Based on the hit Wondery podcast, season two of Dr. Death, which premieres tomorrow on Peacock, follows the charming surgeon Paolo Macchiarini (Edgar Ramírez), who was known for his innovative operations. He meets journalist Benita Alexander (Mandy Moore) when she comes to him about a story on one of his patients, and the lines of professionalism blur between the two of them. Soon, everything about Macchiarini is questioned when a group of doctors make a shocking discovery. 

Recently, showrunner, writer, and executive producer Ashley Michel Hoban and executive producer Patrick Macmanus spoke with SciFi Vision about season two, including why the story which was based on real events was the one chosen, how they decide what they can add fictionally to dramatize it, whether they worried about whether the real victims were negatively affected by the series, and the casting. 

Watch the interview or read the transcript below and check out season two of Dr. Death, streaming on Peacock starting tomorrow.




SCIFI VISION:   So, obviously, this season the different story, but [both season] are based on true stories, real people. How did you decide that this would be the story for the season?

ASHLEY MICHEL HOBAN:   I think, after we listened to the podcast of this season - it was the third season of the podcast - this story was, I think, just clearly the right one to do next. It was really captivating on a lot of different levels. The goal was to kind of expand upon the first season and the themes and the ideas of it. So, I think we got to do that here. We got to take the idea of systemic issues in medicine and take it global and take it out of America and away from the American medical system and into a place, Sweden, where we think of as, you know, the highest bar of medicine, and that was interesting. Then, to have this love story attached to it and to understand Paolo's journey through the eyes of this woman was an interesting challenge. 

SCIFI VISION:   How do you balance what you take from that’s real with what you add, because obviously, since it's a true story, you can't warp it too much. 

ASHLEY MICHEL HOBAN:   Yeah, it's funny; it all gets kind of like jumbled in your brain eventually. [Like], did I make that up? All the craziest things are true, that's really the way to break it down. The craziest things, the most unbelievable things, are the things that really happened. We had the podcast materials to jump off of while we were starting to write, and there were certain things that felt like - for example, there were so many doctors in, not just in Stockholm, but also around the world, that were working to kind of hold Paulo accountable for his malpractice. There was so much story there that it was actually too much. So, that's where we get the amalgamation of those people down to our three whistleblowers, those composite characters. That one feels like an exciting new way to access this story but still get kind of all the pieces of it. 

PATRICK MACMANUS:  Always, our primary goal as storytellers is to entertain. That's number one. And with the podcast, we had such an extraordinary wealth of material to draw from. The goal, ultimately, is to ensure that what you're getting out at the end of the day is that you are conveying the themes that you're trying to convey. It may not all be exactly how things are happening in real life. We're not making a documentary. But at the end of the day, we got to make sure that we're trying to get across the point that we're trying to get across. And in this case, it really is about not just empowering patients, which is a primary goal of what we're trying to do, but also to ensure that people feel like they're empowered to speak up when they see that something is wrong. I always talk about - again, I'm I'm not playing favorites, but with what Ashley Michel and her team did this season, my personal favorites are the whistleblowers. I just find their story, to take what we sort of did with season one with Christian [Slater] and Alec [Baldwin], and they deepen these characters and their relationships, and it was far more humanistic. There was a complicity with these characters, that I felt found was extraordinarily compelling. And what Luke [Kirby] and Gustaf [Hammarsten] and Ashley [Madekwe] did with the portrayal of those characters is just extraordinary. I, again, as someone who got a chance to sort of look on the outside in on the production this season, it was really wonderful to watch what they did across the board and evolving the series. 

SCIFI VISION:   Do you ever worry because it is based on something that obviously really negatively affected a lot of people that anyone could be upset by the way that it's brought together or anything like that? 

ASHLEY MICHEL HOBAN:   Yeah, you know, it was important to us to name the victims and keep those stories as close to reality as possible, to really kind of honor what [they] and their families had gone through. So, my hope is that they watch these, they watch this story, and there's a bit of catharsis from watching Paolo be held accountable. 

SCIFI VISION:   Can you talk about casting? 

ASHLEY MICHEL HOBAN:   Sure, I'll talk about it all day. [laughs] So, Edgar came up in my mind pretty early as I was writing the pilot, and I didn't know then what I know now, which is that he is so much more. He's so much more Paolo than I could have imagined, and in all of the good ways and none of the bad ways…Thank God. He speaks all the languages that Paolo speaks, and he has this background in journalism that, I think, gave him an interesting point of view into Benita’s character. And he's so incredibly charming and smart. He approached the character in such a thoughtful and smart way, in wanting to show all the layers of him and kind of make sure that we're telling a story, at least from his point of view, of a guy who was crossing lines, but doing them for with a purpose and for a reason, and not just sort of - He had a justification and an argument for everything that he did. We do not agree with the actions that he took, of course, and the ethical lines that he crossed, but he was in his mind trying to move this medicine forward. Then, obviously, with someone like Edgar, we have to have a really strong scene partner, and when Mandy's name came up, it was like, “Are you sure she wants to to our show?” It was just like, “Yeah, of course.”…She's so smart, and she brings this real kind of warmth and trustworthiness to screen, and she took this character, and she brought such an incredibly nuanced performance, in, I think, a tricky character to tell well. We're just so excited to have her. And it goes for the rest of them. I mean, this cast is like a dream come true. Then, the three whistleblowers, each individually, they are their people, and when you put them together, they are just a magic stew of like spark and chemistry, and they're fun together, and they fight well. I think that…there's like a lot there that I'm excited for audiences to meet these characters.