by Will Lemon | 11 July 2025

On April 2nd, 2009 the best medical drama ever went off the air. Since that night, the National Broadcasting Company as well as other networks have been desperately trying to replicate the magic formula that made ‘ER’ such a hit. They’ve come close with such shows as ‘The Resident’ (which showed us the unicorn of the Black male doctor), and ‘Chicago Med’ but the former was cancelled abruptly and the latter is still chugging along in its tenth season.

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Just like science-fiction, the cast of the medical drama tends to be predominately Caucasian, which is probably the reason why they struggle. The reason why ‘ER’ was so successful is because it had a diverse, eclectic cast of patients and staff which produced interesting medical cases. One would think that some showrunner would do this simple calculus and create a show that’s more than a primetime soap opera.

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To our dismay, whenever suburban America envisions human(oid)s doing extraordinary things, whether it's exploring the galaxy or performing medical miracles or saving the world, it rarely includes Black folks. Especially when it comes to Black men. As I mentioned earlier, it’s a rarity to see Black male doctors on the small screen. ‘The Resident’ had three Black male/female doctors at one point which was very cool.

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What’s even more infuriating is Noah Wyle being in a new medical drama with zero Black male doctors. The same Noah Wyle who played ‘John Carter’ on ‘ER’ and had a Black male mentor/resident. What the eff Noah Wyle! The premise is unlike anything else in the genre with a ‘24’, realtime structure but the content is predictable which makes the stories cumbersome and hard to follow.

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Side-note: The ‘Chicago’ franchise reminds me of The Avengers. Lets take some waning individual titles and put them together to boost their ratings. ‘MED’ and ‘FIRE’ are both not very diverse or interesting so they put them all together to boost their ratings.

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The whole medical drama genre has become a dumpster fire much like the procedural cop genre. The new show ‘DOC’ is proving to be a whole lot of nothing. It’s the medical version of ‘Regarding Henry’, a successful, middle-aged, urban professional who suddenly loses his memory. What made Harris Ford’s ‘Henry’ so endearing was his journey of finding his way into a new life with humility and child-like innocence.

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On ‘DOC’, this privileged Caucasian woman loses her memory of the last seven years and slowly begins to come to terms with all the missing pieces. Instead of being humble and even vulnerable, in true-to-life form she has a sense of entitlement and demands the board of directors reinstate her as a doctor just days after her accident. A brief summary but accurate, I think.

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Everyone walks around scowling. There’s no sense of urgency to the cases. It’s more like a family drama with medicine as a backdrop. After the first two episodes, we called it quits.

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I have always had an affinity for medicine and watching doctors do their thing. Unfortunately, these days, showrunners/producers are more interested in the socio-political division in the medical field rather than the awe-inspiring feat of healing a broken body.

 

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