Dr. Death

Gripping. ... The show never truly answers the why of Duntsch's story. But the what and the how are harrowing enough. Dr. Death succeeds by focusing on the people who fought for years to make sure Christopher Duntsch could do no more harm.

Dr. Death comes alive as Duntsch moves from the periphery. Naturally, the show’s success relies heavily on Jackson, whose eternal boyishness has never been wielded to greater effect. Jackson turns in a deft and nuanced performance in a role that spans two decades and requires him to play the show’s protagonist and antagonist simultaneously.

The writing, directing, and performances combine to make a taunt eight hours of TV, one that you will most likely quickly binge your way through. You’ll also be left with the unsettling knowledge that this is a true story, that this could and probably will happen again. That it could happen to you.

The most striking aspect of this story, perhaps, is the current of plausibility that runs through it all, that says this is what can happen, this is what did happen to the victims of someone revered as an authority, like Duntsch. Plausibility that says, too, that despite the severed arteries and deadly surgeries, voices of sanity do sometimes prevail, justice does often triumph. And it’s shown doing so in this impressive series.

With excellent performances and a procedural tone that interrogates an entire system instead of just one man, “Dr. Death” is a solid drama about a man who thought he could play God but never realized he wasn’t talented or smart enough to do so.

The actors are also working at a level above the mechanical script. It hardly matters if the series around him understands Duntsch, because Jackson plays him with chilling consistency, so committed to his character’s commitment to his own brilliance and infallibility that you occasionally find yourself believing.

In the opening half things are foggy. Thanks to the performances, however (including Hubert Point-Du Jour as nurse Josh, a vital witness to botched operations), things remain compelling at an individual level.

We have a lot of reservations about Dr. Death, but considering the show will examine just how a butcher like Duntsch can keep getting hired by major hospitals who should be vetting their hires better. The cast helps things along, despite their sometimes over-the-top performances.

Duntsch’s story would be tough to stitch up in even the steadiest of auteur’s hands. Hats off to Macmanus and directors Maggie Kiley, Jennifer Morrison and So Yong Kim for their ambitious vision, not to mention the ace cast. At the same time, it’s a shame that Dr. Death is too often so dull.

Dr. Death relishes in the lurid details and messy personal lives of its characters, employing nonlinear chronology for maximum drama and ironic juxtaposition. But despite the show’s few thrills, its structure only reveals an unsteady grasp of the story at its center.