heart. And I should have checked his pulse” after Danny vomited. Whereas Amy, if she hadn’t bailed on chaperoning, might have acted differently.
It was a powerful moment/reveal, that landed with impressive weight for a show just four weeks old.
What’s your current prognosis for Fox’s Doc?
Want scoop on Fox’s Doc, or for any other TV show ? Shoot an email to [email protected], and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
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