A rising star in the Dallas medical community, Christopher Duntsch (Joshua Jackson) promised life-changing procedures to his patients, most of whom came to him at the lowest points in their lives. He claimed to be a pioneer in stem cell research that would forever change those afflicted with spinal issues, and his neurosurgery practice seemed like it was on the rise when patients suddenly started coming out of his procedures maimed or worse. A neurosurgeon named Robert Henderson (Alec Baldwin) who was called in to clean up one of Duntsch’s botched surgeries realized the borderline insane situation with which he was dealing and aligned with a colleague named Randall Kirby (Christian Slater) to try and get Duntsch’s license taken away. As they investigated Duntsch’s many failures, they realized the depth of his depravity, and the whole thing turned into a legal case, led by a young Dallas prosecutor named Michelle Shugart (AnnaSophia Robb), who eventually prosecuted Duntsch in a precedent-setting trial.
Created by Patrick Macmanus (“Homecoming”), “Dr. Death” jumps back and forth between the developing case—first focusing on Henderson/Kirby’s medical investigation and then the legal one with Shugart—and flashbacks to Duntsch’s procedures and personal life. The show opens with disclaimers about some names and facts changed for fiction’s sake, but the version of Duntsch here is a vile user, someone who discarded not just patients but everyone who helped him along the way, including his son’s mother (Molly Griggs). Even Duntsch's best friend Jerry (Dominic Burgess) ended up one of his victims after a spinal surgery paralyzed him. The portrait of Duntsch here is someone who impresses at first, especially those on hospital boards who might make money off a hotshot neurosurgeon, but whose façade eventually crumbles, taking anyone around into the rubble. It certainly does for a confident physician’s assistant (an effective Grace Gummer), who sees firsthand the corners that Duntsch is willing to cut.
The flashbacks present a man who somehow thought he could push through any adversity. That’s one thing when you’re repeatedly getting a play wrong in a football practice, and quite another when you’re incapable of performing the spinal surgeries that you’ve promised your patients. And yet “Dr. Death” smartly never resorts to humanizing Duntsch, who sees his mistakes as mere common malpractice all the way up to the end. What’s so disturbing about this case is the idea, raised a few times here, that Duntsch must have known what he was doing in a few instances. Is it possible he was a literal sociopath and maimed his patients on purpose? Dr. Henderson sure seems to think so as he explains how the violence from Duntsch’s surgeries would be hard to call accidental. It sounds like even someone who had never performed a surgery would know that they were doing something very wrong. Did Duntsch? Did he just not care? We'll never know, and "Dr. Death" wisely only hints at these darker themes instead of turning into melodrama. It makes them all the more terrifying.
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