A year after its parent show ended, I’m still mad that ABC canceled The Good Doctor spinoff without giving it a chance.
Network television changed dramatically after the writers’ and actors’ strikes of 2023, so a lot of promising shows — and some old favorites — fell by the wayside.
Although I felt The Good Doctor was past its prime and deserved to be canceled, I was heartbroken that its spinoff suffered the same fate without getting anything more than a backdoor pilot.
The Good Doctor Spinoff’s Backdoor Pilot Was Far More Interesting Than Its Parent Show
The Good Doctor spinoff, “The Good Lawyer,” got a backdoor pilot on The Good Doctor Season 6 Episode 16.
I’d already started to lose interest in The Good Doctor. By Season 6, it was no longer a show about an autistic doctor finding his place — the original premise had been abandoned in favor of soap opera-like drama surrounding Shaun and Lea’s relationship.
The backdoor pilot, however, made me remember why I fell in love with the medical drama in the first place.
The backdoor pilot featured a lawyer with OCD whose boss didn’t think she could handle litigation.
Shaun was only willing to hire her to defend him against a malpractice suit, not any of the neurotypical lawyers who were supposedly more equipped to help him.
Suddenly, the focus returned to stories about capable neurodivergent characters who were underestimated because their differences made someone else uncomfortable.
I was excited and full of hope for what would happen when the spinoff premiered.
Then ABC quietly canceled it along with The Good Doctor.
I don’t really know the reasons, so I don’t want to speculate too much about that, but it seemed like the network decided that since The Good Doctor was ending, there was no need for a Good Doctor spinoff.
That seems counterintuitive — when a popular show ends, you want spinoffs because if you can keep the franchise going, you can hold onto the audience that loved it.
Sadly, in this day and age, cancellation decisions often seem random, and The Good Lawyer fell victim to bad timing.
The Good Lawyer Would Have Added To Positive Neurodivergent Representation With a New Set of Characters
The best thing about The Good Doctor was that it tried to promote positive messages about neurodivergent people.
It faltered in that mission sometimes (see all that nonsense with Charlie on The Good Doctor Season 7, for example), but it did change the TV landscape for autistic and other neurodivergent characters.
That’s the real reason I’m so frustrated that The Good Doctor spinoff never got a chance. It would have expanded neurodivergent representation by featuring a character with OCD.
Joni’s OCD was depicted more realistically than TV usually does.
I loved Monk, but his OCD seemed more like autism, and sometimes it fell into stereotypes. We didn’t have that with Joni.
The Good Doctor reshaped the way TV depicted autism. We wouldn’t have shows like Brilliant Minds (which NBC needs to renew) if it weren’t for this show, imperfect as it was.
The Good Lawyer could have done the same thing for people with OCD.
It made a great start during its backdoor pilot, with Joni’s boss standing up for her after a squeaky chair nearly derailed Joni’s ability to try the case.
Sadly, that’s all we’ll ever get now.
Over to you, The Good Doctor fanatics.
Do you wish The Good Lawyer had gotten a chance to shine?
Hit the comments with your thoughts.
Watch The Good Doctor Online
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