MEDICAL MONSTER
First Published on DramaQuarterly.com
DR DEATH SHOWRUNNER PATRICK MACMANUS OPENS UP ABOUT MAKING THIS TRUE CRIME DRAMA, BASED ON THE PODCAST OF THE SAME NAME, WHICH FOCUSES ON A SURGEON ACCUSED OF MAIMING AND KILLING HIS PATIENTS.
US writer and producer Patrick Macmanus first visited Savannah, Georgia, in 2017 when he and his family took a break from life in Washington DC. He’s now back in town completing prep work for The Girl from Plainville, an upcoming Hulu series he has written with Liz Hannah, based on an Esquire article about the so-called “texting suicide case” around the death of 18-year-old Conrad Roy in 2014.
“It’s a gorgeous city, the food is delicious and the houses are stunning – and I’m a big fan of cemeteries,” he says. “I have a weird obsession with cemeteries, and they have some pretty cool cemeteries here too.”
On the day he speaks to DQ, however, Macmanus is preparing to fly cross-country to LA for the premiere of his latest project, streamer Peacock’s original limited series Dr. Death. Based on the Wondery podcast of the same name, the true crime drama focuses on Dr Christopher Duntsch, a rising star in the Dallas medical community who was accused of maiming or killing more than 30 patients. In 2017, Duntsch was handed a life sentence after being convicted of injuring one patient during an operation that left her in a wheelchair.
Young, charismatic and ostensibly brilliant, Duntsch (played by Joshua Jackson in the show) had been building a flourishing neurosurgery practice. But everything changed when patients entering his operating room for complex but routine spinal surgery began ending up maimed or, in two cases, even killed.