Hi, my name is Stephanie, and today I'm going to share
my thoughts on the TV show The Good Doctor.
A lot of you have asked me for my thoughts on this particular TV series
since I've told you my thoughts on a few others.
And it took me a while.
Clearly.
Now, at first, I tried to watch the first episode
and I mean, I watched the first episode,
but I had difficulty with trying to continue
because I had already watched the Korean
drama, the original The Good Doctor,
and there were a lot of similarities because they were
literally just remaking that show.
And they bought the rights to it here in the US.
And so I found myself anticipating like all the similarities
and all the different ways that things were like
the same or different, and this is just based off of recollection.
I don't even think I finished the whole original series.
I think I got toward the end.
But usually what happens in dramas is like, there's this boring
lull that happens usually, and it lost me at that point, so I stopped watching it.
I'm pretty sure.
Either that or I finished it, and I just don't remember the ending.
Either way, I decided that I didn't really care
to watch more of it until my husband came
across it and was like, Do you want to watch this together?
And I was like, Let's try it.
Then I found myself actually explaining a lot to him
because I know that there are some things that don't really make sense
a lot in American culture that happen literally the first episode.
Now for this video, I'm going to do my best
to be as spoiler free as I can.
I am going to attempt to limit most of my comments to like first season
things and will again try to be not very spoiler-y.
There are some things, though, that
either you probably saw in the trailer or you can tell from the first episode,
and I don't feel like that's really that much of a spoiler.
But if you haven't watched it at all and you're going to get upset, if you know
literally anything about it, maybe don't watch these kind of videos, I don't know.
So where Dr.
Glassman literally stakes his position as the person
over the entire thing, just for
Dr. Shaun Murphy
to be able to be included, and if he messed up, then Dr.
Glassman would leave
and having people who really wanted to kind of plot his demise.
Stuff like that is super super common in like Korean dramas.
And so it began as part of the same show here in the United States.
So I was trying to explain some of that and some of the things that maybe seemed
a little bit kind of weird for American shows,
but even within the first episode, they definitely Americanized it
and definitely some of the more typical medical
drama scenes were already going on and everything but
some of the kind of weird, offbeat things that confuse people.
It's probably because of that.
And so I was already anticipating that and explaining that to my husband.
And then I guess it didn't feel so critical
toward it anymore because I had someone with me watching it.
And as the series went on, probably, honestly,
probably
within the second episode, I wasn't looking for parallels anymore
because they really did make the characters into their own.
They definitely did their own take on different characters.
And so really, the common thread that ever stayed was
Shaun as an autistic doctor, even the way
Sean holds himself, and everything is very different from the original drama.
Of course, that was done in, I don't even know what year.
It was many years ago. The premise, though, is the same.
So I finally got into it and we're in the third season as of this recording,
so I think that might give you a hint as to how I feel about it.
So please no spoilers, and I'll do my best to kind of avoid spoilers myself.
If you're like me and you have watched the Korean drama before,
like I watched the Korean drama before it was even mentioned
as a thing here in the U.S.
I was very weirded out
hearing people talk about The Good Doctor and the premise because I was like,
That's the literal title and the premise of a show I've watched.
But it was a K-drama, and that was a while ago.
So yeah, it's anyway.
If you're like me and you watched it,
the K-drama, note that the series really does deviate
pretty quickly from the way the K-drama set things up and takes a life of its own.
So I don't think that,
unless if you were like super super attached to the way things
exactly were in the K-drama, I don't think you'll have a problem watching it.
I have a problem when I'm like watching things
and I feel like I'm comparing scene for scene.
And they also kind of drop a lot of the more Korean
K-drama stereotypical themes
as the series goes on to the point where I think
by the time you catch up to where I am, they're pretty much nowhere to be found.
Now, from what I've seen, I like the show.
I like the character Shaun.
They approach autism and different disabilities
and different things from different perspectives.
So while you still might end up
with the ending for like, who was right in their ideas,
a lot of
different ideas and perspectives are represented,
and it's not overly preachy, in my opinion.
There's some shows where it's like, OK, we get it,
we get what you want to say here.
And sure, there are some episodes that are like that,
but a lot of the time it is taken as like, yeah, people might see this differently.
And are they jerks for it?
Maybe, maybe not.
Like, why do people see things this way?
And so there's a lot of even just when we're talking about autism here,
the people who focus on the disability side, people
who focus on his savant skills and the people
who try to see Shaun as a person and not just one or the other.
Now, once again, just like with any show with an autistic person.
A lot of people are mad because Shaun doesn't directly represent them.
Some complain that he's too rigid and stereotypical.
They might say things like We don't talk like Sean talks,
which is a pretty big thing to say,
first of all, and second of all, when I am having trouble speaking or I'm
starting to maybe like lose great function, especially in social situations,
I do talk like how Sean talks a lot of the time. So
I get it.
Maybe Sean doesn't look exactly like you.
Some people were complaining because, you know, like, how doesn't
he just have frequent meltdowns in the medical setting?
Like, it's not.
That doesn't make sense.
And he should- even some who complained about
the back story, his personal backstory
and how they don't focus on it enough, and he's not traumatized enough.
And just like stuff
that doesn't make sense, in my opinion, I think that they definitely
dedicated plenty of time to his backstory and still do to some extent.
As the series progresses, sometimes I think we do step on the side
of some of the things that went wrong with Atypical
that really turned people off, especially in the first season.
There's just some things that maybe the whole world doesn't have to like know.
In general, these complaints are pretty common
for the autistic community, which is completely ironic
because we like to preach about
how everyone on the spectrum is different and how it's a spectrum.
And, you know, it presents differently from person to person.
And then we're like, Oh,
but you didn't have this autistic character look exactly like me.
Mmm, kay then.
Now, some less ironic criticism does come from the fact that Shaun is a male.
And of course, there's usually more male representation
for autism, and he's white and he has savant syndrome.
So there's a lot of maybe stereotypes that people dislike there.
I guess I can join the camp of wishing that maybe sometime
a program would let us non-savants over here
also be successful autistic people without being really, really wacky.
And I say that as in I feel like these shows, sometimes
to be like, Yeah, this person is autistic, but they're not typical stereotypes,
but they're like always obsessed with things that maybe should be kept
private in their private lives and telling the whole world about them.
And I don't know how I feel about that,
because yes, like some people are like, Well,
people think that people with disabilities or autism are just pure little angels
and that's, you know, really infantilizing and stuff like that.
But also being obsessed with being like, Yes, they do things with each other.
OK. I don't know.
It feels like you're trying a little too hard.
And it's kind of creepy sometimes, especially the way, I just,
some of it goes a little too far.
We go from trying to understand different aspects of someone's life
and how that might look different to like none of us needed to know that.
And I think we've, we get it.
Like, we get, we get it.
Now going back to the concept of us non-savant
autistic people being successful, I do think there is a hint
that it's possible that they might feature
in some capacity someone who might not be very obviously autistic,
who isn't necessarily a savant but is successful in their career.
Possibly I could be wrong, but I feel like the way they said things.
It sounded like that's what they were trying to say.
I don't know.
I'm trying to be really vague here because I want to talk about it
and I'm trying to get it to where if you've seen it
and you know what I'm talking about, you get it.
But if you haven't seen it, I'm not ruining things for you.
You know what I mean? It's, it's a hard balance.
The character, Sean, is a lot more, maybe, I don't know.
The word is like stilted or
restricted, maybe than I am, but he does a lot of things
that I can really relate to, and I appreciate them showing that.
Even like his habit of saying, OK,
that really resonates with me, like when we're maybe changing roles
or moving into a speaking moment or someone gave him the go-ahead.
Or he doesn't really get the conversation just switched or something changed,
and now I have to say like, OK, like,
even like a verbal way of
letting your brain and the situation shift.
I like that because I understand what's happening.
Like, it's not just like a hah, they threw that in there for fun kind of feeling.
It just feels natural to him, in my opinion.
I think for most of what he does, it does feel pretty natural.
I would say he doesn't really like openly stim a lot.
He does have what people might consider a comfort item
that sometimes he stims with and stuff, but he isn't like a super open stimmer.
Stimmer, stimmer.
He tends to be rather blunt, a lot more blunt and open than maybe I am.
But it's
not necessarily unbelievable, in my opinion.
But I really like how they handle the conversation around autism.
At one point, we will see parents who have opinions
and might have differing opinions or differing perspectives.
People who are patients who might definitely not want him there
because he's autistic or who do or don't care about it,
or who are positive or negative about it, his coworkers again,
like I was saying, some of them might just see him
for the things he can't do or the things that he can do as a savant,
but don't really care for him as a person or the people who do see him as a person.
And what does that look like?
I think it's really interesting how that dynamic plays out.
And in a later season, they definitely really focus on that.
Like, what are your restrictions and are your restrictions
something that precludes you from being a doctor?
Do you have to be
confined to a space that we have deemed correct for you?
And this kind of leads into this other
kind of concept where, like, who's correct in a situation?
And a lot of times
it feels like maybe some of the more socially aware
people get the situation better. A lot of times
medical situations Shaun is correct, but sometimes he's not correct.
More often, of course, social situations and other types of perspectives.
It seems like the people around him are more correct,
and it often defaults to if anyone's going to be accurate, it's Dr.
Glassman, and I really appreciate that at one point, they really kind of make
you look at the concept of independence or maybe autonomy in some respects.
Where maybe choices are
given and you're supposed to choose a choice, but the choice
that you choose isn't okay unless it's the choice that I wanted you to choose.
And really looking at is that really giving someone a choice?
Is that really letting someone be who they are?
And yes, they go into like things like meltdowns, but they don't like
really make, make it all about that, if that makes sense.
Of course, as with anything, I think for the most part, the actors do a great job.
There's been times where I think they've missed the mark a little bit, but
despite these moments where people might not do a perfect job
or the show kind of is ehh about something,
I really think that the show is the best of its kind that I'm aware of.
Basically, with the show, autism is a core part of the conversation,
but as the show goes on, there's a lot of other things they touch upon.
All these characters have their own personalities and backstories and stuff.
There is like one character that I don't feel was very consistent,
consistently written, if that makes sense.
But other than that, I think it's a pretty darn good show.
Autism and savant syndrome doesn't make the character Shaun
all powerful or completely and wholly incapable.
They show moments where he does struggle and other moments
where he excels and issues with his personality
sometimes and insistence on being right when he's not and stuff like that.
And I do appreciate that
because it looks autism, but it also looks at people as people.
Another thing I noticed, too, is that the scenes where you're supposed
to kind of be experiencing the situation with Shaun, for me, are very effective.
I don't know how it is for non autistic people or people
who might be less sensitive to stuff, but I think they do a really good job for me.
They, they do a really good job of putting me in that situation, too,
where I start to get overwhelmed
and I start to feel kind of anxious and like freaking out.
And I can really empathize with what's happening
instead of some situations where it's like, Oh, wait, what's happened?
Oh, that's what's happening.
Like, I feel really in the moment when they try to make me feel that way.
So I think they pull that off well.
As for the medical aspect, I'm not a doctor,
so I don't really know how accurate
the scenes are when it comes to surgery or it comes to how hospitals work
and all that stuff, I don't know, but it seems pretty typical, kind of similar
to the concepts of Gray's Anatomy,
which is like the only other major medical drama that I'm really aware of.
But yeah, overall, I like the show.
Sean may not directly represent me in every way,
but I think
he works as a very good character, and the premise of the show is pretty neat.
I just like it.
I think it's pretty good. What do you think of The Good Doctor?
Have you watched it?
Are you wanting to watch it, but are kind of wary of it
because you've heard what other people said or you're
not really sure if you want to endure another autism based thing
that's really, like ableist or really stereotypical or whatever?
Like, what are your thoughts? I want to know.
Do you like how Sean is portrayed?
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I try to upload every Thursday at 4:00 p.m.
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thank you to my spinny stimmy tier patrons, Jack Varney and Philip Noah.
Thank you so much for watching.
I hope you have a wonderful week, and I'll see you in my next video. Bye!