‘The Good Doctor’ Season 4 Premiere Will Focus on the Coronavirus Pandemic
Add The Good Doctor to the list of TV shows for which art will imitate life in the 2020-2021 season.
The two-part Season 4 premiere will include a coronavirus storyline, TVLine reports. There have been more than 150,000 deaths in the U.S. due to the pandemic that has affected people worldwide. We’ll have to wait to see how that will impact the characters in and out of the hospital.
No details have been revealed yet as to how the doctors at St. Bonaventure will handle the pandemic, but we know the hospital will be down one of its own after Neil Melendez (Nicholas Gonzalez) died in the Season 3 finale as a result of injuries he suffered in an earthquake. It’s up in the air whether the pandemic leads to any other exits; Dr. Alex Park (Will Yun Lee) was planning to move closer to his family at the end of Season 3 (below). Might the pandemic influence his decision?
There isn’t yet a start date on production of The Good Doctor Season 4. “There is an issue with COVID-19 testing, which we are working to resolve with the BC Council,” a Sony Pictures Television spokesperson said in a statement to Deadline. (Pre-production was paused last week.)
(ABC/Darko Sikman)
The Good Doctor joins fellow medical dramas Grey’s Anatomy, The Resident, and New Amsterdam in including the real-world pandemic in their fictional worlds when production resumes.
“I don’t think we can ignore the reality of the pandemic, especially as health care professionals in New York City at a large public hospital,” New Amsterdam showrunner David Schulner told TV Insider in April. “All our plans are out the window, and like everyone else in the world, we’re going to have to rethink everything we do.”
The Good Doctor, Season 4, Fall 2020, ABC
