Ryan Murphy Is Making Waves

In 1977, ABC made waves with The Love Boat, and now, 47 years later, the network is making another run at a high-seas hit set aboard a luxury ocean liner. And since it’s disembarking from the mind of Ryan Murphy, the überproducer behind the action-packed 9-1-1 duo and the over-the-top American Horror Story franchise, y’all are in for something exciting and new.

“This is Ryan’s fantasy version of a cruise ship,” agrees star Joshua Jackson during a break from filming in Los Angeles. “The stakes are high, everything’s elevated, but it also plays [at times] like a comedy and is mostly just easy and breezy.”

After spending the past several years in such dark turns as The Affair, Dr. Death, and Fatal Attraction, the Dawson’s Creek favorite is clearly thrilled that his first network-TV role since Fox’s Fringe is a much sunnier sort of fella. “Yeah, this is maybe the most uncomplicated person I’ve ever played,” he admits of Max Bankman, a Connecticut physician who accepts the position of ship’s doctor aboard the fictional (and fabulous) Odyssey cruise liner following a near-fatal battle with COVID.

“He’s an East Coast, Ivy League do-good guy who graduated top of his class and went to do Doctors Without Borders,” Jackson explains. “Then he spent weeks in isolation during COVID, on the razor’s edge of ‘Will he or won’t he make it?’ and after that decided, ‘You know what? I need to go and unplug from everything. I need to just start fresh.’ And that’s what he does.”

In the opener, Max meets his new team, which consists primarily of nurse practitioner Avery Morgan (Shining Girls alum and Hamilton Tony nominee Phillipa Soo) and fellow RN Tristan Silva (The Gifted’s Sean Teale).“Avery’s been working on this cruise line for a couple of years,” offers the theater-trained multi-talented Soo. “She has the qualifications to be a doctor without being a doctor.” In addition to bringing “a wit and a compassion to how she practices her medicine,” Soo hints that Avery also has “a great backstory.” She also has ” a great partnership” with Tristan, says Teale. “They complement each other well. Personally he has some conflicting, powerful feelings for her [and] Max’s arrival throws a real spanner in the works. Which for a competitive guy who’s used to being the life and soul, is fairly understandable. I mean have you seen Joshua Jackson?”

Max’s presence won’t upset the tides for just Tristan. “I think his arrival is shifting things that have already been into play,” Soo observes. “I think it brings up new questions for these characters in terms of who they are on this ship. He’s their superior [now] and they’ve just had another doctor that they worked under. That’s the brilliance of the storytelling, which is now we’re coming into a new day with a new character and now we all have to interact and deal with each other with whatever we’re bringing into the space.”

Keeping things on as even a keel as possible is the Odyssey’s avuncular captain, Robert Massey, played with a boatload of charm by Don Johnson. “He’s an amalgamation of men that I’ve known throughout my life in authority,” the actor notes. “The ones who are the most effective are the kindest. They know how to get people to follow you; they command respect and not demand it.” Johnson likens Massey’s Merrill Stubing–esque approachability to comfort food for the seafaring soul: “He’s like a mac and cheese.”

According to executive producer Jon Robin Baitz, the entire ensemble is a late-night buffet of appeal. “They’re so charming. I can’t quite express to you the chemistry between the four of them. It’s like going back to the ’40s studio system. It’s so off the charts. They’re just a perfect painting together, all of them.”

Equally eye-catching is the ship itself. “The sets are absolutely stunningly designed,” Baitz raves. “The Odyssey is very, very high-end, so the stages have been luxuriously appointed.” That sheen isn’t reserved just for Max and Co.’s tricked-out facilities. “We have everything. We have the engine room, we have crew quarters, we have the bridge, we have bars, we have the dining room, the [main] hall.” On top of that, there’s an impressive yet still-secret manifest of guest stars booking passage on the ship, lending the series a Ritz-Carlton-with-portholes energy. In fact, Baitz reveals that “when Ryan and Joe [Baken, who created the series with Murphy and Baitz] started talking, the first thing I said was ‘Tonight, we go home and watch Grand Hotel.’” As Jackson puts it, “It’s as if the spaceship from Wall-E had a baby with the set design of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby.”

Of course, beneath the glam and gorgeous scenery is the rapidly beating heart of an adrenalized medical drama unlike most. “Being on a ship, it’s high-risk with fewer resources,” Soo points out. “We’re so far away from land, and the things that would be readily available at an emergency room in a [normal] hospital aren’t necessarily accessible to us. There’s a resourcefulness that comes into play, which is really fun to watch.”

For Teale, the cases encountered by the team so far have been mind-blowing. “They’ve ranged from incredibly intricate to absolutely hilarious. As a cast, I think we’re grateful for all these surprises, not just in rare new conditions we haven’t encountered yet but the challenge of actually getting to perform these operations with prosthetics and all the gear.”

So whether it’s a lido-deck disaster or something even worse, expect weekly doses of these docs saving lives by being quick on their feet. “It’s madness,” Jackson says with a laugh while discussing the out-there crises they’ve filmed. “I’ve had to put my hands in all kinds of nasty things over the course of the last month and a half.” Still, “the vibe, if you will, is joy,” he adds. “[Ryan] wants this world and the characters to sparkle.”

And honestly, that’s just what the doctor ordered.

Doctor Odyssey, Series Premiere, Thursday, September 26, 9/8c, ABC