- Network: ABC
- Series Premiere Date: Sep 25, 2017
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Critic Reviews
- Critic score
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Highmore plays his lead role to near-perfection amid all the considerable medical jargon and jockeying for position among his supposedly more enlightened colleagues. The Good Doctor engagingly drops Dr. Shaun in their midst as both a lamb and a lion with a muted roar. The story possibilities are readily apparent on a number of fronts in the best broadcast network medical drama since Hugh Laurie contrastingly bruised his way through House.
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It’s emotion that moves the story forward. Highmore’s face and attitude. Schiff’s faith and moral weight. Thomas’ curiosity-generosity. That sets it apart from “House.”
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Shore has established the boilerplate world, and thanks to his leads, it has potential to evolve. But this first episode leans hard into the sudsy pontificating; hopefully, it’s just opening-night jitters for a show featuring a person with a condition rarely showcased on TV outside of A Very Special Episode.
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The Good Doctor comes on a bit strong.
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The various cuts to Shaun’s tragic youth suggest tragedy that the show’s glibness can only render in the broadest strokes; bad dad, kind brother, dead symbolic rabbit. It’s actually a relief when the show separately establishes itself as a sudsy Diet Grey’s Anatomy riff, with British actress Antonia Thomas as an ambitious doctor-who-cares and Nicholas Gonzalez as a McDream-ish surgeon-who-doesn’t.
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There’s a lot going on here; too much, really. Like so many TV pilots, this one is auditioning for our attention and trying to cram every key character, theme, and backstory into that first tryout. It’s possible that once the show settles in, it could improve. ... Its two leads, Highmore and Schiff, are both excellent and manage to make some very heavy-handed dialogue sound less didactic than it otherwise might.
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It’s a show that could develop into something interesting--and has enough beautiful people in scrubs to keep viewers engaged--but feels familiar in the premiere.
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Shaun improvising surgical procedures with whatever he can find on a TSA conveyer belt, or flashbacks to Shaun’s very difficult childhood, are effective, and promise a solid, if familiar, show to come. But boy oh boy do the scenes where his colleagues debate Shaun’s fitness for the job labor, while also feeling like artifacts from around when Big Bang Theory debuted, if not earlier.
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The Good Doctor is shameless in its emotional manipulation, going so far as to include a dead bunny at one point. We may want to resist having our heartstrings pulled, but regardless of how hokey the series is, get out your handkerchiefs and call me in the morning.
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The Good Doctor struggles to balance its tone. In an effort to prevent Shaun from being the butt of its jokes Good Doctor leans too far in the other direction, venturing into mawkishness. ... But still, there are the seeds of a engaging procedural in the pilot.
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Whenever Mr. Highmore is on screen, “The Good Doctor” compels, but he’s surrounded by standard-issue medical show characters and plots.
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If the superpowers of the soldiers in The Brave are predictable, those of Shaun Murphy, the young, brilliant and autistic surgeon who's the title character of ABC's The Good Doctor, are depressing—because they reflect the collective judgment broadcast television bosses that their viewers are bigoted halfwits.
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For fans of the genre, Highmore almost makes The Good Doctor worthwhile, but you need more than one good man to save this messy makeover.
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The problem with The Good Doctor is that it doesn’t trust Highmore’s versatile and substantial acting skills. Every other aspect of the show is either overwrought or frustratingly simplistic, as if it’s determined to get the viewer to care about Shaun by hook or by crook.
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For a show that wants us to respect Shaun’s intelligence, The Good Doctor lacks any respect for viewer intelligence.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 106 out of 133
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Mixed: 10 out of 133
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Negative: 17 out of 133
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Oct 5, 2017
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Oct 23, 2017
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Oct 3, 2017