Docteur Marcus Welby

Marcus Welby, MD was a show that was a salute to a vanishing breed of men, the general practitioner. Robert Young who starred in the series had been America's role model dad in Father Knows Best. Now he became the role model doctor.

I liked Dr. Welby because of the way he treated his cases as individuals. Admittedly the job of a doctor can be routine, prescriptions and vaccinations and the dispensing of good commonsense advice of a general nature. But the episodes were of the cases that were unique and Welby treated them as such.

I could identify with him because back in my working days I tried to deal with a lot of claimants individually when I worked at NYS Crime Victims Board. There are some you just have to go the extra mile or two for. Welby did and I tried to. He had one indisputable advantage, Welby was his own boss. Try doing that in civil service where uniformity is a lifestyle.

Robert Young had young James Brolin at the beginning of his successful career. Young being a veteran of the old Hollywood studio system and Brolin one who developed his career on the small screen were two generations of actors. But they complemented each other well.

Completing the cast was another studio system veteran Elena Verdugo as the office nurse Consuela. She was very important because the one time starlet gave a voice and a face to working Hispanic women in the 40 something range.

I wish all the doctors were Marcus Welbys.

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.

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.

Why can't we buy more than two seasons? They filmed 7. I haven't seen these since I was a kid and would love to watch the entire series. What a refreshing change from all of the garbage in the mature ratings now.

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.