DR. DEATH EXECUTIVE PRODUCER EXPLAINS HOW CHRISTOPHER DUNTSCH COULD HAVE AVOIDED PRISON
First Published on EW.com
THE CHARISMATIC NEUROSURGEON WAS ACTUALLY A SUCCESSFUL RESEARCHER BEFORE HE STARTING KILLING PEOPLE IN THE OPERATING ROOM.
Talk about a TV writer's dream: a story about a handsome, charismatic doctor with a killer bedside manner. Creator/Executive Producer Patrick Macmanus (Homecoming, Happy) knew he had a ready-made hit in Dr. Death when he first learned the story of Christopher Duntsch, the Texas neurosurgeon who permanently maimed and killed patients during routine procedures. Here, Macmanus talks about how he first discovered the ghastly true story behind Dr. Death -- which stars Joshua Jackson and drops today on Peacock -- and whether he thinks Duntsch is truly crazy.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY What is Dr. Death's origin story? Were you in the car listening to the podcast on the way to the grocery store and you said, 'Oh my God, I've got to make a limited series out of this?'
PATRICK MACMANUS I didn't hear the podcast first. I was working on a show called Happy [for SyFy] and I was sent the first three episodes of the podcast that hadn't come out yet. It was a gold mine. You can't ask for a story that is so ready-made. I will not insult our writers when I say that because they elevated everything, but it's one of those stories that you have to be particularly bad to mess up, right? I was gifted the opportunity to tell it. I will say I'm a hundred percent hypochondriac. My wife laughs at me all the time about it. I say to her 'someday, I'm going to be right and you're going to feel bad about this.' This was a very dangerous story for somebody like me to delve into. I felt sick for most of the last three years in the best possible way.
Did you feel a need to go talk to Christopher Duntsch in prison?
I had an urge to do that very early in the process. So while I was writing in August and September of 2018, I had asked to reach out. And at that time, Christopher's case was actually on appeal. And so there was no world where they were going to let him speak to me. And even after he eventually lost that appeal, the train had already left the station. The good news is, is we had thousands of pages of research, thousands of pages of court documents, tons of hours of interviews. And we did have full access to doctors as well as Laura Beil, who did the original Dr. Death podcast. So we had all of the tools at our disposal.