Doctors

India’s answer to ER/Grey’s Anatomy is here: Doctors, which is as straight-forward a title as you can get, is about just that, a bunch of medics, ranging from eager new residents to rockstar surgeons, as well as other denizens– nurses, interns, administrators– who make up a busy hospital. It takes a couple of episodes for the 10-part show to get into the groove, which gives us an insider’s look at medical practitioners going all out in high-stress emergencies, as well as dealing with those who are struggling with terminal diseases. These are humans who are also doctors. We see them as people, with their strengths and weaknesses, but who do not compromise when it comes to saving the lives of their patients.

It often takes no more than five minutes to tell that a ten-episode series is going to be … not good. Yet, it’s my job to watch the whole thing. I can’t just abandon it the moment I realise it’s fundamentally flawed. So, I spend a day or two watching the next 395 minutes, hoping against hope that a miracle changes my mind. But, of course, it never comes—the craft is all wrong, the writing is dated, the music is uninspired, and the acting is everywhere. Yet, when a series is so long and stubborn and voluminous, one tends to develop a strange attachment to it. There’s no escape, so I simply make peace with—and normalise—the mediocrity at hand. It’s a reluctant bond, the kind you have with a month-long cough. But it’s a bond nevertheless, and when it ends, a part of your life ends. That’s what Doctors became to me.