“Doogie Kamealoha, M.D.,” the Hawaii-based takeoff on the popular child-genius series “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” returns for its second season this week, promising intriguing adventures into the awkward adolescence of Dr. Lahela Kamealoha and her family.
“We’re really excited,” said Kourtney Kang, the Hawaii-born creator and main writer of the Disney+ series, which returns Friday with 10 new episodes. “This season, we’re leaning into Lahela’s teenage years a little bit, with a love triangle for her.”
Lahela, played by Peyton Elizabeth Lee, ended the first season with a surfer boyfriend, Walter, played by Alex Aiono, but a new love interest will surface with Nico, played by Milo Manheim.
“She’s caught in the middle of the love she knew and this other new, exciting, sort of bad-boy who comes into town,” Kang said. “And this all plays out while she’s a doctor at a hospital, and the show still very much explores what it’s like to be a teenager and figure out who you are while also working at a hospital with her mom.”
The show also features Hawaii-born Matthew Sato as Lahela’s brother Kai, Kathleen Rose Perkins as Lahela’s mother — and boss — Dr. Clara Hannon, and Hawaii island resident Jason Scott Lee as Lahela’s father Benny Kamealoha, a former financier who runs a shave-ice truck. He’s become a fan favorite, Kang said.
“Jason in the past has always played more serious, dramatic roles,” Kang said. “And he’s so charming and has such a great quality to him, that I think he’s a character that folks have really responded to, especially local folks. One of the early meetings I had with Jason when we were talking about his character, his first question was, ‘What high school does he go to?’ ”
Kang said the show has become a “coming of age” story for not only its characters, but for writers like herself. “I have three kids, and I still find myself thinking, ‘What am I doing? Am I really the one making these decisions? And so Lahela finds herself in a similar situation as she’s sort of managing all these different things.”
Kang, who moved to Philadelphia as a child and is now based in Southern California, has been careful to maintain a local touch in the content of the show. This year, for example, will feature an appearance by the University of Hawaii at Manoa marching band — “they sound fantastic,” she said — along with references to menehune and Zippy’s restaurants, as well as scenes shot at Waimea Falls. The Season Two opener will feature a tandem surfing scene.
“We’re lucky in that a lot of shows shoot in Hawaii, and what makes our show different is that our show is about a family,” she said. “It’s about their lives, and so it gives us the chance to touch on these things, and whenever we have the chance to do it, we try to take it.”
Having a second season will allow Kang and her team to use some of the ideas that surfaced as the first season was shot, she said. The cast and production crew, most of whom were local, were constantly on the lookout for possible scenes and plotlines, she said. That’s where the idea for this year’s romance entanglement came about. “Hawaii is such a romantic place,” she said.
Crew members, meanwhile, provided important input into details like the kind of vehicle that Walter, a competitive surfer, would use to bring Lahela to prom. “There was a bunch of the crew who were so passionate about it. They were like, ‘He would have a truck, he would have a Bronco he’d throw his surfboard in.’ ”
She also listens to “what my aunties and uncles are saying” about the show. “I do not want to get on their bad side, and I want to keep them happy,” she said with a laugh.
Even the medical side of the show has a local angle. One episode from Season One featured a patient with a spinal condition that has occasionally afflicted beginning surfers who strain their backs looking for waves.
“That’s an episode I loved so much because it was so specific to Hawaii,” Kang said. “In writing that episode, we had a few writers who went over for the first time to Hawaii, and they didn’t want to take a surfing lesson because that episode scared them. And I was like, ‘No, don’t be scared to do it. Just do it the right way.’ ”
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WATCH IT
“Doogie Kamealoha, M.D.”
Season Two will be released Friday on Disney+.
