Molly Parker Explains Why Fox’s ‘Doc’ Is More Than Just Another Entry In A Long Line Of Medical Procedurals

One of the few things buttressing network TV from completely being overrun by the teeming hordes of streamers is the continued strength of the medical series, be it a dramatic procedural or a situation comedy. These hospital-centric series have been paying dividends for the major broadcast networks since the dawn of time, and a quick look at the proverbial TV Guide listings shows that NBC is currently making hay with Brilliant Minds and St. Denis Medical, ABC just recently wrapped The Good Doctor and is going strong with Grey’s Anatomy, and CBS is about to launch Watson, a new doctor-driven series starring Morris Chestnut. The same even proves true for FOX, a network that tends to focus most of their resources on reality and animation, as they’ve just launched their new medical drama Doc this week.

Doc stars Molly Parker, Scott Wolf, and Omar Metwally, and follows Dr. Amy Larsen (Parker) as she recovers from a life-altering event that left her with severe brain damage and a nasty case of amnesia.

In the first episode, the viewers follow Parker’s character — the unflinching and driven Chief of Internal Medicine at Westside Hospital in Minneapolis — as she deals with patients whose odds are less than great. After proving herself to be a competitive and cunning physician whose prowess outpaces her bedside manor, Larsen is driving home from work one rainy night when she flips her car and winds up on death’s door. Shades of Doctor Strange, yes, but instead of seeking out a mystical Eastern shaman and gaining superpowers post-accident, Dr. Larsen lands in the hospital with head trauma resulting in the loss of memory from the last eight years of her life.

Aside from the obvious implications of waking up and forgetting nearly a decade (can you imagine waking up and being told that Donald Trump was the president for four years, lost a second term, and then won another election four years later?), Dr. Larsen must deal with the gut-wrenching discovery that she is divorced from the “love of her life, Dr. Michael Hamda (Metwally), she doesn’t talk to her teenage daughter, and her adolescent son is dead.

While the show could operate on that premise alone, the hospital dynamics and the determination of a woman to find herself again as a caretaker and a human being add to the series’ depth and help it to stand out among its fellow medical dramas. Furthermore, the decision to jump back and forth in the timeline between Amy’s last memories and her struggles in the present tell a multi-layered tale about how fickle life is.

Decider spoke with Parker, Metwally, and Wolf who explained that it was the layering and the genuine care of the producers that gave them the confidence to sign on for such a show. It doesn’t hurt that the series is an adaptation of Doc–Nelle Tue Mani, a program based on a real Italian surgeon who lost memories from 12 years of his life after a car accident.

“This show is, I think, a really interesting combination of deep character work inside the container of a medical procedural,” Parker shared. “The show’s told over a couple of different time periods. And because of that, you get to see how people change.”

“I was drawn to it just hearing about it. I’m a fan of hospital shows […] I think they’ve been on the air forever because they’re really compelling. People can sort of see themselves or the people they love in these stories, and the stakes are incredibly high because it’s literally people’s lives on the line,” Wolf explained.

Wolf, a veteran of the medical drama himself thanks to his four seasons on The Night Shift, plays Dr. Richard Miller, a former friend of Amy’s who takes over her job after her accident and has a lot riding on her not regaining her memory. He shared that despite his character having ulterior motives and a difficult relationship with Parker’s character, there’s still love and amicability there that makes his role the job of a lifetime.

“I was immediately floored by how incredibly complicated and human and interesting all of these characters were,” Wolf said.

In that, the actors hope that the show will find its audience by showing characters that they can see, understand, and relate to.

Doc premieres Tuesday, January 7 on FOX at 9 p.m. ET. Episodes stream the next day on Hulu.