As the day was coming to its end at New York Comic Con, The Good Doctor creator David Shore (Law & Order) and present cast premiered a season four teaser and the two-part premier of Frontline according to Deadline. The COVID-19 inspired roles for St. Bonaventure Residents were also featured.
“It would’ve been so false, I believe, to not deal with it…This has taken over every aspect of our lives for an unbelievable amount of time. The world hopefully will go back to what we viewed as normal, but it just would have been dishonest not to deal with this story,” shared Shore at Comic-Con via Deadline, “Having said that, it is an incredible story. We’re a show about regular people that do heroic things. The impact [of COVID-19] is incredibly dramatic, so we wanted to dramatize it.
Accompanying Shore, The Good Doctor cast member actors Freddie Highmore (The Bates Motel), Antonia Thomas (Misfits), Christina Chang (Dragnet), Hill Harper (Lee’s He Got Game), Will Yun Lee (The Wolverine), Fiona Gubelmann (The Mullets) and Paige Spara (Home Again), and executive producer Daniel Dae Kim (Hell Boy), shared the fourth season’s news.
“To be a [medical] show in 2020 and have the worst pandemic in a century hitting us, it only seems right that we would address it in some way,” added Dae Kim via Deadline. “I think everyone is looking at our front line workers and seeing them in a whole new light, and that’s something that can only help our show. Because that’s in line with how we see our cast—as heroes.”
Shore shared the inspiration behind the renovated approach to the new series, the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite, the challenge of incorporating this into a fictional storyline structure especially for the first few episodes.
“On the one hand, we need to deal with it and do it in an honest but entertaining way. But we’ve been living with this so much for the last six months…I do think we have a responsibility, as entertainers, to provide a little bit of an escape,” Shore explained via Deadline.
The fourth season will be picking up from the third season’s massive earthquake hit in San Jose. During the third season, the natural disaster and other events resulted in Dr. Melendez’s death, Dr. Park’s decision to relocate to Phoenix, and Dr. Reznick’s potential inability to continue practicing as a surgeon. The season also highlighted the romantic chemistry between Shaun and Lea.
Shore also announced that the fourth season cast would also be moving up in the medical world after they paid their dues at the bottom of the professional hierarchy.
“We’re going to throw them into a supervisory capacity,” shared Shore via Deadline, “and bring in new characters to challenge them in that regard.”
The fourth season of The Good Doctor will premier on November 2.