Dr. Death is back, but this time with a whole new villainous doctor at the helm.
Peacock announced Friday that Season 2 of the Dr. Death will return Thursday, Dec. 21, with eight new episodes starring Edgar Ramírez and Mandy Moore.
The second season will follow the shocking rise and fall of thoracic surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, who performed a series of experimental surgeries with deadly consequences for his patients, as he crosses paths with investigative journalist Benita Alexander.
“When investigative journalist Benita Alexander approaches him for a story, the line between personal and professional begins to blur, changing her life forever,” the press release stated. “As she learns how far Paolo will go to protect his secrets, a group of doctors halfway across the world make shocking discoveries of their own that call everything about Paolo into question.”
The trailer for the new season, which also dropped Friday, shows Macchiarini walking down a dark hall as his medical accomplishments are touted by an unseen announcer.
“The work I do could change the world,” Macchiarini said.
As images of high-society life are juxtaposed with an operating room, a concerned Benita, played by Moore, asks “What’d you do, Paolo? What did you do to them?”
Dr. Death Anthology Series
The dramatic tale told in Season 2 of Dr. Death is based on the “Miracle Man” season of the Wondery podcast Dr. Death.
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The podcast’s first season, which inspired the Peacock medical drama’s inaugural season as well, told the story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch, a Texas neurosurgeon whose incompetence led to the death or injury of dozens of patients.
“The joy of an Anthology series is the freedom to explore variations on a theme. Dr. Death is a show about systemic failures, and this season, these issues reach a global scale,” explained Ashley Michel Hoban, the Season 2 showrunner, executive producer and writer, in the press release. “Amid complex narratives, we’ve been fortunate to delve deeply into a story that, while entirely unique, remains surprisingly familiar, as it taps into a truly universal part of the human condition: illness. Even putting aside any recent global pandemics, we all know what it’s like to feel sick. It renders us vulnerable, small, in desperate need of help. A doctor we can trust.”
It’s that “pursuit of trust and truth” that drives the two stories that will take center stage in the second season, which is produced by UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group.
“Two stories that, on the surface, may not seem to have much else in common: Doctors in Sweden on the verge of a breakthrough. A journalist in New York falling in love. However, both revolve around individuals made to feel small,” Hoban continued. “They’re about people standing up to something bigger, for something bigger, and how their seemingly small choices ripple out into the world to give power and voice to those who have been made to feel powerless and silenced.”
Jennifer Morrison and Laura Belsey split director duties in the new season, while Morrison also served as executive producer alongside Patrick Macmanus, Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Steve Tisch, Taylor Latham, Aaron Hart, Hernan Lopez, Marshall Lewy and Linda Gase.
Paolo Maccchiarini Documentary
Fans can get the real-life account of what transpired in the shocking case in a companion Peacock documentary, Dr Death: Cutthroat Conman, also premiering Thursday Dec. 21.
Machiarini, an Italian surgeon, first rose to fame after he performed the world’s first synthetic organ transplant, but he was later exposed as a dangerous con man, shocking the medical community. Between 2011 and 2012, Machiarini implanted synthetic windpipes in three different patients, all of whom died, according to Science Magazine.
The documentary is produced by Maxine Productions and Universal Television Alternative Studio.
