At first glance, “The Good Doctor” seems like a pilot for a TV series we’ve seen seemingly dozens of times – most successfully in “E.R.”
You’ve got the earnest, ambitious young resident, Dr. Martin Blake (Orlando Bloom – and what happened to HIS career?), dealing with his new assignment at a hospital in Los Angeles. He’s got himself a condo at the beach, which he is slowly furnishing and decorating. No real friends yet but, hey – he’s British and good-looking. Which means that a) he’s new in town and b) that accent should be a real girl-magnet.
But the longer you watch “The Good Doctor,” the more something seems off about Dr. Blake. He finds himself drawn to a teen-age patient named Diane (Riley Keough), hospitalized for a kidney infection that’s easily treated with antibiotics. She obviously has a crush on him, which seems to supersede the relationship she has with her self-involved boyfriend.
But then she’s released from the hospital – and Dr. Blake finds his life consists of dealing with a demanding nurse (Taraji P. Henson) and patients who don’t fawn over him the way his teen charge did. So he accepts an invitation to dinner at her house, where the girl’s grateful parents want to thank him and where, he believes, he’ll have a chance to re-engage with Diane.
This review continues on my website.