The Doctor

Reunited five years after Children of a Lesser God, Haines and Hurt are trapped here by a trite, predictable script. Jack McKee is a brilliant, happily married surgeon who lacks compassion for his patients. Only when he himself develops cancer does he start to appreciate the trials and terrors of being under the knife. McKee's search for inner goodness is guided by June (Perkins), a terminally ill fellow-patient. Can he right the wrongs of his thoughtless past and become a kinder, gentler man? Of course he can. This is American sitcom morality writ large: a lesson to be learned the hard way, but everyone comes out smiling at the end. Both Hurt and Lahti as his wife struggle valiantly with the material, but you can't help but wonder why they took it on in the first place.