The Good Doctor is currently airing its final season in the 2024 TV schedule, with big changes right off the bat for Shaun and Lea after the birth of their son. ABC didn't cancel the hit medical drama until work had already begun on Season 7 with Shaun as a new parent. Co-showrunner and executive producer Liz Friedman spoke with CinemaBlend about how (and why) the original plan for the series finale changed.
Since the Good Doctor team didn't know the show would be cancelled when the Season 6 finale aired, that episode wasn't planned to set up the final season. So, I asked Liz Friedman if she would have changed anything from the sixth season finale if she'd known that was end was nigh. The co-showrunner reflected all the way back to the beginning of her collaboration with showrunner/developer David Shore in her answer, saying:
I really don't think so. Going into Season 6, the one thing I knew at the very beginning of that season was that the end was the baby. And part of the reason for that is that when David [Shore] and I had initially talked, when I first came on the show working for him, I knew he saw that as the end of the show. And then we talked about it.
The birth of a healthy Baby Steve at the end of Season 6 would have been a happy ending for Shaun and Lea, especially after their miscarriage and pregnancy struggles earlier on. There were still some unresolved issues, particularly with the feud with Dr. Glassman, which is still continuing in Season 7 despite his breakthrough in the premiere. But the plan for the show to end with the birth of Shaun's child had changed a long time ago, as Liz Friedman continued:
I thought [about it] and sat down, and he and I talked about it. I said, 'You know, I think there really are stories beyond that. There's stories of Shaun as a parent.' And he immediately went, 'Yeah, that's right.' So we knew that very early on, and I'm so glad that we've gotten to tell some of those stories and show the ways in which Shaun is a really good parent. There are challenges for him, which we see even starting in the first episode, but I hope he continues to surprise and delight us all.
The Good Doctor is already showing that Shaun's journey can continue on screen with him as a dad, even if the cancellation means that his journey won't go too much longer. He and Lea are still figuring out the early stages of parenthood, but are very much a team. All in all, it would have been hard to imagine seven years ago that Shaun could have built this life for himself. Liz Friedman opened up about watching this growth over the course of the series:
This is what's great about getting to do a show that runs seven years and doing a show on a broadcast network, where each one of those years is eighteen or twenty episodes. It has been a really gradual evolution. I hope that it feels real and earned and believable, that we've seen Shaun just learning how to work with people and be a resident, and then starting to date and living on his own, and then rising up through the ranks as a resident, moving into being an attending who has other people reporting to him. He's just been challenged along the way, and what we've always tried to do is show that there are real struggles there. And also that there are real victories, and some of them are in areas that you just wouldn't anticipate.
It seems safe to say that Shaun still has his share of struggles ahead, not the least of which is rebuilding his relationship with Dr. Glassman after what went down in Season 6. (You can revisit the sixth season streaming with a Hulu subscription now.) There are plenty of other stories unfolding for the other characters as well. The planned spinoff starring Nancy Drew's Kennedy McMann isn't moving forward, and it remains to be seen if The Good Doctor intends to tie up those semi-loose ends before the final credits roll.
For now, keep tuning in to ABC on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET for new episodes of The Good Doctor as Shaun's final journey as parent, husband, and father continues.
