Spoilers For 'Doctor Odyssey's' Mid-Season Finale And What May Come

Doctor Odyssey is on hiatus until March. If you haven’t watched this ABC show yet that gives you three months to get with the program. It might be Disney Cruise propaganda masquerading as a TV show. But it’s a wonderful bit of necessary escapism. And it’s unfair to expect us to make it through the darkest, coldest part of winter without it.

The show is The Love Boat on ecstasy. Any HR Department would frown upon the amount of flirting that goes on between crew members. Joshua Jackson loses his shirt almost every week. There have been an astounding number of sex-related emergencies addressed by the medical center staff so far. Also, spoilers: The medical center staff may have a sex-related emergency of their own to deal with when the show picks up again in the spring.

Yep, instead of closing out the first half of the very successful season by, I don’t know, giving Phillipa Soo a musical number, they got her pregnant instead. Nothing kills a thruple faster than an unplanned pregnancy. In a Deadline interview, the actors suggested that the rest of the season will be dealing with the fallout from Avery’s positive pregnancy test. Boo. We want consequence-free fantasy sexy times on The Odyssey! Don’t get moralistic on us now, Disney!

In that same interview, they also teased a possible Broadway episode. If there’s not a Broadway Week takeover of the ship, they can make a musical dream episode where everyone sings and dances. Either one works because in speaking with Collider, Joshua Jackson said there’s a possibility that the entire show is just a dream Doctor Max is having as he lay dying of COVID.

I will be really disappointed if that turns out to be the case. St. Elsewhere did it first and best. And then Dallas and Newhart did it almost as well, but funnier in the case of Newhart. Ryan Murphy has developed a track record of losing the plot when it comes to his American Horror Story shows. Making Doctor Odyssey into a deathbed fantasy would be just another way to cop out of providing a satisfying ending. How many seasons of coma-induced dreaming could Dr. Max have in him? That seems like a trope better supported by a limited series. While I don’t see Doctor Odyssey going for six or eight seasons, like St. Elsewhere and Newhart did, respectively. I would like to see a couple of solid seasons before it dissolves into full-blown Ryan Murphy nonsense or we lose the primary cast.

The cast and the chemistry they have are great and get better with every episode. Don Johnson is still riding the wave of his career’s second wind as the captain of the ship. In the cold open for the Oh Daddy! episode, he proved how perfect he is in this role during a discussion about the gay archetypes he’s expected to identify as the ship prepared for its Gay Week passengers. At the end of the mid-season finale, the difficult conversation that the Avery/Max/Tristan threesome has about Avery’s pregnancy leads to the surprising reveal of Tristan’s earnest empathy for Avery’s situation.

Sean Teale’s Tristan is a Cassanova, and it would have been easy to play him unsympathetically. But, even while he’s playing the field between his professed love for Avery and his lust for Laura Harrier’s character, Vivan Montgomery, we’re rooting for him because, at heart, he’s a good guy.

Well, technically, I’m still rooting for the triple. But the vibes are off going into the second half of the season, so it’s unlikely to become a naturally recurring event. I am willing to accept a lavish Phillipa Soo song and dance routine as a consolation prize.

All episodes of Doctor Odyssey are now streaming on Hulu/Disney+