Critic’s Rating: 3.8 / 5.0
3.8
It’s Singles Week on Doctor Odyssey Season 1 Episode 2! And you know what that means?
Lots of people were looking to get it on, and LOTS of people were passing out.
Seriously, people were dropping left and right. Between this week and Doctor Odyssey Season 1 Episode 1, why is this cruise so popular?
After a rocky start, Max, Avery, and Tristan found their groove with one another relatively quickly, and they didn’t really have a choice considering how fast and furious the emergencies happen on that ship.
One of the big questions coming out of the premiere was people wondering how many emergencies are seen on cruise ships. And are there really whole surgeries taking place while people are above deck doing Zumba in the pool and gorging on overpriced and under-seasoned prime rib?
Reviews have been mixed about how much that medical bay on a cruise ship is being used beyond sunburns, seasickness, and the like, but this is primetime television, people!
Who wants to watch a show with nurses and doctors on a ship and NOT see them engaging in the ridiculousness?
As previously mentioned, it was singles week, and if the series is going to adopt a different theme every week, I hope there are some creatives in that writer’s room because that’s certainly a task!
Of the love triangle squad, Avery was the least excited about the week, and while she may have sounded cynical at first, she also had her reasons.
The people on the ship were there to have a good time, but it was also a bit of a cesspool, as we later found out when an STD spread through the ship like wildfire.
Avery is a very competent, compassionate, and kind nurse, and the boys adore her. But I’m glad they fleshed her out more during this hour to make more sense of the love triangle they’re trying to sell.
Max and Avery have more chemistry overall than Avery and Tristan, though Max and Tristan’s chemistry actually surpasses everything else.
But I digress. Avery’s cynicism about singles week was more or less rooted in her feelings about the trajectory of her life and the position she’s found herself in.
She has a good life on the surface, but she feels lonely and wonders if it would have been better if she had made some different decisions along the way.
Maybe she’d be a doctor, have a relationship, or have something better for herself outside the ship. She won’t know that because she can’t go back in time, but she can change her present. That’s something within her control.
Paralleling Avery’s internal questioning with Analisa’s rescue was an excellent procedural staple. Analisa’s plight had Avery opening up and ultimately shedding a bit of that ironclad contempt she was walking around with for nearly everything.
Max and Tristan made a pact to leave the triangle in the last week and not fight over Avery, and Max was much more committed to that than Tristan. But Tristan has also harbored a crush on Avery for much longer than Max even knew the two of them existed.
Their kiss on the balcony came at a vulnerable moment for Avery, and I’m not sure those two are meant to be more than best friends. Still, Max catching them in the act (and remaining silent about what he saw) was a way to continue pushing this storyline forward.
And while I’m usually not the biggest fan of love triangles with a clear winner, which this one does, at least they’re leaning into it and didn’t introduce it in the premiere, only to forget all about it in subsequent weeks.
At this point, if they’re going to go for it, then give me this back and forth every week. What do you have to lose?
Avery wasn’t the only person getting a backstory, as Captain Robert had his own health scare, confronted his feelings about being a widower, and got down with Shania Twain.
All in a day’s work for the Captain, apparently.
I did not catch Shania Twain’s character’s name (sorry!), but she was reluctantly on that cruise ship and ended up walking away having more fun than probably half the people on it!
Robert came on a little strong when we first met him, and he went on and on about the importance of an immaculate ship, but he’s clear that he pours himself into that job because it keeps him going.
The way he talked about his late wife is the way everyone wants to be talked about by the person they love. He ADORED that woman; you could hear it in his words and see it on his face.
So, meeting not-Shania Twain was such a startling surprise, as were the emotions that came with a surprise kiss.
It may not have been explicitly stated, but it seemed as if this was his first time with another woman in the year since his wife passed.
His passing out was scary, naturally, but broken heart syndrome is a very real thing, and in his situation, it made sense that was the ultimate conclusion.
I loved the chat between Max and Robert, in which they talked about life and pushing forward because this is true for so much of life, even outside of this specific scenario.
And that was the theme of the hour, huh? Life comes with risks, as Max said, but you have to push through it all and enjoy it while you can.
Not singles week coming through with the DEEP personal messaging!
Elsewhere during this hour, Shania Twain wasn’t the only special guest star, as Chord Overstreet found himself on another Ryan Murphy show and was tasked with being THAT guy on the cruise who was there to have a good time and have no shame about it.
Sam was the guy on the cruise you’re looking to avoid, and the minute he said he didn’t use condoms, well, you just knew that floating petri dish was ripe for an outbreak!
One would assume that may be something seen on a ship like that. But do they have that many antibiotics to combat that kind of spread?
The power of television, people.
There’s a lot of online chatter about something deeper going on with this series, and I can’t say one way or the other whether that’s true.
What I do know is that two episodes in, a lot of attractive people are getting on this garish cruise ship and getting themselves into medical emergencies.
And there are equally attractive people at every turn, ready to step in and perform surgery or do whatever else they have to do to keep that ship from docking and allowing those people to get to a hospital.
Maybe this show is just THAT silly. Or it’s a metaphor for something else. Or Max is still in Boston in a coma, and this is his dream.
We’ll have to keep watching to find out, friends.
Doctor’s Notes
- Characters made to be the “playboys” on shows like this are either annoying or lovable. I don’t know what Tristan is at this point, but he was very sweet to Kelly, and you could tell it was genuine. Give us more of that Tristan!
- Did I sense a little something in that brief interaction between Spencer and Avery?
- Max and Tristan telling Avery about the scholarship and their little happy hug together was so cute. That love triangle isn’t going anywhere.
- Calling a passenger syphilis Sam was nasty work!
Well, if you decided to stick around after checking out the first hour of the series, what did you think about this one?
Are you here for the love triangle?
Do you like the format of the episodes?
What’s your theory about what this all means?
Let me know in the comment section below!
You can watch Doctor Odyssey on ABC on Thursdays at 9/8c.
Watch Doctor Odyssey Online
