How ABC’s ‘Doctor Odyssey’ Adds a Modern Twist to the “Traditional, Big Network Show”

From the sensible thoughts of Ryan Murphy comes Physician Odyssey, a brand new high-octane procedural premiering Thursday, September 26, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and streaming subsequent day on Hulu.

Physician Odyssey follows Max Bankman (Joshua Jackson), a brand new on-board physician for a luxurious cruise ship the place the workers—together with Captain Massey (Don Johnson) and nurses Avery Morgan (Phillipa Soo) and Tristan Silva (Sean Teale)—works laborious and performs tougher.

“Physician Odyssey is each old school and really fashionable in that it has all the weather of a conventional, huge community present with gloss and quite a lot of fashion, whereas additionally not being afraid to speak in regards to the world now—our emotional states, the tensions between women and men, pandemics, hedonism, you identify it,” explains Jon Robin Baitz, who writes and govt produces the brand new collection alongside Murphy and Joe Baken. “And but, it’s actually humorous—it’s good, enjoyable, and a pleasure to sink into the comfiest chair you have got and watch.”

Baitz provides, “It seems like a brand new approach of doing one thing splendidly old style.”

Charting a New Course

With procedurals dominating broadcast and streaming charts, Physician Odyssey couldn’t set sail at a greater time. ABC closed out the 2023–2024 season as No. 1 in leisure amongst Adults 18-49 for the fifth consecutive season, marking the longest profitable streak in over 10 years—and weeks earlier than its premiere, Physician Odyssey generated record-breaking buzz throughout social media. Launched September 17, the trailer logged 77.8 million views inside 48 hours, making it the most-watched trailer ever for a brand new community tv present.

As momentum builds, the showrunners stay targeted on one factor: telling good tales.

“The one approach I do know to maintain that machine functioning is to collaborate with Ryan and Joe and write creative, good, entertaining scripts that respect the viewers’s intelligence whereas taking significantly the mandate to entertain,” Baitz says. “Ryan brings a sort of sensible showmanship alongside together with his nice storytelling instincts. Joe has super oddball takes whereas additionally being very critical in regards to the emotional lifetime of the present. So, we should preserve difficult ourselves to be actually good on the transient: making a juicy, joyous, big-hearted, energetic, modern, humorous present. I like broadcast, the gloss of it, the traditions of it, the tempo of it. So, it’s to make lovely content material that reminds you of a bygone time however is brand-new.”

It additionally helps that Jackson and Johnson are not any strangers to creating primetime TV, with the previous having starred in Dawson’s Creek (1998–2003), Fringe (2008-2013), and The Affair (2014-2018), and the latter having starred in Miami Vice (1984–1990) and Nash Bridges (1996–2001). The 2 additionally function govt producers alongside director Paris Barclay, Eric Paquette, Alexis Martin Woodall, Eric Kovtun, Scott Robertson, and Nissa Diederich.

In accordance with Baitz, Jackson and Johnson are “good, charming, smart, and easy-going.”

“They create a collective plethora of TV expertise: instincts for what makes a present tick, tips on how to lead an organization of actors, tips on how to defend these characters and argue for them, and tips on how to advocate for them,” Baitz continues. “They know tips on how to love the work and respect the method and the crew. They’re the actual deal—grown-ups who’re intimately conversant in all of the shifting components of constructing TV and know tips on how to be of worth to the method.”

All Fingers on Deck

Given its setting aboard a luxurious cruise ship, Physician Odyssey will characteristic dozens of visitor stars—from Kelsea Ballerini, Rachel Dratch, Gina Gershon, and Laura Harrier to Cheyenne Jackson, Chord Overstreet, John Stamos, and Shania Twain. “One of many pleasures in my life is casting,” Baitz says. “A pair dozen performs Off- and on Broadway—a life within the New York theater—provides you an actual sense of tips on how to ‘individuals’ a present. The expertise out there may be merely endless, and so is the generosity of actors who wish to come play and be a part of a enjoyable.”

“There’s an infinite pool of the identified and unknown—new faces, outdated arms,” Baitz continues. “What a pleasure to see somebody you’ve missed onscreen for some time displaying up. What a shock to see new faces being jaw-droppingly good—and understanding you’ll see extra of them. Then there are the relationships we’ve got with actors; one instance is that Gina Gershon and I went to highschool collectively and behaved very badly in performs. Effectively, I did, as a result of I attempted to make her snicker. This is likely one of the greatest issues about Physician Odyssey—there’s a panoply of glamorous and thrilling folks coming alongside for the cruise.”

And based on Baitz, the enjoyable—and the drama—are simply getting began.

All through the season, he says, viewers can stay up for “deepening relationships between the principals and complex turns of their emotional lives.” As if that weren’t sufficient, Baitz teases, Physician Odyssey will characteristic “enjoyable and tragedy, heroic medical considering, quick motion, heartbreak, feuds, love, marvelous costumes, and life decisions questioned.”