‘The Good Doctor’ Season 4 Teases COVID-19 Pandemic Centered Opener, New St. Bonaventure Resident Roles

The Good Doctor Season 4 is staying very much in touch with today’s reality.

As show creator David Shore and the cast teased on the stage of New York Comic-Con, Season 4 will return with a two-part premiere episode focused on the COVID-19 pandemic. The episode is titled “Frontline.”

“It would’ve been so false, I believe, to not deal with it…This has taken over every aspect of our lives for an unbelievable amount of time. The world hopefully will go back to what we viewed as normal, but it just would have been dishonest not to deal with this story,” Shore explained. “Having said that, it is an incredible story. We’re a show about regular people that do heroic things. The impact [of COVID-19] is incredibly dramatic, so we wanted to dramatize it.

According to Shore, it was a challenge to figure out how to incorporate this real-life event into the show. And while the first two episodes will tackle it, the rest of the season will focus more on continuing the events of Season 3. “On the one hand, we need to deal with it and do it in an honest but entertaining way. But we’ve been living with this so much for the last six months…I do think we have a responsibility, as entertainers, to provide a little bit of an escape,” Shore said. “So, the rest of the season will not be about COVID. It will be returning to the stories that we tell, the stories of life, of ethical choices, and these characters in life-or-death [moments].”

New Roles of the St. Bonaventure Residents on The Good Doctor

At the end of Season 3, The Good Doctor lost one of its beloved characters, Dr. Melendez (Nicholas Gonzalez). As the cast teased, this major loss will lead to a blossoming bond between the two women who Melendez had a relationship with in the show, Dr. Lim and Dr. Browne.

“I think it’s extremely upsetting for both of them. They loved him, and were loved by him, in different and similar ways,” Chang said. “For Dr. Lim, it has impacted her [while] dealing with COVID. So, I think because she’s in the position she is, being the Chief of Surgery, she doesn’t get into how she feels about that, at least straight away.”

No door remains closed forever for Melendez though. As Freddie Highmore said, he might return to The Good Doctor in one form or another. Even though he’s no longer part of the show, Highmore only hopes that he’ll still remain very much a part of it.

On the other hand, according to Will Yun Lee, his character, Dr. Park will have to make a difficult decision concerning the pandemic. As the actor explained, it’s probably a decision that many real frontliners right now face. “Do you keep going into helping patients in an emergency room setting, knowing you have to pray you don’t give it to your own family?” he said.

When it comes to Dr. Reznick, Fiona Gubelmann teases that the character will be going through a period of looking for purpose and hope. Given that she might have given up her career in surgery, the actress said that fans will see Morgan exploring how to pick herself up and moving forward to rebuild her future.

Last but not least, Season 4 of The Good Doctor will explore another relationship of Shaun’s, the one that fans have been waiting for since the first season: Shaun and Lea. According to Highmore, Season 4 will explore the difficulties of this relationship with the added challenge of being in pandemic-ridden times.

In addition to all that though, the residents of St. Bonaventure will also be facing a role reversal. Now that they’re done being the helpers, they’ll be thrown in a supervisory capacity. This, in turn, will bring new characters to the show.

Shaun will be a boss. Wonder how that’ll go.

The Good Doctor Season 4 returns on November 2.