PILOT REVIEW: The Good Doctor

THE GOOD DOCTOR

Starring: Freddie Highmore, Nicholas Gonzalez, Antonia Thomas, Chuku Modu, Beau Garrett, Irene Keng, with Hill Harper, and Richard Schiff

Created by David Shore
Based on the Korean Broadcast Television Series
Teleplay by David Shore, Directed by Seth Gordon

THE PREMISE
From the creator of the long running House comes another medical drama. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) is a resident pediatric surgeon at San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital. He also happens to have autism and savant syndrome, which leads to resistance from other doctors. In the pilot, Dr. Murphy has to perform emergency medical services after an accident at the airport while the President of the hospital and mentor to Shaun, Aaron Glassman (Richard Schiff) tries to convince the skeptical board about him including the skeptical Dr. Anders (Hill Harper). Other main cast members include a doctor who immediately bonds with Shaun, Dr. Claire Browne (Antonia Thomas) and attending surgeon Dr. Neil Melendez (Nicholas Gonzalez).

THE REVIEW
I am still chugging through Bates Motel on Netflix so the plus side is that I was a huge fan of Freddie Highmore before even watching this show but the downside is its very hard for me to watch him and not think of Norman Bates. But Highmore is the reason to watch this show. Without him, it's a generic medical drama. With him, it becomes something much more than that. While I don't think the show totally "got" the autism/savant syndrome thing down in the pilot, Highmore is just such a compelling actor who can do so much with his eyes or the way he delivers a line.

With the notable exception of the always solid Richard Schiff, I did feel like scenes without Highmore were a little bit of a waste of time even including the flashbacks to a young Dr. Murphy. The show tried to be Grey's Anatomy for a hot second with doctors screwing in the closet and they did a whole lot of medical jargon as is expected (but not always necessary) for pretty much all medical dramas. The scene where Claire figured out the problem was almost laughable with its earnest explanation full of big doctor words. I don't really know why medical dramas do that because I feel like those in the medical field probably roll their eyes and those not in the medical field (like me) are just confused.

As for the show going forward, I wonder how often Dr. Murphy is going to be wrong. Will it be never? I hope the show will really explore all the sides of autism and as a special education teacher, I can tell you that sometimes it can be pretty rough. If they just always redeem the autism with the savant syndrome, it's not going to be a very believable or compelling show. They also need to work on building up the supporting characters, who are pretty much stock medical drama characters at this point.

WILL I WATCH IT AGAIN?
Yes, I want to see more of this but I must admit, it's going to take me awhile to watch Highmore and not worry that he's going to murder someone in the hospital especially as I work on finishing Bates Motel.