they're having threesomes on network televison btw
This fall, ABC's 'Doctor Odyssey' will see you now...
Even though the Golden Age of video essays is behind us, Jane Mulcahy continues to carry the genre on her back. While I still haven’t checked out the eight absurd seasons that ABC’s 9-1-1 has to offer, Jane’s latest four-hour deep dive did plant the seed that my next favorite show may not come from a streamer, but from a network instead.
My instincts were correct. Another ABC drama from the menacing mind of Ryan Murphy by the name of Doctor Odyssey came across my Hulu feed a few weeks ago. Clearly, the rest is history.
I’m really not one for recaps, so to give you the pop cultural sense of this show, I’ll pull from some familiar favorites…
Grey’s Anatomy: At its core, Doctor Odyssey is a medical drama. Joshua Jackson plays our titular head doctor, Max, on The Odyssey, a luxury cruise ship complete with all the nautical antics. The newcomer joins the ship’s existing duo of nurses, the ambitious Avery (Phillipa Soo) and the sometimes suave Tristan (Sean Teale).
Though this is a Ryan Murphy production, these early episodes felt quite like Shondaland to me. The melodrama, the attractive leads, the lack of workplace boundaries — all grounded by a few mysterious medical emergencies per episode.
Like Grey’s, Doctor Odyssey doesn’t stray from bloody or awkward situations, a lot of them slightly sexual in nature. Our trio encounters everything from botched plastic surgeries, rare shipwide STIs, and even a broken penis. I especially loved Episode 4, “Wellness Week,” when Max and Tristan have to remove Avery’s appendix while the ship finds itself in the middle of a hurricane. Set pieces like this one are farfetched, but well done enough for you to get swept away in the medical jargon that probably doesn't hold up.
The Office & Parks and Recreation: On his Substack, PJ Vogt of the Search Engine podcast coined the phrase “Prestige Vertigo” to describe his experience watching the Slow Horses on Apple TV+ (a ‘for breakfast’ favorite show FYI):
From “Is everyone pretending to understand inflation?”:
Prestige Vertigo is when you’re watching a new show that’s meant to feel like prestige television, but you yourself can’t quite tell if it’s good or not. Like it’s wobbling in an uncanny valley of quality. Maybe the performances are nice, but some of the dialogue clangs? Maybe the set designs are incredibly lush, but the plot is a bit dumb.
Weirdly enough, I’ve had the opposite experience with Doctor Odyssey. This show is objectively silly. It objectively makes no sense, and when I try to explain it to my friends I feel like an idiot. However, despite all the signifiers of a trashy romantic network drama, something about this show feels, dare I say, intelligent and special? Solid performances from talented actors, quippy writing, and surprisingly beautiful sets. Doctor Odyssey just might be in on the joke.
I bring up The Office and Parks and Rec because Doctor Odyssey enjoys its winking and nudging, its exasperated looks into the camera that make you think of Jim’s “Yes, this is my life. Laugh along now” face. Episode 6, “I Always Cry At Weddings,” even features some creative handheld camerawork to give you that nostalgic mockumentary feeling.
I simply love a show that enjoys itself and isn’t afraid to show it.
The White Lotus: Between the medical dramatics, we are still on a luxury cruise ship and having a permanent vacation. Doctor Odyssey scratches that Rich People Behaving Badly itch just as well as its prestige counterparts.
I have to give a big shoutout to the score — floaty, tropical, a bit grand — Doctor Odyssey builds a soundscape that immediately brought me back to HBO’s The White Lotus. What these two shows also have in common is that they’re ripe for theorizing. Dead people, comas, heaven allegories; Our characters’ backstories (or lack thereof) have critics and fans asking the real questions: On this never-ending cruise, beyond the sunglasses, champagne, and hot tubs, what is really going on here?
Only time will tell.
Modern Family: Seeing that Modern Family had a renaissance this year, there’s definitely a hole in the market for episodic plotlines filled with witty comedy and wholesome family dynamics.
After many lives saved, Max, Avery, and Tristan quickly find themselves making a great team professionally. Personally, though, there’s more to the story. For years, Tristan has been romantically pining for Avery. Once Max arrives and sweeps her off her feet (despite being her direct superior mind you!), Tristan’s jealousy and Avery’s new feelings for both him and Max make way for amusement and fun that I find severely lacking in television right now.
In just a few episodes, the trio forms a sweet, found-family dynamic, supercharged by that love triangle right underneath.
However, very early on Doctor Odyssey made me raise an eyebrow as to whether this was a true love triangle (à la Challengers) where all the sides touch…
Now, if what you’ve read has made you curious enough to check out the show, stop here and go watch it — at least through episode 6 — and come back!
If you’re still on the fence, unafraid of spoilers, or just want to read some brief thoughts on the state of sex scenes and network TV right now, continue ahead:
In summary:
Yes, you read that right! In our sixth episode, after the craziest plotline yet (involving sex addiction, suicide, and Kelsea Ballerini?), Doctor Odyssey talks our main trio of medics into a threesome.
I screamed, I cheered, maybe I cried??
What this means for me as a viewer:
I can only describe this watching experience as euphoric. It’s no secret I love a throuple, or at least a throuple dynamic in my media.1 To have a trio of main characters in a show feels quite rare, so it’s even nicer to see a trio grapple with feelings for one another that are more than platonic.
As a television viewer, it often feels like the most compelling plotlines A) unfold too slowly over too many seasons, B) they never end up panning out/they’re dropped completely, or C) are left incomplete when a show is canceled before it can deliver on anything.
If I usually feel punished for sticking with television shows, Doctor Odyssey floored me in that six episodes in, I was rewarded for my romantic suspicions.
If I had to make a list of my favorite television moments of this year, I have no doubt this threesome would be at the top. I’m locked in. More shows should blow up their core dynamics six episodes in I think.
What I think this means for television in general:
There is no shortage of trashy, sexy, fun shows on streaming — Bridgerton, Tell Me Lies, The Perfect Couple — but, I would hesitate to call any of these shows *risky*.
At the moment, I’m thinking about our pop cultural landscape as a whole: There’s a battle between puritanical culture and calls for authenticity and messiness. It’s why brat summer and the reinvention of trad wives are trends that coexist. It’s why there’s discourse about whether or not kids should be at Sabrina Carpenter concerts. It’s why I can’t seem to take any of this Wicked stuff seriously.
Ultimately, it’s why everyone is beautiful and no one is horny, especially on television.
When it comes to Doctor Odyssey, I’m paying a lot of attention to the fact that a fade-to-black threesome was the most excited I’ve been while watching TV in the past year, while I found the mildly graphic sex scenes of Bridgerton and Tell Me Lies to be the most boring moments.
In a post-Euphoria television landscape, there’s something about sex on television that feels safe. An originally-scripted threesome and a throuple at the heart of a show can maybe offer us something more dynamic, more exciting, and more sexually transgressive than straight sex scenes2 that already existed in a book somewhere.
Now that I’ve seen the threesome’s aftermath in Episode 7 —full of cold feet, mixed feelings, and borderline love confessions — my final verdict is… I’m staying in line!
Today, I give you the song behind the edit that alerted me to this show’s existence and is also my favorite of the brat remixes…
Challengers, Passages, the Gossip Girl reboot! If anyone has any more recommendations for throuples in popular culture send them my way, I beg.
I mean this! The Boomers and Karens in the show’s Instagram comments are not pleased.
Perfect Monday morning read! Will be checking this out at least till episode 6 :)
i’m convinced to catch up now 🫡