How ABC’s ‘Doctor Odyssey’ Adds a Modern Twist to the “Traditional, Big Network Show”

From the brilliant mind of Ryan Murphy comes Doctor Odyssey, a new high-octane procedural premiering Thursday, September 26, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and streaming next day on Hulu.

Doctor Odyssey follows Max Bankman (Joshua Jackson), a new on-board doctor for a luxury cruise ship where the staff—including Captain Massey (Don Johnson) and nurses Avery Morgan (Phillipa Soo) and Tristan Silva (Sean Teale)—works hard and plays harder.

“Doctor Odyssey is both old-fashioned and very modern in that it has all the elements of a traditional, big network show with gloss and a great deal of style, while also not being afraid to talk about the world now—our emotional states, the tensions between men and women, pandemics, hedonism, you name it,” explains Jon Robin Baitz, who writes and executive produces the new series alongside Murphy and Joe Baken. “And yet, it’s really funny—it’s smart, fun, and a pleasure to sink into the comfiest chair you have and watch.”

Baitz adds, “It feels like a new way of doing something wonderfully old school.”

Charting a New Course

With procedurals dominating broadcast and streaming charts, Doctor Odyssey couldn’t set sail at a better time. ABC closed out the 2023–2024 season as No. 1 in entertainment among Adults 18-49 for the fifth consecutive season, marking the longest winning streak in over 10 years—and weeks before its premiere, Doctor Odyssey generated record-breaking buzz across social media. Released September 17, the trailer logged 77.8 million views within 48 hours, making it the most-watched trailer ever for a new network television show.

As momentum builds, the showrunners remain focused on one thing: telling good stories.

“The only way I know to keep that machine functioning is to collaborate with Ryan and Joe and write inventive, smart, entertaining scripts that respect the audience’s intelligence while taking seriously the mandate to entertain,” Baitz says. “Ryan brings a kind of brilliant showmanship along with his great storytelling instincts. Joe has tremendous oddball takes while also being very serious about the emotional life of the show. So, we must keep challenging ourselves to be really good at the brief: making a juicy, joyous, big-hearted, lively, contemporary, funny show. I like broadcast, the gloss of it, the traditions of it, the pace of it. So, it’s to make beautiful content that reminds you of a bygone time but is brand-new.”

It also helps that Jackson and Johnson are no strangers to making primetime TV, with the former having starred in Dawson’s Creek (1998–2003), Fringe (2008-2013), and The Affair (2014-2018), and the latter having starred in Miami Vice (1984–1990) and Nash Bridges (1996–2001). The two also serve as executive producers alongside director Paris Barclay, Eric Paquette, Alexis Martin Woodall, Eric Kovtun, Scott Robertson, and Nissa Diederich.

According to Baitz, Jackson and Johnson are “smart, charming, wise, and easy-going.”

“They bring a collective plethora of TV experience: instincts for what makes a show tick, how to lead a company of actors, how to protect those characters and argue for them, and how to advocate for them,” Baitz continues. “They know how to love the work and respect the process and the crew. They are the real deal—grown-ups who are intimately familiar with all the moving parts of making TV and know how to be of value to the process.”

All Hands on Deck

Given its setting aboard a luxury cruise ship, Doctor Odyssey will feature dozens of guest stars—from Kelsea Ballerini, Rachel Dratch, Gina Gershon, and Laura Harrier to Cheyenne Jackson, Chord Overstreet, John Stamos, and Shania Twain. “One of the pleasures in my life is casting,” Baitz says. “A couple dozen plays Off- and on Broadway—a life in the New York theater—gives you a real sense of how to ‘people’ a show. The talent out there is simply unending, and so is the generosity of actors who want to come play and be part of a fun.”

“There is an infinite pool of the known and unknown—new faces, old hands,” Baitz continues. “What a joy to see someone you’ve missed onscreen for a while showing up. What a surprise to see new faces being jaw-droppingly good—and knowing you’ll see more of them. Then there are the relationships we have with actors; one example is that Gina Gershon and I went to high school together and behaved very badly in plays. Well, I did, because I tried to make her laugh. This is one of the best things about Doctor Odyssey—there’s a panoply of glamorous and exciting folk coming along for the cruise.”

And according to Baitz, the fun—and the drama—are just getting started.

Throughout the season, he says, viewers can look forward to “deepening relationships between the principals and complicated turns in their emotional lives.” As if that weren’t enough, Baitz teases, Doctor Odyssey will feature “fun and tragedy, heroic medical thinking, fast action, heartbreak, feuds, love, marvelous costumes, and life choices questioned.”