Let’s be honest: we still know and love Joshua Jackson mostly for his role as Pacey in iconic 90s teen drama Dawson’s Creek. Even his wife, fellow actor Jodie Turner-Smith, revealed Jackson was her teenage TV crush. 

Since then, he’s continued to take on a string of roles in brilliant shows. In Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us, Jackson played the lawyer representing a Black adolescent wrongfully accused of a brutal rape. He also starred opposite Reese Witherspoon as her onscreen husband, Bill, in Amazon’s highly-acclaimed adaptation of Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere. Oh, and let’s not forget his big turn as Cole Lockhart in Golden Globe Award-winning series The Affair.

But Jackson’s next role is set to be his biggest yet.

As confirmed by TV Line last year, Jackson plays ‘Dr. Death’ in a new TV adaptation of a popular Wondery true-crime podcast series. Jamie Dornan was originally lined up to play the titular rule, but a spokesperson for Peacock – the streaming service that will air the show – announced that the pandemic meant Dornan “is no longer professionally available to participate in the production”.

What is Dr. Death about?

Dr. Death is based on Wondery’s 2018 true-crime podcast of the same name about Texas-based surgeon Christopher Duntsch (Jackson). Dutch is a charismatic and brilliant doctor with a flourishing neurosurgery practice. But everything starts to change when patients enter his operating room for complex but routine spinal surgeries and are left permanently maimed or dead. As victims pile up, two fellow doctors, neurosurgeon Robert Henderson and vascular surgeon Randall Kirby, set out to stop him.

What happened to Dr.Death in real life?

After all of the above happened in real life, Duntsch was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017 for permanently paralysing a patient. 

Who stars in Dr. Death?

Alongside Jackson, the impressive cast includes Alec Baldwin as Dr. Robert Henderson, Christian Slater as Dr. Randall Kirby and AnnaSophia Robb as Dallas prosecutor Michelle Shughart. 

Watch the trailer for Dr.Death

It’s pretty chilling, right? The close-ups of medical instruments, Jackson’s eerily cheery demeanour as the doctor and the names of victims on a whiteboard – this isn’t for the faint-hearted. “He’s either the most incompetent surgeon I’ve ever crossed paths with… or he’s a sociopath,” Baldwin exclaims. 

*Shudder*

When will Dr. Death be released?

The series will be aired in America later this summer on a new streaming service called Peacock. STARZPLAY, which usually streams on Amazon Prime Video, has acquired the rights for UK distribution. We’ll keep you updated when the UK release date is confirmed.

Images: Getty, Wondery