SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Doc Season 2, Episode 3.

Many TV medical dramas eventually become more about the personal lives of the doctors than the actual medicine. Doc Season 2, Episode 3, “New Blood” is an example of that phenomenon. Despite a top-tier guest star anchoring the case of the week, most of the storylines exist primarily to fuel Dr. Amy Larsen’s personal conflicts.

Doc has always been split into two halves: one part about Amy’s recovery and the other about the hospital. But “New Blood” leans far too much into the former, while nearly everything seems to orbit around Amy. One can’t blame Nora for getting frustrated when a lot of the core cast is measured by their connection to Amy. The biggest example of this is Dr. Jake Heller; the episode opens with him thinking about his relationship with Amy and ends in part with her making a romantic move on him. The other major plot point is that Jake becomes aware of Dr. Sonya Maitra’s feelings for him—from Amy. The only thing he does on his own is hire an intern, but as a preview for Episode 4 indicates, that’s more setting up a future storyline. Jake is a great character and Jon Ecker is a great actor; there should be more for him than unresolved feelings.

Even for Jake and Amy shippers, their final scene together also comes across as a bit awkward. Jake and Amy argue about her making him party to a controversial, non-FDA treatment she administered to her patient Claire. She has a strong moral ground to stand on, as the treatment is what Claire wanted and what seemed to be actually helping her. But Amy’s reasoning for why Jake won’t report her isn’t that she’s right; it’s “because you still love me,” delivered with a smirk. She then kisses Jake—and when he breaks the kiss and says he asked her to stop doing things like that, her apology is hollow. All of this comes across as Amy having little respect for Jake’s boundaries, when Doc could have done a lot more with that scene.

Elsewhere, Nora once again confronts Michael about having his own feelings for Amy, which has already been covered in both Doc Season 1 and Season 2. And then there’s the personal backstory between Amy and her old friend turned new boss Dr. Joan Ridley, as “New Blood” makes clear that Joan is fulfilling the same function as Dr. Richard Miller—only worse. Richard could sometimes be conflicted or scared or just plain clueless; Joan is flat-out unlikable so far, despite the performance of Felicity Huffman. The viewers are told that she and Amy are such old friends, but Joan treats Amy like a problem child. Her one interesting scene is when she spells out to Amy all of her conflicts of interest—because that’s basically summing up Doc in a nutshell.

“New Blood” does have some strengths when it’s able to focus on the patients. Frasier revival star Jess Salguiero plays Claire Pinto, Amy’s patient of the week who is living with multiple sclerosis, and she delivers Claire’s speeches perfectly so that the audience feels the desperation under the anger. A different actor might have just focused on the anger, but Salguiero maintains a vulnerability throughout. Elsewhere, Patrick Walker gets back to center stage with a subplot about Dr. TJ Coleman treating a fellow veteran. It’s great that Doc is giving him things to do and not solely focusing on TJ’s recovery. The medical mystery is intriguing, plus the pairing of TJ and Dr. Sonya Maitra is an effective one.

Yet this episode isn’t the best for many of the characters, because of that inclination to emphasize creating drama. Joan is a full-blown antagonist, and even the flashback to her own medical history doesn’t help. Amy’s interactions with Jake make her seem self-centered and manipulative. Michael has little to do except reflect on the past. Doc is never going to be a hard medicine kind of drama; Amy’s personal story and her memory loss is the “hook” that’s meant to separate this show from others like Grey’s Anatomy and Chicago Med. But it would be selling this series short if it was just a workplace drama where the characters happen to be doctors. There are so many stories that can be told when Doc opens up the whole world it’s created.

Doc airs Tuesdays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on FOX. Photo Credit: Courtesy of FOX.

Article content is (c)2020-2025 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.