The new medical drama Doc centres on Dr. Amy Larsen (played by Molly Parker), a celebrated chief of internal medicine, whose life changes when a car accident gives her a brain injury that erases the past eight years of her memory.Christos Kalohoridis/Global TV
If television has taught us anything, it’s that fictional doctors have some of the most messed up personal lives around. That’s especially true in the new Molly Parker-led series, Doc, which debuted this week on Global TV.
The GTA-shot series revolves around Dr. Amy Larsen (Parker), a celebrated chief of internal medicine whose brilliancy outshines her terrible bedside manner. Her life changes, however, when a car accident gives her a brain injury that erases the past eight years of her memory.
Professionally, the amnesia sets her back to intern status but it’s her personal life that twists the gut. Larsen learns that eight years ago, she lost her son and that she’s been shutting people out ever since: her now ex-husband and co-worker, Dr. Michael Hamda (Omar Metwally), her daughter and anyone else who crosses her path.
The doc no longer recognizes the person she’s become in the wake of tragedy. But the memory loss provides her with a coveted second chance.
The series is inspired by a real-life story and is loosely based on the Italian show, Doc – Nelle tue mani. For the new format, showrunners Barbie Kligman and Hank Steinberg changed the leading male character to female, condensed the timeline from 12 years and reduced the supporting cast to six characters. Amirah Vann, Jon Ecker and Anya Banerjee also star, with Scott Wolf and Patrick Walker in heavily recurring roles.
“A man who walls up and is guarded about his feelings is what a lot of us do anyway, even if we don’t have a trauma,” Steinberg says about changing the lead. “Having a female in that role felt more unfamiliar.”
The new version of Doc also uses flashbacks to explore who Larsen was before the tragedy and in the wake of it to inform audiences about how she became the cold figure viewers meet in the premiere.
“One of the interesting things in making the protagonist a woman is the predisposition of audiences to judge more harshly when she’s too in-your-face,” Kligman says. “House could get away with what Dr. Larsen might not as a woman.”
The result is a medical drama that focuses deeply on grief and the need to address it and deal with it, and how it can eat you from the inside if you choose to hide it.
“Grief needs to be absorbed and metabolized,” Steinberg says. “You can’t be afraid of it because if you’re afraid and you push it down, you will act out in anger or push people away or lash out. Larsen’s character walled up and hid from emotion and did all of those things.”
Kligman adds that the character became so lost in her grief that she stopped living and lost her husband and surviving child as a result: “You take the worst thing that could possibly happen to anyone, which is losing a child, and because of how she behaved, she lost everything.”
Parker recalls being pregnant with her son 18 years ago and someone telling her that becoming a parent breaks your heart open. From that point on, a parent walks around the world with an open heart. She saw that analogy as an entry point to her character, and as a way to approach the multiple versions of Larsen throughout the flashbacks and in the present day.
“There’s a rawness to it, but the alternative is to be closed off,” she says. “This doesn’t have to be about children, but allowing life in makes us more human.”
The creatives hope the show not only sparks conversations surrounding trauma and loss but that it also serves as a cathartic release.
“We do begin to unburden ourselves but you can’t rush through it,” Steinberg says. “Because if we do, then we’re avoiding grief and pain.”
He points to the series’ fourth episode as a turning point, when the story takes one of its darkest turns before releasing that turmoil and lightening up in the next installment.
For Metwally, “the thing I love about the show is that it posits how we can help each other through grief and loss. The kindness we show each other actually matters and can help someone else heal.”
Part of the catharsis lays in Larsen’s second chance to deal with her trauma and make different choices. Parker explains that her character tried to control that grief the first time around and refused to let it break her. With this second chance, she learns to let go.
“It’s something all of us have to contend with at one point or another,” Parker says. “It can break you, or it can break you open. Larsen couldn’t live. She couldn’t parent the child she had left. She couldn’t be the wife to the man she loved.
“The accident is such a gift because it erases that pain and she’s able to approach it in a more open-hearted way.”