‘Dr. Death’ review: A riveting, harrowing cautionary tale

The mini-series, based on Laura Beil’s eponymous podcast, is stratospherically disturbing thanks to its brilliant script and performances, and horribly real production

Even if Dr Death was terribly written and acted, it would still have been riveting because it is based on real events. Doctors are meant to make us well and relieve us from our pain. They are not meant to hack at our bodies and cause severe bodily harm and death. One cannot drag one’s eyes from the stratospherically disturbing Dr Death, based on Laura Beil’s eponymous podcast, thanks to its brilliant script and performances, and horribly real production. I don’t think I will be able to get the sound of the mallet crushing bones out of my head any time soon. . The podcast, which premiered in 2018, looks at misconduct by medical professionals. Each of the three seasons of the podcast so far looks at different cases. The first, which the show is based on, looks at Dr Christopher Duntsch (Joshua Jackson), a seemingly-gifted Dallas neurosurgeon who killed two of his patients while maiming almost all the patients (33 out of the 38) he operated on.