Following “Super Surgeon” Paolo Macchiarini (Edgar Ramírez) in a new disturbing true story, Dr. Death – streaming on Stan – is back for a new season. As David Michael Brown diagnoses, there’s a sinister edge to Macchiarini’s Machiavellian scheming that makes him all the more terrifying.
Dr. Death: Season 2
Based on the globally successful Dr. Death true crime podcast that catalogues medical malpractice at the hands of a select group of infamous surgeons, the must-watch series of the same name has dramatised two cases that saw egotistical surgeons making bad decisions in the operating theatre. Confronting, shocking and compelling, this aciurgy anthology compels and bewilders in equal measures. How on earth were these alleged men of science permitted anywhere near an operating theatre, let alone allowed to operate on their unsuspecting “patients”?
The first season of this twisted hospital drama followed two crusading surgeons trying to end the practice of a medical deviant whose cavalier attitude to surgery and his delusional self-belief left a trail of corpses in his wake. Played by Dawson’s Creek star Joshua Jackson, Dr. Christopher Duntsch was a calculating doctor desperately trying to live up to his surgeon father’s legacy by pushing the boundaries of neurosurgery. What he actually achieved was far more disturbing.
Dr. Duntsch preyed on the fragile and desperate who were blinded by the excruciating pain they were suffering. But he never delivered on his big promises. He claimed he was the best in Dallas, despite not having received the requisite training. His haphazard procedures left his patients wishing the doctor had never scrubbed up. As they started to experience complications, the system failed to protect them. The charming surgeon with the wonderful bedside manner left 33 dead patients but was still somehow permitted to continue practising. Dr. Duntsch was originally to be played by Fifty Shades of Grey star Jamie Dornan only to be replaced by a brilliant Joshua Jackson due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Telling the horrific true story in a non-linear fashion, especially when covering the investigation into his malpractice, Christan Slater and Alec Baldwin play the exasperated doctors who are dumbfounded that Duntsch was ever given a medical licence, let alone allowed to set foot in the operating theatre. What they discover is not only a megalomaniac with a scalpel but a spineless system more interested in making money than saving lives.
The second season is an entirely different beast. Again, a fictional account of a disturbing true story, the proceedings play out very differently. Nicknamed the “Super Surgeon,” Paolo Macchiarini was lauded for his ground-breaking work at the forefront of regenerative medicine but was exposed as a con artist. The infamous Italian doctor dared to make the cut but killed more people than he saved. While the subjects of both seasons get away with murder, there is no doubt that Dr. Duntsch is unhinged, however, the case surrounding the suave debonair Dr. Paolo Macchiarini (Edgar Ramírez) is less certain… initially.
Macchiarini developed the world’s first artificial windpipe in 2011, using a plastic replica of a trachea that was soaked in a patient’s stem cells to prevent the body from rejecting the transplanted replacement organ. Behind-the-scenes he was falsifying medical documents and using terminally ill patients as human guinea pigs. All in the name of science. And all to massage his God complex.
What the gripping sophomore season does continue is Dr. Death’s unflinching depiction of the surgical process. The often nauseating and graphic procedures evoke a guttural response, as the surgeons deal with flowing blood, rotted flesh and a foul stench of death resulting from the donor’s body’s violent rejection of the artificial organ transplant. One patient in particular, a young woman who is given one of Macchiarini’s synthetically created body parts, goes under the knife more than 100 gruelling times as a result of complications from the Italian surgeon’s first operation.
This is Us star Mandy Moore plays Benita Alexander, the award-winning NBC journalist who fell under Macchiarini’s spell and was ready to marry him. That was until she discovered that their life together had been a sham. Enraged, she begins to dig deep to discover the truth about her beau and discovers a web of lies and deceit.
As Alexander begins to investigate, three whistleblowing doctors also join forces to bring him down. Dr. Nathan Gamelli (Luke Kirby who won a Primetime Emmy Award for his guest role as acerbic stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) accuses the doctor of malpractice, Macchiarini’s former partner in crime Dr. Ana Lasbrey (Ashley Madekwe) saw one too many patients die, and Swedish researcher Dr. Svensson (Gustaf Hammarsten) has seen his failed tests covered up one too many times. Macchiarini believes he is a miracle worker but, in reality, he needs each operation to happen, in order to fund the next, and he is willing to cut whatever corners necessary to aid his medical revolution.
Unlike Dr. Dunscht who was proven to be a complete charlatan, Macchiarini knew what he was doing. Just witness the shocking scene when he operates on his then fiancé in their hotel room when he suspects her wound from a previous operation has become infected. Basking in the press coverage he received—he boasted of being both Barack Obama and the Pope’s personal surgeon—Macchiarini’s hubris knew no bounds and Edgar Ramírez effortlessly exudes his air of arrogance.
And that’s what makes season 2 of Dr. Death so riveting. In both seasons we know that the doctors get their comeuppance otherwise why else would they be featured in the podcast? And while Dr. Duntsch’s downfall was inevitable, his ambition outweighing his surgical skills, there is a sinister edge to Macchiarini’s Machiavellian scheming that makes him all the more terrifying. Just be thankful he doesn’t make house calls.
