LM23 RATING: Will decide if it’s worth watching in the next episode
Nostalgia saw a real comeback during the pandemic. People sought the comfort and safety of the familiar with time tested trends from yesterday. Fun fact, in one of my jobs, I actually did research on this phenomenon during the pandemic. But I would say even before the pandemic, the old tried and true was already being deployed in a lot of aspects in life whether it was the McRib or the mullet hair style, entertainment has been recycling through its rolodex for quite some time.
I can’t quite recall which publication it was that I read this article analyzing the state of Hollywood A-list stars, maybe it was Entertainment Weekly as that was the one magazine I subscribed to and read the longest. But, the article made an analysis of the current A list stars in Hollywood that commanded the multi-million dollar paydays and could still guarantee a big opening. The trend the analyst was seeing was that the big name stars like Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Will Smith, Sandra Bullock and Julia Roberts were still today’s A list stars despite getting up there in age. The article went on to say that there was not a new actor or actress that could take their place or at least not yet. The funny thing about that article is that I probably read it 15 years ago at least. And as of 2021, I’m sure all of us are still very familiar with Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Will Smith, Sandra Bullock, and Julia Roberts as they’re STILL part of Hollywood’s A list team and they can still guarantee a big box office opening. I know I’m totally going to be watching the movie Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock are filming now and I’m totally disappointed that Top Gun: Maverick and the next Mission Impossible movies are delayed. And I don’t care that they’re all edging on 60. They’re great at what they do and you know their movies will be worth seeing.
Entertainment may be frivolous and fluffy stuff but it’s needed in life. Life is tough. Life is boring. Life can totally suck. That’s why we need to spend our money on cable TV, movie tickets, concerts, and streaming services. We all need a little escape sometimes and to just feel good even it’s a fictional experience. In the last several years, multiple movies, TV shows, and even music groups have rebooted or re-launched themselves. And if they couldn’t come back full time, there’s also the popularity of cast reunions now. This second chance comes with a higher probability of success as the product already has a successful proof of concept. So for producers and investors, it’s probably an easier pitch. And for the audience, there’s already built-in fans and curious fans should know that there’s a big group of people who would recommend the show or movie to them. You go in knowing that there’s some reassurance that the movie or show you’re watching has a proven framework, so it’s worth your time (and money).
My family purchased Disney+ during the pandemic and I’ve so far watched more of the movies and shows that I’ve seen before and not so much the newer offerings. But lately I’ve been finding the need to watch new content the way I can get from YouTube at any given time. I don’t have a lot of patience and I get bored easily. So I opened up Disney+ and I saw that the re-imagined Doogie Howser reboot was now available. I had read something on EW.com about the reboot but didn’t realize how quickly it would be available. This new version of Doogie Howser is called Doogie Kameāloha, M.D. As with most reboots, the flipping of genders, ethnicities, and locations adds a bit more freshness to the story. In this reboot, the new “Doogie” is a 16 year-old Hawaiian girl named Lahela. She is nicknamed “Doogie” because she, too, is a teenage prodigy who works as a medical doctor.
The new Doogie, aka Lahela (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), is a teen doctor who works under the close eye of her mom and boss, Dr. Clara Hannon (Kathleen Rose Perkins). Clara is supposedly a scary, hardnosed boss as described by Lahela’s coworkers who include Dr. Lee (Ronny Chieng), who is a heart surgeon. But that’s just the work persona as Clara is worried about her teen daughter and wants to be a part of her life (apparently being in a TikTok video is the equivalent of quality family time now). The show doesn’t really properly give context as to how Lahela became a full-time doctor beyond perhaps nepotism, just that she’s apparently quite effective. While taking her driving test, she makes an unexpected detour to provide medical assistance to a man who has been badly injured
Lahela’s dad, Benny (Jason Scott Lee), is deployed as the foil to the wife/mom. Benny doesn’t have a proper 9-5 job anymore in finance. He quit his corporate job to run his own food truck that combines his two loves: shave ice and flowers. He also doesn’t worry about Lahela the way Clara does. And he believes in fixing things by taking a dip in the ocean water. Is it a coincidence or lazy stereotype that the non-white husband/dad is the funny and loose character and the white wife/mom is the uptight, worry wart? As an aside, it’s great to see so much Asian representation in the show (it is set in Hawaii which has the highest percentage of Asians after all). But, I wish shows like this would be okay with having both parents be Asian, the boyfriend or girlfriend be Asian, and the best friend be Asian. It’s like instead of having the token minority character being the best pal, in this situation as Asians are the most dominant race in the cast, the white character is the best pal (see Fresh Off The Boat).
I didn’t know Jason Scott Lee was in the show and seeing him on screen made me press on with trying to finish the episode. Another surprise was seeing Ronny Chieng who despite having a small part, brings the real humor (according to Dr. Lee, every Asian mom’s dream is having a kid as a doctor earlier, not at 27) and the real depth (after disrespecting Lahela, Dr. Lee addresses Lahela by her proper title). Beyond these two, the rest of the case is not recognizable (at least for me).
This is a Disney show so we’re not going to see realistic medical trauma the way ER and Grey’s Anatomy have pioneered. But if we’re not going to see creative hospital cases, it would be good to see some more actual humor and emotional moments. The “big case”, I guess, featured an old man who is under Lahela’s care, but who unexpectedly dies in the end. But his death wasn’t due to her negligence or anything like that. She was nowhere near the scene of the crime as she was off doing regular teenage things.
Before that forced tearjerker, Lahela’s life as a teen is also touched upon. She has an older and younger brother (none whom look like her or like each other). She has a goofy best friend named Steph who appears to be infatuated with her older brother. We so far have no idea how old the brothers are and what their personalities are really like. And she has a mega crush on a cute surfer boy named Walter. I don’t know if I missed it as I admittedly was getting bored with the show, but I’m a bit confused as to why Lahela would be doing high school things like going to a high school dance with a boy she likes and having a best friend who attends the high school. I thought she graduated from medical school? Don’t you have to graduate high school before medical school?
The first episode sets up Dr. Kameāloha’s life as being best of both worlds (at least for a teenager) in that she can work as a doctor during the day and then attend a high school dance at night. There doesn’t appear to be much struggle to Lahela’s charmed life amongst the beautiful panoramic views of Hawaii. Sure, her patient dies (and I also missed why she cared so much that he died) and she had to bail on her date with Walter, but she still got to make things right with Walter in the end. Perhaps it may have been a bit more realistic and open up deeper story lines and angles if we could see a teen doctor prodigy go through life as just that, a teen doctor prodigy. Let’s see Lahela work in the hospital and adjust to that work environment. We don’t even know why she wants to work as a doctor (beyond that’s what her mother does) if she’s so interested in dropping content on her YouTube and TikTok accounts and going to high school dances. Maybe there could be younger doctors or other prodigies that she attended school with that could have been her network of young friends but also more likeminded friends.
I’m not certain a teen who works as a doctor would have a lot in common with regular every day teens because they normally hang around others who are more like them. I was not a prodigy, but I was prodigy-like as a kid and all of my friends were like me (which was not a lot and I was perfectly fine with that). When I was around “regular” kids, I had a hard time relating to them and couldn’t quite handle being in “regular” classes. I was also always very busy doing things to further my ambitions. Being a prodigy or something similar requires a certain kind of personality and I was very laser focused and self-centered. I never really had time to do a lot beyond staying in my room and working.
I also don’t recall feeling really comfortable being around other kids. I remember feeling very alone in school because I was so “different.” I wanted to be seen as everyone else, but everyone else did not see me that way. It was also tiring for me to always try to downplay or minimize my talents to make others who only saw me as someone to beat more comfortable I could only imagine how being a doctor would have made my circle of friends even smaller and tighter. It would’ve been nice if this new version of Doogie Howser would have gone in that more difficult direction of depicting what it is like to be a teenage prodigy versus setting it up (at least in this one episode) as a relatively easy existence where the teen doctor comes from a loving, whole family, has a best friend, and gets to have her first kiss with her crush. So far, it seems it’s just the mom who has the hardest time in this circumstance.
Despite the lack of character development and unimaginative plot lines, I’ll still check out the second episode. Hopefully we’ll see more of Dr. Kameāloha, M.D., teen doctor, and less of the teens are going to be teens and upload TikTok dances. If the next episode is more like the first episode, then I’ll probably stop watching this.
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