Doctors Series Review – Emotional but not too intelligent

A doctor holds a venerable position in Indian society. They’re considered to be next to the divine, but in reality, they’re only humans doing a great service to society. The web series Doctors, co-produced by Siddharth P Malhotra and directed by Sahir Raza, touches upon this reality. Doctors, just like the people they treat, are complex and flawed humans, but in line of their service to humanity, they’re capable of extraordinary feats. This series is the story of a handful of doctors and surgeons in a fictional hospital set in Mumbai. These medical men and women, have interesting flaws, personalities and interpersonal relationships. Their adventures and misadventures make for entertaining viewing at times, but there’s also an alarming lack of detail with regards to their profession and practices, which makes Doctors a tad bit problematic.

The show kick starts as Nitiya Vasu (Harleen Sethi) and Roy Saldanha (Vivaan Shah) arrive in EMC Hospital as new resident doctors. They are joined by Ridhan (Abhishek Khan), Neil (Vvansh S Sethi), Keyuri (Niharika Lyra Dutt) and Nahida (Sarah Hashmi). These new residents are stationed under the senior docs at EMC Dr Ishaan (Sharad Kelkar), Dr Abhi (Viraf Patell), Dr Lekha (Teena Singh) and Dr Sabeeha (Faezeh Jalali). From the word go, the new residents are thrust into an emergency where half a dozen people arrive in ambulances with grave injuries sustained in a road accident. Without even getting time to breath, the new docs are pushed into the Emergency Room and OT operating on victims who have sustained graphic injuries. That’s a situation that arrives multiple times during the 10 episodes of Doctors, where our band of docs must drop everything at hand and tend to medical emergencies. These situations highlight the kind of stress that doctors and surgeons face during their daily lives. Not to mention the fact that doctors can end up working 36 to 48 hours nonstop. No wonder then, that the profession exacts a heavy toll on doctors and they themselves end up requiring physical as well as mental aid.

This part of Doctors is played out very well and it gives the audience an authentic peek into the lives of medical professionals. The drama in the story of Doctors comes from the characters’ interpersonal dynamics. Nitiya arrives in EMC with the single aim of exacting revenge on Dr Ishaan because he ended up botching a surgery on her brother Dr Dhaval (Aamir Ali) leaving him physically challenged. She arrives at EMC along with her bestie Roy and they instantly start work on exposing Dr Ishaan and his medical incompetence. But as it turns out, Nitiya ends up falling in love with Ishaan, when layers of the backstory reveal themselves in the subsequent episodes. Individual arcs for the supporting characters don’t always make sense in Doctors. The way Roy, Ridhan and Nahida’s characters’ stories turn out are fantastic. Same can’t be said for the arcs of Keyuri and Neil though. Neil has such a massive breakdown that he ends up as a patient in the psychiatric wing of EMC, only to make a proper recovery to active duty later on. That’s too far-fetched a situation especially in the medical profession. Keyuri’s character has an interesting setup, with she being labelled ‘Robodoc’ for her cut-throat personality and ambition. But by the end of the series, the twist in her tale turns out to be a little too convenient.

The treatment and screenplay of Doctors tend to oscillate between brilliant and mediocre a little too often. At times you have moments of brilliance, like the CGI driven VR setup in Dr Ishaan and Dr Abhi’s lab, where they can perform surgical simulations in 3D. And then you have moments of bizarre logic – sample this – Dr Dhaval first operates on Dr Ishaan’s brother only to have his patient get an aneurysm mid-surgery and die. Then, Dr Ishaan performs a surgery on Dr Dhaval to leave him paralyzed in his right arm. Dr Nitiya then sings a song to a patient while he’s on the operating table with his cranium being operated on by Dr Ishaan. Furthermore, Dr Ishaan performs a surgery on his stepfather, who he blames for the death of his mother. The absolute disregard for ‘Conflict of Personal Interest’ is jarring during the storytelling in Doctors. What also doesn’t pass muster is the fact that, the doctors dress a bit too casually when they’re not in their scrubs. Usually, doctors dress formally when they report to work at hospitals. Perhaps a little balance between casual and formal clothing for the doctors would have been better.

What’s good in Doctors are the performances by Sharad Kelkar, Harleen Sethi, Vivaan Shah and Faezeh Jalali. Sharad’s performance is the veritable anchor of the show. He gets the myriad emotions and conflicts of his character bang on. He is the heart and soul of Doctors. Harleen Sethi and Viraf Patell are able to feed off Sharad’s energy and deliver good performances, too.

The production design, cinematography, the make-up and prosthetics work and the background music of Doctors are good, too. If not for the lack of detail in the basics of the medical profession, this show could have been one of the best we’ve ever seen. The characters’ personal lives and quirks would have made a lot more sense if they had played out of the hospital setting. Doctors usually treat their working space as sacrosanct and don’t really let their off-duty life affect their on-duty conduct, all too easily. It would have been far more authentic to see the doctors’ flaws, prejudices and self-destructive streaks play out during their off-duty moments.Performances by the lead cast of Doctors are let down by lack of details. Continue reading …Read More