#118 What a Carve Up
11/05/25 16:24
My social media feed kept showing me clips of The Good Doctor, so I decided to watch it as a side hustle while polishing off Hacks and gearing up for The Four Seasons. I’m approaching this review much as a young resident surgeon hesitates before making the first incision - not quite sure where it will go or what we’ll find when we open everything up, but suspecting it might get messy.
Where do I insert the scalpel…? Into its titular character, I think. The premise of The Good Doctor is that Freddie Highmore (Charlie Bucket in Tim Burton’s version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) plays Dr Shaun Murphy, a young trainee surgeon who has autism and savant syndrome. With help from his colleagues at the San Jose St Bonaventure Hospital, can he rise above the challenges of his condition? There are a gazillion seasons of this show; plenty to probe - let’s have a poke around, shall we?
Shaun’s place on the neurodivergent spectrum screams ‘quirkily compelling MC’, manifesting as Good Doctor: photographic recall, attention to detail, an ability to think outside the box, and Bad Doctor: lack of eye contact, robotic verbal delivery, no conversational skills, truthful to the point of rudeness, a tendency to shut down or shout alarmingly in noisy or stressful situations. There are more things on the Bad list, tbh, but they don’t affect Shaun’s career trajectory, which is stratospheric. Everyone, even the most senior surgeon, is in awe of him, deferring to his insightful judgement, inspired diagnoses and brilliant surgical notions. Moreover, they all appear to like him, despite the fact that really, the above deficiencies don’t make him very engaging or easy to be around. Frankly, he’s quite annoying and not that likeable.
Dr Claire Brown, his closest colleague, is a much more appealing character, because her particular skill is empathy; an ability to connect and communicate with patients and their families. She’s the one who can explain the complexities of surgery, and its associated risks, break bad news, comfort the afflicted and bereaved. Occasionally - inspired by Shaun - she can also make breakthrough diagnoses or have a cool idea for a nifty op. Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, SHE is the good doctor, and Shaun is just the weird one with shifty eyes.
Inexplicably, Shaun has a sort of flatmate/girlfriend called Lea who nobly overlooks the fact that he is really exasperating to live with. All he does is criticise her for not following his finicky organisational systems, and shout alarmingly about his job. She exists, like women often do in these dramas, to smooth his path; be his translator; make things easier; educate him sexually. She does her best to have a life of her own, other boyfriends and whatnot, but she knows that ultimately her fate is to be Shaun’s carer/mother/lover.
There’s also Shaun’s mentor, the tetchy/tortured/paternal Dr Aaron Glassman, whose personality changes depending on what’s going on in the script. Of course, he’s always there for Shaun, apart from when they’re not friends, in which case he makes himself scarce. He risks his job for Shaun, resigns his position as President of the hospital for Shaun, but whether he is or isn’t President, mostly his occupation is sitting around waiting for Shaun to ask him for advice, and then being shouted at alarmingly when he offers said advice.
One of the fascinating things about this show is the musical chairs they all play, work-wise. Dr Glassman is President initially, but then Chief of Surgery Dr Andrews takes over that position, appointing newbie Dr Han in his place. However Dr Han turns out not to appreciate Shaun’s genius quite as a much as he ought, so Dr Andrews fires Dr Han and is then fired as President himself. Recently recovered from cancer, Dr Glassman is persuaded to return as President, and Dr Lim, the new Chief of Surgery (who is having an affair with Dr Melendez, her rival for that role), appoints her former boss Dr Andrews as a bog-standard sawbones on the team. I don’t know how they get any operations done; I’d feel dizzy from all that hospital hierarchy chess.
What you may have gleaned from the last paragraph is that The Good Doctor is essentially a Soapy McSoapface soaped-up soap opera, as frothy as a surgeon scrubbing up. It’s a chronic case of inflamed tonsils from start to finish. The idea that a man like Dr Murphy, who puts his hands over his ears and starts rocking and humming when he hears a funny noise, could become a competent operating physician, the slavish respect that he commands, all those doctors shagging and usurping around him yet still fulfilling their hugely demanding roles, a lovely woman like Lea deciding that the best she can do is a workaholic obsessive automaton, who never asks her a question about herself or displays any interest in her life… well, it’s total testicular torsion. Moreover, I find this… fetishizing of ASD faintly distasteful. Obviously, I’m not saying people with autism can’t be utterly brilliant or make positive contributions to every kind of industry – of course they can – but there’s a sort of lascivious self-congratulatory element to the whole thing that’s deeply off-putting. I DON’T LIKE IT. IT’S BAD. I’M ON SERIES 3 AND CAN’T STOP WATCHING, SOMEBODY STOP ME, HELP ME, PLEASE, DOCTOR, TAKE IT AWAY.
Yeah, I might think it’s drivel, but now I’m hooked up to Good Doctor-morphine, and high as a kite. What will Shaun do next - raise Jesus with a hastily-improvised defibrillator, marry Lea in his lunch hour, cure Covid in an afternoon, find a new way to map DNA on the night shift and be up bright and early for pancakes with Glassy in the Bonaventure canteen? Everyone’s applauding and I think I might be sick – just one more ep to find out if the conjoined twins can be separated with the thought-laser Shaun 3D printed while he was doing a routine appendectomy in a blindfold.
Get an anaesthetist, stat! Knock me out - it’s the only way you’ll stop me mainlining this dross. Can’t get enough of it, it’s like OxyContin for my square eyes.
Where do I insert the scalpel…? Into its titular character, I think. The premise of The Good Doctor is that Freddie Highmore (Charlie Bucket in Tim Burton’s version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) plays Dr Shaun Murphy, a young trainee surgeon who has autism and savant syndrome. With help from his colleagues at the San Jose St Bonaventure Hospital, can he rise above the challenges of his condition? There are a gazillion seasons of this show; plenty to probe - let’s have a poke around, shall we?
Shaun’s place on the neurodivergent spectrum screams ‘quirkily compelling MC’, manifesting as Good Doctor: photographic recall, attention to detail, an ability to think outside the box, and Bad Doctor: lack of eye contact, robotic verbal delivery, no conversational skills, truthful to the point of rudeness, a tendency to shut down or shout alarmingly in noisy or stressful situations. There are more things on the Bad list, tbh, but they don’t affect Shaun’s career trajectory, which is stratospheric. Everyone, even the most senior surgeon, is in awe of him, deferring to his insightful judgement, inspired diagnoses and brilliant surgical notions. Moreover, they all appear to like him, despite the fact that really, the above deficiencies don’t make him very engaging or easy to be around. Frankly, he’s quite annoying and not that likeable.
Dr Claire Brown, his closest colleague, is a much more appealing character, because her particular skill is empathy; an ability to connect and communicate with patients and their families. She’s the one who can explain the complexities of surgery, and its associated risks, break bad news, comfort the afflicted and bereaved. Occasionally - inspired by Shaun - she can also make breakthrough diagnoses or have a cool idea for a nifty op. Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, SHE is the good doctor, and Shaun is just the weird one with shifty eyes.
Inexplicably, Shaun has a sort of flatmate/girlfriend called Lea who nobly overlooks the fact that he is really exasperating to live with. All he does is criticise her for not following his finicky organisational systems, and shout alarmingly about his job. She exists, like women often do in these dramas, to smooth his path; be his translator; make things easier; educate him sexually. She does her best to have a life of her own, other boyfriends and whatnot, but she knows that ultimately her fate is to be Shaun’s carer/mother/lover.
There’s also Shaun’s mentor, the tetchy/tortured/paternal Dr Aaron Glassman, whose personality changes depending on what’s going on in the script. Of course, he’s always there for Shaun, apart from when they’re not friends, in which case he makes himself scarce. He risks his job for Shaun, resigns his position as President of the hospital for Shaun, but whether he is or isn’t President, mostly his occupation is sitting around waiting for Shaun to ask him for advice, and then being shouted at alarmingly when he offers said advice.
One of the fascinating things about this show is the musical chairs they all play, work-wise. Dr Glassman is President initially, but then Chief of Surgery Dr Andrews takes over that position, appointing newbie Dr Han in his place. However Dr Han turns out not to appreciate Shaun’s genius quite as a much as he ought, so Dr Andrews fires Dr Han and is then fired as President himself. Recently recovered from cancer, Dr Glassman is persuaded to return as President, and Dr Lim, the new Chief of Surgery (who is having an affair with Dr Melendez, her rival for that role), appoints her former boss Dr Andrews as a bog-standard sawbones on the team. I don’t know how they get any operations done; I’d feel dizzy from all that hospital hierarchy chess.
What you may have gleaned from the last paragraph is that The Good Doctor is essentially a Soapy McSoapface soaped-up soap opera, as frothy as a surgeon scrubbing up. It’s a chronic case of inflamed tonsils from start to finish. The idea that a man like Dr Murphy, who puts his hands over his ears and starts rocking and humming when he hears a funny noise, could become a competent operating physician, the slavish respect that he commands, all those doctors shagging and usurping around him yet still fulfilling their hugely demanding roles, a lovely woman like Lea deciding that the best she can do is a workaholic obsessive automaton, who never asks her a question about herself or displays any interest in her life… well, it’s total testicular torsion. Moreover, I find this… fetishizing of ASD faintly distasteful. Obviously, I’m not saying people with autism can’t be utterly brilliant or make positive contributions to every kind of industry – of course they can – but there’s a sort of lascivious self-congratulatory element to the whole thing that’s deeply off-putting. I DON’T LIKE IT. IT’S BAD. I’M ON SERIES 3 AND CAN’T STOP WATCHING, SOMEBODY STOP ME, HELP ME, PLEASE, DOCTOR, TAKE IT AWAY.
Yeah, I might think it’s drivel, but now I’m hooked up to Good Doctor-morphine, and high as a kite. What will Shaun do next - raise Jesus with a hastily-improvised defibrillator, marry Lea in his lunch hour, cure Covid in an afternoon, find a new way to map DNA on the night shift and be up bright and early for pancakes with Glassy in the Bonaventure canteen? Everyone’s applauding and I think I might be sick – just one more ep to find out if the conjoined twins can be separated with the thought-laser Shaun 3D printed while he was doing a routine appendectomy in a blindfold.
Get an anaesthetist, stat! Knock me out - it’s the only way you’ll stop me mainlining this dross. Can’t get enough of it, it’s like OxyContin for my square eyes.
- The Good Doctor, 7 seasons, Netflix
