Doctor Doctor

1980s tv sitcom

Mike Stratford is torn between being a doctor, being a TV doctor and being a boring books author.

Mike Stratford, a Harvard graduate doctor, just published his first novel and is torn between following his passion for writing and treating patients. He is a very caring doctor, who takes the good of his patience above just the professional approach, something that his colleagues do not understand. He is part of medical practice, where he constantly tries to make a change. His novel however opens doors for him to start a new career as a TV doctor, something that he initially despise, but later learns to deal with. His gay brother, something their father does not know how to deal with, helps him with his personal and professional problems.

What it takes to make a successful sitcom? Good premise, interesting characters, talented cast and funny scripts. Doctor Doctor unfortunately had none of those. The premise was hardly original, the characters were inconsistent and shallow, scripts were average at best and often sunk into over-sentimental scenes. As for cast only one character was miscasted, but unfortunately it was the main character, which takes part in about 90% of the plots. Choice of Matt Frewer to play Mike Stratford was a huge mistake - not only was he unprepared to fit into that kind of comedy, but also changes made to the character made it even worse.

While in first, six-episode-long, season Mike Stratford was a very serious and even boring doctor concentrated on his job and patients, with second season his whole persona changed into constant joker with far more laid-back approach cracking jokes even during patient examination. While it was good idea to fiddle with the character that was far too down-to-earth for a sitcom, the sudden change in the character and the fact that Matt Frewere could not handle well a character like that, turned Doctor Doctor into a mess.

Scripts were very uneven, with heavy emphasis put on making world a better place by using heavy-handedly presented stories that involved racism, homophobia or moral dilemma of medical profession they often clashed with the new Mike Stratford persona switched into constant joker and cranked up to 11.

Overall a quite painful experience for sitcom fans - beginning was way too down-to-earth, while later the series was too far the other way round and filled with mediocre jokes.

Rating	3.2
Funny	2 / 10
Entertaining	2 / 5
Characters	2 / 5
Nonrepetitive	2 / 5