History Series / DrDeath

* DidYouActuallyBelieve: A reporter chastises Benita on how she could truly think the Pope was going to officiate the wedding for two divorced non-Catholics packed with major celebrities. Benita defends it on how Paolo could convince you of just about anything.

** Lasbrey gets this when a patient she encouraged to totally trust Paolo and his procedure dies. When the widow snaps "When you remember this day, will you feel shame?" Lasbrey can only give a tearful nod in reply.

* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Invoked as Benita's coverage of Paolo had hospitals so convinced he was a "miracle worker" that they blackball the doctors trying to expose him. The worst is the doctors wondering how Paolo got past a key test needed for his procedures only to discover he never applied for it and no one bothered to check because they were so sure he was this genius pioneer.

** Earlier, Paolo wowed Benita by playing a lovely concerto on a piano. During a brief power failure, the piano suddenly starts playing the same tune by itself with Benita realizing Paolo was never playing it in the first place.
* ConMan: Supposed top surgeon Paolo turns out to be this. All his research is based on fraudulent data and he's been running a score of scams on the side.
* FailedASpotCheck: Benita is kicking herself on how she got engaged to Paolo before really checking on him only to find his long trail of lies...such as the tiny detail he was married for almost thirty years before they met. There was also his claims of having been a thoracic surgeon at the University of Alabama only to find the university didn't ''have'' a thoracic department.

* KarmaHoudini: After being given evidence of all of Paolo's lies and crimes, the worst he gets? [[spoiler: A suspended sentence for causing bodily harm, allowing him to continue to practice.]][[note]] In June of 2023, after production was completed, the courts increased the sentence to two years and six months imprisonment.[[/note]]
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: A major push for Benita in exposing Paolo is how she helped him become famous.

* KarmaHoudini: After being given evidence of all of Paolo's lies and crimes, the worst he gets? A suspended sentence for causing bodily harm, allowing him to continue to practice.[[note]] In June of 2023, after production was completed, the courts increased the sentence to two years and six months imprisonment.[[/note]]

* KarmaHoudini: After being given evidence of all of Paolo's lies and crimes, the worst he gets? A suspended sentence for causing bodily harm, allowing him to continue to practice.[[Note: In June of 2023, after production was completed, the courts increased the sentence to two years and six months imprisonment.[[/Note]]

* KarmaHoudini: After being given evidence of all of Paolo's lies and crimes, the worst he gets? A suspended sentence for causing bodily harm, allowing him to continue to practice.[[note: In June of 2023, after production was completed, the courts increased the sentence to two years and six months imprisonment.[[/note]]

* FailedASpotCheck: Benita is kicking herself on how she got engaged to Paolo before really checking on him only to find his long trail of lies...such as the tiny detail he was married for almost thirty years before they met.

* {{Gaslighting}}: As befitting a sociopath con man, Paolo has this in spades. He manages to convince a patient that he saved her life but ''removing her lung'' which was completely unneeded.

* BlatantLies: Paolo not only claimed to have been a longtime friend of Pope Francis but operated on the likes of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and numerous other famous people. When representatives for these people deny his claims, Paolo merely says that [[ConvenientlyUnverifiableCoverStory he has to keep these operations secret because of the high profile people involved]].

* SpottingTheThread: Benita's eyes are opened to Paolo's lies when he'd claimed he'd talked his "good friend" Pope Francis into performing their wedding. But Benita discovered from a friend that Francis would be in South America all that summer. She then started calling up the hotels supposedly set for their wedding/honeymoon (which was to be just a few weeks off) to find none of them had any record of any events set up.
* TwoHalvesMakeAPlot: The first half of the season is divided between Benita meeting Paolo, falling for his lies only to discover he's a fraud while Svensson and Gamelli uncover Paolo's supposed research is all fraudulent.

* BlatantLies: Paolo not only claimed to have been a longtime friend of Pope Francis but operated on the likes of Barack Obama, HIllary Clinton and numerous other famous people. When representatives for these people deny his claims, Paolo merely says that [[ConvenientlyUnverifiableCoverStory he has to keep these operations secret because of the high profile people involved]].

* CoughOfDoom: As soon as one of Paolo's "cured" patients starts having this, they're doomed.

A second season of the show was greenlit in 2022 and finished filming in 2023. This season will star Creator/EdgarRamirez as Paolo Macchiarini, an Italian thoracic surgeon who was discovered to have performed illegal experiments on patients with synthetic tracheas of his own design that turned out to cause fatal rejection, as Creator/MandyMoore as Benita Alexander, an NBC News producer who became romantically involved with Macchiarini only to discover his deceptions regarding his medical practices and their relationship.

* PsychopathicManchild: Duntsch reacts with petulant anger whenever someone questions his skills and continues to insist that he's a world-class surgeon even as his patients suffer from painful and sometimes fatal side effects, throwing the blame at everyone from the nurses and anesthesiologists to the patients themselves. He also tends to harass nurses, PAs, and fellow physicians like a grade school bully and shows an extreme sense of entitlement in his relationships with others.

* MedicineShow: Duntsch creates a slick informercial for himself, complete with a testimonial from one of his less-disastrous patients.

** When Henderson performs a revision surgery one one of Duntsch's patients, he notes (with disbelief) the mess Duntsch made, including the dura mater (protective sheath around the spinal cord) dissected, offering no protection to the nerves. Ligaments cut and just hanging loose, bone fragments piercing nerves and otherwise messily smashed into the spinal canal "like putty".

** This adaptation doesn't depict the full extent of the emotional and physical abuse that he inflicted on Wendy, which included an incident where he broke into her apartment and was found covered in blood and bruises while holding a knife and gun with a ransom note written in blood nearby.

* CripplingOverspecialization: Duntsch gets on Kirby's radar precisely because they have vastly differeing specialties , orthopedics and vascular, respectively. Some spinal surgeries require access through the front of the body rather than the back. Orthopedic surgeons, however, lack the training to get to the spine through all the organs so they bring on vascular surgeons to clear the way, so to speak. Kirby came into assist Duntsch, thinking everything would be routine only to get an up-close look at Duntsch's horrifying behavior in the operating room.