Doctors' Series Review: A Medical Drama That Operates

Review: 'Doctors' – A Medical Drama That Flatlines Despite All the Drama

Helmed by Sahir Raza, Doctors, which is currently streaming on JioCinema, is a ten-episode medical drama that can't seem to get its pulse. What begins as a possibly chilling story of up-and-coming surgeons and their professionals at the Elizabeth Blackwell Memorial Center (EMC) soon degenerates into a melodramatic soap opera attempting to masquerade as a serious hospital series.

Sharad Kelkar plays the rogue surgeon Ishaan, and Harleen Sethi is Nitya, a resident who is assigned to EMC to take revenge on her brother's unsuccessful surgery, allegedly done by Ishaan. What transpires, rather than bone-rattling confrontations, is an instant and inexplicable romance between the two—a series theme that crops up as arbitrary affairs fuelled more by stereotype than character development.

The show relies heavily on tropes: love triangles, former lovers, mentor figures and students as love interests, and meltdown breakdowns—all against the backdrop of life-and-death surgery. People are boiled down to archetypes—"the cool one," "the angry one," "the tragic one"—and their emotional journeys have no continuity or believability. A lot of the drama is cobbled together from other shows, and not always very well.

Stylistically, Doctors are in excess. Surgery scenes are handled like action sequences, with rickety dialogue, over-the-top medical terminology, and impossible-looking visuals. The blood-and-guts prosthetics look more dramatic than realistic. And on top of that, the unconvincing glamour—every physician appears to have been plucked from a photo spread—makes the environment feel more like a TV soundstage than a hospital.

Though the show gestures towards actual issues—ethics of organ donation, victims of police brutality, class-based discrimination in health care—it never examines them with any sensitivity. These are invoked as much for shock as for commentary. There is also disturbing ignorance regarding power dynamics between mentors and residents, which the show idealizes instead of critiquing.

Despite the talented cast (many of whom have shone in other projects), the series underuses them, offering performances that feel disjointed and emotionally flat. Rahul Desai sums it up aptly: Doctors is like a long-term cough—annoying, persistent, but oddly hard to shake off once you’re in.

In the end, Doctors promises urgency but delivers chaos, leaving viewers with little more than 400 minutes of medicated mediocrity.