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This is not us. At least it shouldn’t be us, according to the message in the teaser for the second season of Dr. Death, which features former This Is Us star Mandy Moore and actor Edgar Ramírez. The season, which premieres on Peacock on Dec. 21, focuses on the fraudulent research of real-life conman Paolo Macchiarini (Ramírez’s character), whose experimental surgeries killed seven of the eight patients on whom he performed synthetic trachea transplants. The story was previously featured on the Dr. Death podcast.
On the TV series, Moore plays journalist Benita Alexander, who initially gets in touch with Macchiarini for a story but eventually starts to fall for him. Meanwhile, a group of doctors begin questioning Macchiarini’s methods. “The work I do could change the world,” Macchiarini says in the teaser as a scalpel touches the skin.
“I need to know the truth,” Moore’s character says. “What did you do, Paolo?”
“This pursuit of trust and truth is what ties our two stories together this season,” showrunner, writer, and executive producer Ashley Michel Hoban says. “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.
“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,” she continues. “These are stories that you don’t think could happen to you, until you watch this season of Dr. Death.”
Peacock will also release a documentary, Dr. Death: Cutthroat Conman, on the same day as the series. It, too, tells the story of Macchiarini’s rise and fall.
