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Photo: Hulu
Created and written by Grace Ofori-Attah, a former junior doctor for England’s National Health Service, the five-episode first season of Malpractice hits Hulu after debuting on ITV in 2023. Niamh Algar stars as Dr. Lucinda Edwards, an experienced emergency room doctor in West Yorkshire, whose decision-making during a particularly hectic – and ultimately tragic – night shift comes under questioning by medical investigators. As the inquiry builds, more truths come out, and Dr. Edwards finds herself at the center of a professional and personal quagmire.
MALPRACTICE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Dr. Lucinda Edwards (Algar) dresses in scrubs and prepares for her shift with a particular kind of intensity.
The Gist: “I, 2, 3, lift!” A critical overdose case has arrived in the accident & emergency department at West Yorkshire Royal Hospital, and Lucinda is the senior doctor in charge, as Dr. Leo Harris (James Purefoy), her superior and mentor, had to leave his shift early. But just as Lucinda begins to treat the opioid patient, assisted by junior doctor Ramya Morgan (Priyanka Patel), the A&E is plunged into chaos. A man, covered in blood and waving around a pistol, has brought a wounded boy through the lobby doors. Luce goes right at the guy, faces down the gun, and explains she’s here to help.
All the trauma bays are packed on this busy night at the hospital, and Dr. Edwards is presented with a quandary. Which patient does she move to another level so she can free up a bed for the gunshot victim? With Morgan and Nurse Beth Relph (Hannah Walters) clamoring for her decision, Lucinda decides to stay with the boy while she dictates instructions to Ramya. 800 micrograms of naloxone, repeated until the opioid patient’s breathing stabilizes. But while she manages to save the boy who was shot, the woman with the overdose doesn’t make it.
So who was at fault? When Dr. Edwards is named in a complaint by the dead patient’s father, Sir Anthony Owusu (Brian Bovell), she’s grilled in a preliminary inquiry by two representatives from the Medical Investigation Unit, both doctors themselves, Norma Callahan (Helen Behan) and George Adjei (Jordan Kouamé). (Lucinda also knows Geroge from medical school.) “You felt Dr. Morgan was sufficiently competent to manage an overdose?” Their questions start out pretty basic, but quickly begin to constrict the oxygen in the room. This is getting serious.
At home, Lucinda’s husband Tom (Lorne MacFadyen) assures her everything will be fine. They play with their toddler daughter and try to ignore the inquiry. But pretty soon George is shadowing Dr. Edwards at work, and questioning the junior staff about her style. Luce makes a frantic call to someone she has saved under an alias in her personal phone. “If MIU keeps investigating, they’ll find out.”
Photo: HuluWhat Shows Will It Remind You Of? Well, medical dramas are a small screen perennial, and the current crop ranges from the iffy Doc to the insanely gripping Pitt. Malpractice adds a new wrinkle in that it’s as much about the medical professionals who investigate wrongdoing as it is doctors on the job And additionally to this first season of Malpractice, which was a smash hit in the UK, Hulu will also stream the second installment of the anthology medical drama, which stars Tom Hughes.
Our Take: Watching Malpractice, we kept expecting Dr. Robby to walk around the corner. This is partly on us, because we’re obsessed with The Pitt, but parts of the predicament where Dr. Lucinda Edwards finds herself have also surfaced in HBO’s hit medical drama. And while Malpractice doesn’t utilize a real-time format, it presents its life-or-death moments in the emergency room with an effective blend of shouted jargon, staff scrambling to work over each other, and tight camera angles to ratchet up the tension.
But Malpractice isn’t staying in the trauma bays. It’s the investigation Dr. Edwards finds herself a target of that will take up the bulk of this series, since it’s already clear that while Lucinda is an excellent doctor, her decisions in the seconds surrounding her opioid patient’s death were made under some kind of duress. There is information moving around underneath her professional standing, and we’re not saying that’s automatically incriminating, but rather that it’s the kind of intriguing angle doctor shows which stay in the ER don’t usually incorporate. We’re very psyched to see how this plays out for Lucinda. We believe in this doctor, but want to know more.
Performance Worth Watching: Niamh Algar is just so great in Malpractice. Immediately, we both trust her decisions and have plenty of questions, and Algar deftly maintains that delicate balance. This is also yet another spot for us to shout out her performance in Raised by Wolves, the cancellation of which we’ll never get over.
Photo: HuluSex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: With the Medical Investigation Unit breathing down her neck, Lucinda is becoming more and more paranoid. What happens at the end of this lead episode of Malpractice will not help her relax.
Sleeper Star: Hannah Walters does fine work on Malpractice as Beth Relph, a senior-level nurse who works in the A&E with Dr. Edwards. You might recognize Walters from A Thousand Blows, also on Hulu, where she does similarly fine work as Eliza Moody of the Forty Elephants Gang.
Most Pilot-y Line: “Sounds like a straightforward decision,” the investigating doctor tells Lucinda in her interview. Then things go sideways. “However, a number of witnesses state you struggled to make this decision…”
Our Call: Stream It! Maybe as a side-watch between episodes of The Pitt? Niamh Algar is terrific at the heart of Malpractice, as the doctor’s professional work and personal life come under intense scrutiny.
How To Watch Malpractice
If you’re new to Hulu, you can get started with a 30-day free trial on the streamer’s basic (with ads) plan. After the trial period, you’ll pay $10.99/month. If you want to upgrade to Hulu ad-free, it costs $18.99/month.
If you want to stream even more and save a few bucks a month while you’re at it, we recommend subscribing to one of the Disney+ Bundles, all of which include Hulu. These bundles start at $12.99/month for ad-supported Disney+ and Hulu and goes up to $32.99/month for Disney+, Hulu, and Max, all ad-free.
Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.
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