“The Good Doctor” is set to culminate its two-part season premiere Monday, Nov. 9, on ABC. The show, set at a fictional hospital in San Jose, was the first returning medical drama to introduce the COVID-19 pandemic into its version of reality, though other network procedurals will be following suit, including ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Station 19” and NBC’s “Chicago” franchise.
“Good Doctor” showrunner David Shore considered not taking on the pandemic at all, telling Entertainment Weekly he wasn’t sure the show’s audience would have the stomach for it. But ultimately he decided to dedicate the first two episodes of the season to the ongoing global crisis, a necessary plotline for a show centered on the lives of doctors and other essential workers.
The first episode, which aired Nov. 2 (and is available to stream on Hulu), began with a scene that’s sure to be terrifying — even traumatizing — for many viewers: A woman stood in line at a cafe and coughed repeatedly. After placing her order, viewers watched as she paid in cash and received change, which she quickly deposited into a shared tip jar, from an unsuspecting barista.
We know that any of these tactile exchanges could be catastrophic in the COVID era, but in the show’s timeline, no one had even heard the phrase “shelter in place” yet.
A few scenes later, viewers watched as Dr. Morgan Reznick (Fiona Gubelmann) diagnosed the same woman — who had come to get checked out at San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital after experiencing fatigue, a sore throat and a fever — with a bad case of the flu. By the end of the episode, she had died alone in a hospital room from COVID-19. When the woman’s daughter asked to see her in person, she was turned away by Dr. Claire Browne (Antonia Thomas), who was adhering to new hospital safety protocols.
The first hour showcased patients with different symptoms — dramatizing the limited information that frontline health care workers had to work with during the pandemic’s early stages. Dr. Shaun Murphy (the young, autistic doctor played by series lead Freddie Highmore) treated a patient with no symptoms, except for lacking a sense of smell. Murphy knew he had COVID, though, after taking one look at his chest X-ray.
“The Good Doctor” also explored how Murphy’s autism, a topic central to the show’s premise, complicated his interactions with patients. In the first hour, Murphy was brusque and dismissive of his patient’s wife — and even blamed her, an essential worker, for giving his patient the virus — when she asked him to break down the complexities of her husband’s condition via video chat.
The premiere showed the vast toll the pandemic has taken on the characters’ personal lives. Some of the doctors move in together temporarily to keep their families safe. In one of the hour’s most heartbreaking scenes, Dr. Marcus Andrews (Hill Harper) quietly arrived home from a long day and went into his garage, where he had been sleeping alone as his family stayed in the house.
The first hour ended on a cliffhanger, leaving Reznick and a veteran nurse potentially exposed to the virus after examining a patient complaining of stomach pains (another symptom that wasn’t originally linked to COVID-19) without wearing masks.
All in all, it wasn’t easy watching fictional patients gasp for air, with the knowledge that the virus rages on and is currently killing more than a thousand Americans a day. At times, the episode felt like trauma porn — particularly a montage showing doctors holding up patients’ phones so their families could witness, over FaceTime, as they were taken off their ventilators, once hope for recovery was lost. Still, it’s difficult to envision taking on an ongoing pandemic in a real way that doesn’t feel triggering, so it might be a good thing the pandemic won’t play a big part on this show after episode two.
This week, we’ll find out how some of the other medical/frontline worker dramas address the crisis. Here’s what we know so far:
The ‘Chicago’ franchise
The shows of NBC’s “Chicago” franchise — “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago P.D.” and “Chicago Med” — will all address aspects of the pandemic in their respective season premieres. Executive producer Dick Wolf told Entertainment Weekly the COVID references in the first two shows will be more subtle, but “Chicago Med” will address the topic head-on. He also teased that one character will be recovering from the virus, though plans are not to dwell on the pandemic all season.
The show experienced pandemic-related issues in real life when production was forced to shut down in late September due to two positive COVID-19 test results.
