‘Good Doctor’...High on emotions, low on characterization.
Spoilers Ahead…
I try really hard not to compare Korean and Japanese dramas. I really do. But after six consecutive years of watching Korean dramas means unintentionally, I am drawing parallels between the two varied art forms. This was even more evident during my viewing of Good Doctor, which is a remake of the 2013 K-drama of the same name (which has also inspired an American remake starring Freddie Highmore, which is currently in its fourth season), and even though I haven’t watched the original, (frankly, I hadn’t even heard about it, until I stumbled upon this J-drama), I could visualize how differently the original would have played out.
But let me clarify this bias of mine before you come at me. It isn’t the cultural differences that I compare, but the runtime of the show, and its effect on the storytelling. J-dramas on average have lesser episodes (mostly always ten episodes per season), which extend to a new season if popular, or if writers want to explore more of the story and its characters. K-dramas run for an average of sixteen episodes, with generally no season extensions. Both have their merits and demerits. In some ways, a shorter runtime means a crisper and to-the-point plotline, but with more episodes, characters are more fleshed out, and their arcs more prominent and the story can grow beyond each episodic arc that has to be achieved.
In terms of Good Doctor, I would say that the latter could have been a better choice.
Good Doctor follows Shindo Minato, a resident doctor with savant syndrome (Yamazaki Kento, playing it cute but sincere) who joins the pediatric surgery department of Togo Memorial Hospital, on the recommendation of his mentor Dr. Shiga Akira (played by Emoto Akira). Upon joining it is evident that most of the staff aren’t very comfortable with having an autistic doctor on the team, nor are the parents of the children who are getting treated at the hospital. But despite their reservations, Minato manages to impress both his team and his patients alike, with his straightforwardness, his ease of interaction with the kids, and his vast medical knowledge. In that sense, the show addresses a similar debate to that of Romantic Doctor, Teacher Kim, in that, ‘what makes a doctor, good?’, — but broadening that line of inquiry to include autistic doctors like Minato as well — and how involved should they be, in a patient's journey towards a sound mind and body.
Minato presents one side of this debate by being extremely empathetic towards his patients and their family members, extending his compassion beyond the O.R., by noticing and doing things that most doctors wouldn’t even think of, like returning a recently deceased child’s clothes and belongings to her parents, or making a birthday card with a patient for his mother. Set in a pediatric ward, underlining the turmoil, sick children and their parents endure on a day-to-day basis, regarding operations, treatments, and also maintaining a sense of normalcy with studies, friends, or watching anime, (a special shoutout to all the child actors who have done an admirable job) the drama also delicately touches upon topics of motherhood, teenage pregnancy, miscarriage, and step-parents. This is where Minato shines, as he brings forth his pragmatic perspective to all these proceedings in a simple, profound manner.
The other extreme is embodied by the Chief of the hospital, Inoguchi Ryunosuke (Itao Itsuji) who doesn’t mind shutting down the only pediatric ward in the area — which is operating at a loss — to convert it into a hospice to make a larger turnover. Caught in this crossfire of commerce versus compassion is (the couple), Dr. Takayama Seiji (Fujiki Naohito), and the president of the hospital, Togo Michi (the beautiful Yuri Nakamura). I quite liked the insertion of this conflict into the story, whereby Michi needs to show numbers to keep her hospital afloat but at the same time that would mean that her boyfriend could lose his job. However, this discord doesn’t inject any urgency or tension into the storyline, as their relationship isn’t fleshed out enough for us to care about them. There are pointers to him prioritizing work over her, and her stifling under the intense pressure to make the right decision for her hospital, but it isn’t enough to garner interest and as a result, even their subsequent break up falls flat. A large reason for this disinterest (in this relationship and quite a lot of proceedings in the second half) is owed to the character of Dr. Takayama itself. A flashback reveals his autistic younger brother, who suffered harassment at his workplace and unable to bear it, jumps in front of a train one day. Takayama holds himself responsible for encouraging his brother’s dreams and hence, isn’t in favour of autistic people having jobs. So far, so good. But in what way does this justify his verbal and physical abuse of Minato in the earlier portions of the drama! Especially when his own brother had suffered through the same. On the contrarily, it should have been Takayama who would have openly encouraged and supported Minato, to make sure that no other autistic person goes through what his brother went through.
This behaviour becomes difficult to overlook, especially in the second half, when he does a complete 180 and starts favouring Minato. Maybe in a longer runtime, this change would have been more gradual and easier to buy, but here, it just kept me from rooting for Takayama, who is after all a good surgeon, who is working hard to save his department.
Dr. Seto Natsumi (played by the lovely Ueno Juri) is a wasted character, as we don’t get to know anything about her professionally or personally, and therefore it becomes difficult to invest in her journey. Her relationship with Minato is sweet, but it isn’t weighty enough for a supposedly mentor-mentee relationship. He already has more in-depth medical knowledge than Natsumi (as she admits many times) and knows how to care for patients beyond their medical needs, so what exactly does he have to learn from her, besides learning to tone down his frankness in addressing medical queries (which is inefficient as kids prefer his frankness over their parents' reluctance to share information). And what she learns from him, isn’t really seen in a conclusive form. There is one episode, where Natsumi’s first surgery as lead surgeon results in the death of her patient. The subsequent proceedings give her some complexity, but this issue is solved thanks to Minato, (I would have loved if Minato and Natsumi solved this episodic problem together), and Natsumi is left to react to the occurrences around her, throughout the remaining duration of the show.
I say all this because all the episodic characters and themes are so well sketched out and emotionally strong (I teared up every episode) that it was surprising that this treatment wasn’t extended to the main characters. Even with a shorter, tighter runtime, directors Kanai Hiro and Aizawa Hideyuki prove that they are able to relay information with minute shots, such as a flower flowing downstream as an indication of a drowning kid or panning a fridge door filled with school timetables and cancer-related pamphlets and notes, indicating the shift in the child and his family’s priorities. Minato’s childhood is also condensed effectively to depict the necessary plot points, and in the case of Dr. Mamiya Keisuke (Totsugi Shigeyuki), a heartfelt reminder from Minato is enough for him to ditch his materialistic goals and concentrate on being a good surgeon. Less is more but with a melodrama, less is also a bore.
