Dr Death True Story: How Much The Series Changed

Peacock’s Dr. Death left many wondering how much the series actually changed from this macabre true story. Drawing much of its source material from the Wondery podcast of the same name, Dr. Death follows the career and subsequent malpractice of Dr. Christopher Duntsch (played by Joshua Jackson), a Dallas-based neurosurgeon who killed multiple surgical patients and left dozens more injured in a two-year reign of terror. A former stem cell researcher described as brilliant by many of his colleagues, the question of whether Duntsch willingly caused harm versus operating with egregious ineptitude still hangs over this case today.

Doggedly pursuing Duntsch throughout the series are medical colleagues Robert Henderson (Alec Baldwin) and Randall Kirby (Christian Slater), who, shocked by the brutality of Duntsch’s surgeries, set about gathering evidence to strip him of his medical license. Aided by assistant district attorney Michelle Shughart (AnnaSophia Robb) in later episodes, Henderson and Kirby manage to bring Dr. Duntsch to a penultimate trial for the series, which feels very akin tonally to the end scene of The Trial of the Chicago 7. Ultimately though, they see him sentenced to life in prison, mirroring the outcome of the real trial in 2017.

Despite accurately portraying much of the true story of Christopher Duntsch, there are some aspects the series changed to create a more compelling narrative. The series amalgamated thousands of pages of court documents into a few minutes of narrative to make the legal proceedings more palatable. Dr. Death also took creative license to flesh out much of Duntsch’s backstory and omitted a central character from the real events to legitimize the show’s ultimate conclusion: that Dr. Duntsch was indeed a Mindhunter-like psychopathic killer intent on harming his patients.

The final episode centered around Christopher Duntsch’s trial, featuring harrowing court testimony from many of Duntsch’s surviving patients that rehash the true extent of his malpractice. Much of this episode skewed away from the true events, with the showrunners deciding to boil down thousands of pages of testimony and notes into a series of visceral victim testimonies designed for maximum emotive impact. The names of those harmed by Duntsch were also changed to protect the survivors of this ordeal from further trauma.

Yet perhaps the biggest deviation from the true story of Dr. Duntsch was the omission of Jerry Summers’ (Dominic Burgess) girlfriend Jennifer Miller, a central character in the true events, as well as the inclusion of several composite characters designed to flesh out Christopher Duntsch’s multi-faceted motivations. The Dr. Death showrunners decided to utilize their limited time emphasizing Summers & Duntsch’s relationship at the expense of portraying Miller, making Duntsch’s botched surgery on his best friend all the more callous in the process. Characters in the Peacock TV series such as college football friend Chris “Betts” Beton (Spencer House) were inserted into the narrative to highlight Duntsch’s fall as he is consumed by his ego and to establish his psychological profile before his residencies in Dallas. Dr. Death at times deviated from the source material, but did so to take a stance on whether Duntsch deliberately caused harm to his patients. Nevertheless, it remains a harrowing reflection of medical safeguard failings and can be considered a new jewel in Peacock’s crown as a result.

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