Peacock’s Dr. Death, Based on a Real Medical Crime Spree, Is Scarier Than Any Horror Movie
Photo Courtesy of Peacock
As a child, you might have thought doctors knew everything. You visited them and afterwards you got either a sticker or maybe even a lollipop.
But as you moved into adulthood, you realized doctors are merely regular human beings. They aren’t infallible. They are capable of making mistakes. And like any profession, there are good doctors and bad doctors. Kind ones and dismissive ones. Humble ones and narcissistic ones.
But I’m here to tell you that whatever you think you know about the medical field will be upended by the new Peacock series Dr. Death. And that after watching these eight episodes, you may never want to go to the doctor again. The limited series is more unnerving than any horror movie.
Dr. Death follows the true story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch (Joshua Jackson), a Dallas neurosurgeon who horrendously botched surgeries, leaving his patients heinously maimed or, in a few cases, dead. Among his transgressions: he sliced vocal cords, left sponges inside people’s bodies, cut into muscles and nerves instead of bone. Wanting to cover their own you-know-whats, his employers passed him on from hospital to hospital with letters of recommendations carefully crafted by their legal departments. Finally, two doctors—neurosurgeon Robert Henderson (Alec Baldwin) and vascular surgeon Randall Kirby (Christian Slater)—made it their personal mission to stop him.
Duntsch’s story is already a hit Wondery podcast of the same name, and a quick Internet search will tell you exactly what Duntsch did and his current fate. Thus, the success of the series lies in the stellar performances and the way executive producer and showrunner Patrick Macmanus weaves the story.
Those who have loved Jackson since his days as Pacey on Dawson’s Creek (hi, it’s me) know what an utterly charming screen presence he is. All that charm totally works here, too, as Duntsch’s charisma masks the horror beneath. He sweet-talks patient after patient into trusting him as his ego grows. “This is what it’s like to date a god. Keep up,” he tells his girlfriend Wendy (Molly Griggs). Duntsch, who loves to recite his resume and remind anyone and everyone that he graduated at the top of his class, was an expert at deflecting blame; it was the anesthesiologist’s fault, the nurse’s fault, the equipment’s fault. “That surgery was perfect,” he says after one botched operation. “It’s just exhausting working with people with limited mental capacity.” It’s a tour-de-force performance from Jackson, whose has perfected a cold stare that will give you chills.
As the doctors who bring Duntsch down, Slater and Baldwin are a delightful odd couple—Kirby’s style is bold and brash while Henderson is the more tactful of the pair. Each actor comfortably slips into their role, which plays on their strengths (Slater’s sarcasm, Baldwin’s composed demeanor), and often provide the series with unexpected bouts of much-needed comic relief. “Want to come to my house?” Henderson asks Kirby. “Your parents home?” Kirby deadpans. I would watch a series of just them taking down bad doctor after bad doctor.
Dr. Death jumps back and forth in time from Duntsch’s college and medical school days to his fellowship with Dr. Geoffrey Skadden (Kelsey Grammer) to his disastrous time in Dallas where he maimed or murdered 33 patients. Although the dates and locations are always shown on the screen, the constant ricocheting through the timeline can be head-spinning. Especially when it comes to his time in Dallas, where things devolved so quickly.