• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, January 3, 2025

The prognosis for Fox’s new medical drama “Doc,” about an ace physician with amnesia, is undetermined.

That’s the classification for a patient whose condition is not yet diagnosed nor fully understood. Further observation is prescribed.

The condition of this new show, “Doc” -- the first network drama of 2025 premiering Friday -- is not yet determined either after previewing Episode One.

This is the series the TV Blog first brought up a few weeks ago in which a brilliant, hard-charging, high-ranking doctor at a Minneapolis hospital is suddenly involved in a serious car accident and emerges from the wreckage with brain trauma.

The result of this injury is a limited type of amnesia rendering her incapable of remembering anything for a set period of time -- in her case, the past eight years.

When quizzed by other doctors after she undergoes brain surgery, she thinks Obama is president. She has also forgotten various upheavals in her home life that occurred in those forgotten years.

Before the accident, we see her practicing her profession in the blunt-spoken manner for which she is well-known in the workplace.

Her hard-edged candor earns the respect of various underlings and the scorn of others. This latter group is particularly vocal as they make no effort to hide their glee after she is almost killed.

These are the kinds of characters that make you wish someone would come along and knock all their teeth out. But that is unlikely to happen in a show like this one.

Another character is particularly gleeful too -- a surgeon played by Scott Wolf who is suddenly promoted into her job, a position he has long coveted. He could use a punch in the face too.

Molly Parker (above photo) does most of the heavy lifting in the role of Amy Larsen M.D., the show’s title character. 

When she struggles to come to grips with her memory loss after her accident, she is challenged to act accordingly. In one scene, this means writhing (or something close to it) on a hospital floor.

Understandably, this show is a melodrama with a capital “M.” As a result, watching this show is a grim experience.

Here is this doctor who by all accounts has saved hundreds of lives, who loses an eight-year chunk of her life to memory loss after a terrible, skull-cracking smash-up and she now faces undercurrents of resentment from co-workers, some of whom are actually scheming to undermine her at every opportunity.

In Episode One of “Doc,” it is not yet clear when or if she will return to the practice of medicine despite her amnesia and evil colleagues. 

But by the end of Episode One, there is a hint about what the immediate future might hold for her. 

After all, if she does not return to the practice of medicine, there would be no show. Having said that, what the future holds for this amnesiac doc is undetermined. 

“Doc” premieres on Tuesday, January 7, at 9 p.m. Eastern on Fox.