[The next accommodates spoilers for the Season Four premiere of The Good Physician. Learn at your individual danger!]
The Good Doctor is again! And whereas we’re completely satisfied to see Dr. Shaun Murphy again to treating sufferers and the medical doctors of St. Bonaventure Hospital making us really feel secure on a weekly foundation, the premiere was an anxiety-fueled have a look at what real-life medical doctors have been coping with for almost all of 2020 as they work on the entrance strains of the coronavirus pandemic. Beginning the season by addressing the most important well being disaster of the trendy age was very intentional on the a part of the inventive staff behind the present.
“The world has modified dramatically since since we final noticed The Good Physician, for the reason that final episode aired. After all, we felt and David [Shore, executive producer] felt like he needed to replicate that actuality on the present,” sequence star and govt producer Freddie Highmore mentioned of the season’s opening episodes. “I believe for all of us, and definitely for me, a very powerful factor that we’re doing by having the coronavirus be part of these first two episodes is paying tribute to the actual medical doctors. I believe we might be doing a disservice to them and the fact that they’ve lived over the previous few months if we had been to simply someway ignore it and proceed on in a special world. It truly is put into perspective, the truth that we solely are pretending to be actual medical doctors, however the people who find themselves genuinely placing their lives in danger each single day deserve that tribute and need to be acknowledged for this big enterprise that they have been pressured to cope with over the previous few months.”
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Every physician on the present faces totally different difficulties as a result of virus. Lim (Christina Chang) as Chief of Surgical procedure is in a relentless battle to get medical provides for testing and treating sufferers. Claire (Antonia Thomas) struggles with the entire loss of life round her, reminding her of dropping Melendez (Nick Gonzalez) mere weeks earlier than the pandemic actually set in. Glassman (Richard Schiff) has to behave as president of a hospital in disaster whereas unable to depart his home as a result of he is a part of an at-risk age group. Morgan (Fiona Gubelmann) adjusting to life as an internist as an alternative of a surgeon. Andrews (Hill Harper) returns residence each evening to sleep within the storage to keep away from the danger of passing the virus to his spouse. Shaun, too, offers with attempting to stability a brand new relationship the place he isn’t allowed to see his girlfriend resulting from his danger of publicity.
Regardless that the virus is affecting each facet of the lives of the medical doctors on the hospital and the individuals closest to them, Highmore says the pandemic won’t be the central storyline for Season 4.
Freddie Highmore, The Good Physician
“It will not be the main focus of your complete season. I prefer to assume to it is a hopeful present. It is a present that has all the time been that means and tried to search out the positives in no matter damaging state of affairs arises, and I believe we’ll proceed to try this this season. Even within the first two episodes that cope with this big traumatic occasion, particularly for the medical doctors on the present — there’s nonetheless this try to mine these little moments of hope,” he defined, including that the present will attempt to spotlight these lighter moments.
“All of us over the previous few months have come to understand and rejoice these little moments in life that we would have taken as a right,” he added. “You realize, only a easy hug between somebody that you just love or attending to spend, you already know, a sure period of time with a small group of buddies — stuff that we simply that we simply thought was regular and did not actually take into consideration, and I believe The Good Physician will, because it’s all the time finished, sort of search to rejoice these these little tiny moments and discover hope and positivity and celebration in that.”
For Shaun, an enormous precedence this season will probably be attempting to make his new relationship with Lea (Paige Spara) work. Within the season premiere, we noticed him battle with the bodily distance between them, despite the fact that Shaun was adamant about not risking Lea’s well being as a way to be nearer to her. A disastrous try at telephone intercourse proved that the bodily barrier between them wouldn’t be a easy hurdle for Shaun to beat, however even as soon as the present strikes previous the pandemic-centric episodes, he and Lea are going to have their work minimize out for them.
“I believe Shaun and Lea this season could have one other degree of coping with — I hesitate to name it sort of ‘relationship drama’ as a result of it looks like that trivializes it a little bit bit an excessive amount of — however I believe this season is is actually seeing a extra mature present,” Highmore teased. “It is much less about courting. It is much less about these sort of early, you already know, romances and happening dates and all that type of factor. It is extra now that he and Lea are in a relationship and have chosen to be collectively, what are the extra mature issues that that every of them should cope with and be taught to develop with and navigate.”
The Good Physician airs Mondays at 10/9c on ABC.