Doogie Kameāloha, M.D. gives the iconic Doogie Howser series a modern twist when it arrives on Disney+ September 8. Starring Andi Mack's Peyton Elizabeth Lee, the series follows young Lahela "Doogie" Kameāloha as she juggles her new career in medicine with typical teenage concerns such as finding a date for the school dance or navigating a new relationship.
The setting of Oahu also helps to provide a fresh perspective, especially because Lahela comes from a mixed background. Her father Benny (Jason Scott Lee, Mulan) is a Hawaiian native and beloved by the whole town, while her mother Claire (Kathleen Rose Perkins, I Am Not Okay With This) is an Irish Catholic who is at times still adjusting to life outside Pennsylvania. Not only that, but her mother doubles as her boss at the hospital, which certainly doesn't make family bonding easier for either of them.
Showrunner Kourtney Kang spoke to Screen Rant about how she combined very personal aspects of her own upbringing with the structure of the original series to create this new fresh remix on a classic.
Screen Rant: Doogie seems like a perfect show for you, and one that is very personal to you and your backstory. Can you talk about the perfect mix that led to this show?
Kourtney Kang: Yes, absolutely. I was born in Hawaii. My dad is Korean, fourth-generation - his family was on like the first boat from Korea that came to Hawaii. And my mom is an Irish Catholic girl from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. They fell in love and had us three kids, and then my mom missed everybody, so we basically grew up in Pennsylvania. But we would go back to Hawaii, so I have family there.
I grew up watching Doogie, and I always loved it. But I always wished that there were families that were more like mine, so this became a unique opportunity to take this thing that I love and just put my own special sauce on it. We only say on set that, for a Doogie Howser reboot, the show is oddly personal. It's based on my family. I'm the middle child, I have an older brother and a younger brother.
As we cast folks and the writers came together, we all started putting our own spin on things, our own stories. And so, it is oddly personal - not just to me, but to the whole crew, and to the writers and the actors. It's a labor of love.
I also love that it's treating Hawaii as a place that you live, as opposed to being a tourist attraction like you see in many series. What was it like to bring that specificity to the story, and shooting in Oahu?
Kourtney Kang: Yes! Anybody can shoot a show in Hawaii, and it can be what I call the postcard version, where there's the scene, but then there's the Diamond Head behind you. And it's beautiful, but we really did aim to dig more into some of the more cultural things. I wish we had more time and room to dig further into them, and hopefully, season 2 will have that chance. But we really wanted to make it about these people and about their specific variety of life.
The show is inspired by my family, and it's me telling my story, so that was always our North Star. Our crew is very much local and Hawaiian, and everybody would jump in and give their take on things. We all sort of did it together. You want to get things right - and we do want to get things right - and there's also a little bit too of, "It's my story." Everybody has different stories.
And it's interesting. [I know] from doing Fresh Off the Boat, when you don't have as many stories, everyone wants that one to represent their point of view. My hope is that this is the first of many shows set in Hawaii; the first of many shows about different mixed-race families and different ways people do things. Hopefully, this is just one of several down the road.
I love how well you established Lahela's personal and family life in the first two episodes. What will the work the work-life balance look like in future episodes? How much time would you say you've spent in the hospital with these new cases for a 16-year-old to tackle versus, say, the high school dance?
Kourtney Kang: One of the things that we tried to do is really vary it. If you go back and watch the original, one of the things that makes the show so good is that there really isn't a formula of 50% in the hospital and 50% at home. They will do episodes mostly about home, and then it'll be about work, and then it'll be about Wanda in the original.
We really did try to follow that and stay true to the story of it. I think that's one of the nice things about being on a streamer: the type of storytelling you're able to do. We tried to stay true to these characters, put them in interesting situations, and see where it led. It really is a variety of things that you'll see, but her being a doctor is always key to it, and her family and friends helping her through it.
But the hospital stories really are about the emotional part of it. Like the Barry Bostwick character in the pilot shedding light on the circle of life of it all, and how you'll look back on these moments later. It's just everyone trying to figure out who they are.
Doogie Kameāloha, M.D. premieres September 8 on Disney+.