The Good Doctor is an American medical drama television series developed for ABC by David Shore, based on the South Korean series of the same name. The series is produced by Sony Pictures Television and ABC Studios, with Shore serving as showrunner.[1] The series stars Freddie Highmore as Shaun Murphy, a young autistic surgical resident with savant syndrome, alongside Nicholas Gonzalez, Antonia Thomas, Chuku Modu, Beau Garrett, Hill Harper, Richard Schiff, and Tamlyn Tomita.[2][3] Will Yun Lee, Fiona Gubelmann, Christina Chang, Paige Spara, Jasika Nicole, Bria Samon Henderson, Noah Galvin, Osvaldo Benavides, and Brandon Larracuente joined the principal cast in later seasons.[4][5][6] The series premiered on September 25, 2017.
In March 2022, the series was renewed for a sixth season, which premiered on October 3, 2022.[7][8] In April 2023, ABC renewed the series for a seventh season which premiered on February 20, 2024.[9][10] On January 11, 2024, ABC announced that the series would not be renewed for another season, thus making season seven the final season of the series.[11]
The hospital struggles against the COVID-19 pandemic and forces changes on the way everyone lives: Shaun and Lea are obliged to remain apart, Park is staying with Shaun, Glassman works from home, and Andrews sleeps in his garage to protect his wife. The situation takes its toll on everyone: Shaun struggles with being so far from Lea, Glassman becomes overprotective of Debbie to the point of annoyance, and Lim and Claire become short-tempered. The episode primarily focuses on three COVID patients: a woman who doesn't survive whose daughter Claire empathizes with, a man who is in constant video contact with his wife and is put on a ventilator by Shaun and Andrews, and finally a pregnant woman with whom Park bonds and who he takes care of personally. Morgan treats a man with symptoms of diverticulitis, but later discovers that he has COVID and both she and nurse Deena Petringa have been exposed. While looking at the personal belongings of the hospital's COVID patients, Claire hallucinates Melendez.
Claire deals with her grief by returning patients' belongings to their families while hallucinating Melendez. Claire tracks down the owner of a set of dog tags left behind by a deceased patient and, with the encouragement of Melendez, decides to begin moving on with her life. At the same time, Lim struggles with the increasing losses of patients to COVID-19, Park continues to treat his formerly pregnant patient, and Shaun and Andrews attempt to save a man who must have his right foot and ankle amputated. Now working as an internist and recovered from her own bout with COVID, Morgan treats Nurse Deena Petringa whose condition continually worsens; the two women bond, with Deena offering Morgan advice based on her forty years of nursing experience. Deena ultimately dies of the virus, but Shaun's, Andrews', and Park's patients survive with one released three weeks later. Glassman opens up to and reconciles with Debbie while Shaun allows Lea to spend time with him in person again, Andrews decides to be with his wife instead of continuing to sleep in the garage, and Park decides to end his romantic relationship with Mia and continue co-parenting Kellan together instead.
Shaun, Claire, and Park are assigned to supervise six resident applicants with only four positions available while Morgan struggles with the transition to internal medicine. Andrews, Shaun, and Park treat a seventeen year old getting breast implants to fix a deformity; while the surgery is initially successful, she experiences complications that put her into a coma. It is determined that the patient formed a blood clot in her brain, but Andrews manages to remove it using a stent retriever. Morgan discovers that her patient has a tumor on his heart and enlists Claire and Lim's help to fix it, but has trouble stepping back from the case to the point that Lim has to throw Morgan out of the operating room; despite some difficulties, the surgery is a success and Morgan gives Claire credit as the surgeon responsible. While having lunch with Lea, Shaun inadvertently insults her but, after getting advice from Glassman, makes up with her by being totally honest about everything that he loves about Lea. The team selects doctors Jordan Allen, Asher Wolke, Olivia Jackson, and Enrique Guerin as the new residents; Lim reveals that Shaun, Claire, and Park will be helping to train the new residents and warns them not to take the responsibility lightly.
During a heatwave, Shaun and Danni work on a case together, but Shaun struggles to work with her after finding out she advised Lim not to do the surgery that he proposed. Danni keeps contradicting him during their work and he shoots down her ideas. After their recent arguing, Shaun removes her from the case but, after his patient wants Danni back on and Glassman advises him to find common ground with her, he and Danni resolve their issues and they save the patient. The rest of the staff treat elderly patients when the hospital has a blackout during the heatwave, losing some but saving many. Lea and Andrews work together to restore the power. Danni brings Lim to a disability basketball game, which helps her connect with people who share her condition.
As a young child, Freddie Highmore established himself as a leading talent in the film world. Previously Empire Award's Most Promising Newcomer, Highmore is a double SAG nominee and was twice winner of the Film Critics' award for the world's Best Young Actor.
Having shot Two Brothers, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud; Women Talking Dirty, with Helena Bonham Carter; and Five Children and It, with Ken Branagh, Highmore came to prominence as Peter in the Oscar-nominated Finding Neverland. His co-star Kate Winslet described Freddie as simply the best young actor she had ever seen. Johnny Depp was so impressed that he pushed for Highmore to star opposite him again in Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
In America, Highmore took the central character in the Oscar-nominated August Rush, with Robin Williams, and starred opposite himself, playing twins in Paramount's The Spiderwick Chronicles. Freddie reunited with Helena Bonham Carter as his mother for a third time filming Toast and returned to New York to team with Emma Roberts in Twentieth Century Fox's The Art of Getting By.
Whilst continuing his education, Highmore voiced Astro Boy, The Golden Compass and Justin and the Knights of Valour, as well as shooting the title role in the apartheid era Master Harold ...and the Boys in South Africa. Achieving straight A's in all his GCSE and A-level exams, Freddie graduated with a double first in Arabic and Spanish from the University of Cambridge.
In 2016, Highmore concluded filming on the fifth and final season of the Emmy-nominated Bates Motel as the iconic Norman Bates, for which he was awarded a People's Choice Award for Best Actor. Having written an episode in Season Four, Highmore wrote a further two episodes in Season Five where he also made his directorial debut.
June 2017 saw the release of the HBO mockumentary Tour de Pharmacy, directed by Jake Szymanski, in which Highmore appears alongside Andy Samberg. You can now see Highmore starring as Dr. Shaun Murphy on last fall's No. 1 new drama series, ABC's The Good Doctor, currently on its second season.
Hill Harper is an award-winning actor, bestselling author and philanthropist. Harper starred on the hit drama CSI: NY, HLN's How It Really Happened with Hill Harper, and the award-winning series Homeland. This fall, Harper will continue his role as Dr. Marcus Andrews on last fall's No. 1 new drama series, ABC's The Good Doctor. He can also be be seen in the Tupac Shakur biopic, All Eyez on Me.
Harper is the author of four New York Times bestsellers and has earned seven NAACP Image Awards for his writing and acting. Additionally, Harper founded The Manifest Your Destiny Foundation, which is dedicated to empowering underserved youth through mentorship, scholarship, and grant programs.
Harper graduated magna cum laude as valedictorian of his department with a bachelor's degree from Brown University and cum laude with a Juris Doctorate degree from Harvard Law School. He also holds a master's degree with honors from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and holds Honorary Doctoral Degrees from Winston-Salem State University, Cheyney University, Westfield State College, Tougaloo College, Le-Moyne Owen College, Dillard University and Howard University.
Harper currently serves on the President's Cancer Panel, having been appointed by President Obama in 2011. Harper travels worldwide as a motivational speaker, addressing current affairs and life-awakening topics to a wide array of audiences of youth, adults, couples and business leaders. In 2014, People Magazine named him one of its "Sexiest Men Alive."
Schiff is currently receiving rave reviews and Emmy buzz for his role as Dr. Aaron Glassman on last fall's No. 1 new drama series, ABC's The Good Doctor, which stars Freddie Highmore, the incredibly gifted young surgeon with savant syndrome. Proclaims Variety, "It's seemingly impossible to make Richard Schiff uninteresting on screen, so he's a welcome sight as a doctor at the hospital who fights to get Shaun on the staff." The Good Doctor is ABC's most-watched freshman series in 13 years, averaging 15.4 million viewers during its first season.
Schiff can also be seen in HBO's Ballers playing Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's very successful and demanding boss, Brett Anderson. In addition, he has a recurring role on STARZ's Counterpart, now in production on its second season. Schiff's other television roles include his much-celebrated portrayal of White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler on The West Wing, for which he received the Best Supporting Actor Emmy Award and garnered a total of three Emmy nominations. More recently, he played Don Cheadle's conniving boss in Showtime's House of Lies. In WGN America's period drama, Manhattan, he played the mysterious Mr. Fisher tasked with finding spies who are working in the Manhattan project. In Direct TV's crime drama Rogue, he played a Machiavellian power broker and in Showtime's The Affair he played a high-profile city attorney.
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