Docteur Marcus Welby

I enjoyed watching this show as a child. I often wondered though if Welby only had a few patients since he had time to do home visits and become godfather to one of his patient's baby. He also seemed to moralize a lot. He would go into these lengthy monologues about morality and human behavior. It is also interesting to watch him tell a pregnant woman that drinking a glass of red wine in the evenings would be good for her nerves. How times have changed.

Unlike "ER", "Marcus Welby, M.D." played it straight. No silliness. No irony upon irony stacked unrealistically tall.

Unlike "House", "Marcus Welby, M.D." had pleasant, instantly likable, lead characters.

There are only three regular characters in "Marcus Welby, M.D." but watching it is not a limitation.

The highly skilled experienced MD.

The dashing young new MD.

The caring helpful nurse.

Each is played in a perfect ultra-idealistic way. The lead characters offer a limitless aura of security, competence, and high ethics. In the history of TV, I cannot think of any series with benevolent elders exuding such a sense of personal strength and security. One hour of "Marcus Welby, M.D." is the polar opposite of watching one hour of 9-11 World Trade Center attack footage.

The series employed doctors and scientists to give the medical activities ample grounding.

Each episode is a morality play centering on one main problem. To its credit, the series often attempted to show both sides of a controversy or at least go deeper into the "wrong" side to explain its origins. "Problems have two side," as Dr. Welby often says.

The main weakness is the same with any weekly TV series: production shortcuts. With casting, for example, in the Ngyun episode, a 1/2 Viet-Nam / 1/2 black war orphan is rescued and flown to the USA, but the young actor looks to be a white boy with an American accent with his hair dyed black and skin darkened.

However, shortcuts can be seen in the greatest of weekly TV series. However, taken as a whole, "Marcus Welby, M.D." is America's greatest medical drama. Better than "Medical Center". Better than "ER". the best.

I was a big fan of this show from the first episode. Back in the early 70's, everyone wished they had a doctor like Marcus Welby. The way he treated patients and took a interest in their personal lives is what made the show so good. I think it was one of the first medical programs that dealt with serious medical issues and took a realistic approach in each show. One of my favorite episodes was about a small boy with autism, something that was just not talked about 35 years ago. Today, the family doctor is just about extinct with managed care and HMO's. Marcus Welby, M.D. reminds us of the good old days. I think the time has come to get these shows out in DVD so we can get to enjoy them all over again.

I wonder if anyone remembers an episode entitled "Fun and games and Michael Ambrose"? It starred a young David Cassidy, before his fame on the Partridge Family.

I hope I'm not the only one who remembers this show. Personally, I thought that he was a fine dramatic actor. I liked him as Keith Partridge, but I would have liked to see him pursue a more dramatic line of acting.

Long ago and far away, but I thought it was a really good episode.

Does anyone have an idea of how to get this old TV series on DVD? I would love to get this series and several other 60's TV shows on DVD or even VHS.

This episode focused on the diagnoses of breast cancer in two women, played by Elaine Giftos and Pamela Hensley, the latter of whom was one of the 'stock' players (actors who appeared in frequent episodes on the series. Miss Hensley later played Dr. Kiley's wife).

The episode was, in my opinion, time-sensitive, in that at the time of its airing, the wives of two public political figures were going through their diagnoses of breast cancer.

The most motivational moment of this episode is James Brolin's emerging from character to talk about diagnostic and early-detection tools for breast cancer. Such is the hallmark of television that is not only entertaining but informative.