The nautical TV boom is here. And it is not good. We have Below Deck to blame, with its genuinely brilliant and seemingly endless series, as well as its various iterations (Below Deck Mediterranean, Below Deck Sailing Yacht, Below Deck Down Under, etc).
Now, capitalising on that success, the first big fictional TV project takes to the seas. And it’s called Dr Odyssey. Because it’s about a doctor on a cruise ship. A doctor… of the seas.
Somehow this shipwreck of a show has managed to land Joshua Jackson, the respected dramatic actor and much-loved Dawson’s Creek alum, to play the doctor of the title.
In case you were worried about Jackson’s medical experience, don’t fret, it’s not his first brush with doctor-dom. Just three years ago he starred in one season of the TV series Dr Death, which follows an American neurosurgeon who permanently mutilates his patients, killing two of them. If he wasn’t struck off for that, he surely will be for this shocker.
Also starring is Don Jonson (again, how did they get him?), who plays the smiling, loveable, potentially semi-lobotomised captain, Robert Massey, who adores cruise ships and all the people on them (red flag). And then there’s the two nurses on hand to help Dr Odyssey (real name Dr Max Bankman): Avery Morgan, played by Hamilton star Phillipa Soo, and her boyish right hand man, Tristan Silva, played by Skins actor Sean Teale.
None of them are particularly bad, it’s just the material they’re working with. This has a script and production values so corporate that it feels eerily similar to the in-room promotional videos that play on hotel room TV screens on an endless loop when you first check in.
The series is supposed to be a comedy-drama, a sort of House-White Lotus hybrid, with Dr Odyssey and his nurses rushing around to fix all sorts of ridiculous on-sea ailments that are also deeply serious and deserve respect.
The first 30 minutes of the series feature a guest who suffers from iodine poisoning after eating too much shrimp at the seafood buffet, a waterslide accident and a penile fracture. That’s a lot of “funny” injuries in half an hour, except they are all lacking in any decipherable humour, or any of the depth required for the audience to be invested. The only joke that really lands is one about the size of Dr Odyssey’s penis, and even that feels like a bit of a cheap shot.
If that’s where it fails in its attempts to be like House, it’s failure to emulate The White Lotus comes in the general fondness for cruises and the cruise community. Luxury travel — and cruises in particular — are ripe for humour and drama, but it has to be somewhat critical, or even just knowing.
Dr Odyssey treats guests on this ridiculously lavish cruise ship like lovely golden retrievers who just happened to end up on board the ship, or poor rednecks who saved for 150 years and sold their grandmother’s wedding ring to spend a day at sea. It’s like someone owes Big Cruise some serious moolah.
Unless you like serious crap TV, or really enjoy watching those in-flight safety videos, this is not worth watching. Sorry, Dr Odyssey, but your maiden voyage should probably be your last.
Doctor Odyssey is streaming on Disney+ now
