The recent days saw the end of filming for the last scenes in seasons four and five of Doctor on Call, a medical drama jointly produced by FILM.UA studio and Ukraina TV channel. And even though lots of unexpected and dramatic events will take place in the final episodes, this is not the end: the authors are preparing eighty more!
For several years in a row, pavilion No. 6 at FILM.UA studio is constantly occupied with filming a medical drama Doctor on Call. Actually, the pavilion itself looks more like a clinic: there is an admissions office, wards and operating rooms, head doctor office and staff lounge.
This is where the patients in the series arrive and doctors provide them with assistance. In seasons four and five the doctors saved over 200 patients, a third of them children and teenagers.
But in the last episodes the melodrama narration cedes to action! You’ve heard it right: in the end there will be shootings and bloodshed, tears and love as well as rather heated argument between main characters. Still, we won’t tell you what happens exactly: you’ll have to watch and find it out for yourselves.
Why these radical changes in the series narration? Yulia Mischenko, Doctor on Call showrunner, is here to tell us.
“A range of unexpected dramatic events will happen, and they will significantly change our clinic. As the series has been extended for seasons six and seven, we decided to finish season five abruptly so that the viewers look forward to further plot development…”
We were intrigued so asked for explanations one of the project directors, Pavel Maschenko:
“There will be emphasis on a detective plot line: a criminal story will evolve around young nurse Sofi and not just her! Investigator Soroka, already familiar to the audience, will actively look into cases, and the doctors will help him as they are directly engaged in the lives of their patients.”
New seasons will feature more intrigues and decisive actions. Deputy head doctor Irodiada Maksimovna Ferents will introduce her own rules and successfully get rid of those not to her taste. Her active supporter will be Zenyk the psychologist; on top of that, he is in love with her.
Doctor Olga Sobol will find out how it feels to fall into disgrace with your superiors. Let’s hope that honest and direct Sobol will stand up to herself.
By the way, Olga is the only doctor on screen who has a family and children. Actress Irina Tkalenko is herself a mother of two, so she understands her character really well.
New doctor Oleg Sergeyevich Dobryvechir cannot plot intrigues or use cunning ways. He was played by merited artist of Ukraine Aleksandr Norchuk who lives and works in Lviv and travels to Kyiv for filming.
“My character is not treated the same way by everyone but he doesn’t try to be liked by all. He fights back and is not afraid of conflicts, directly speaking his mind. And he is respected for his integrity, honesty, and directness,” Aleksandr says. During season five, some “blind spots” from the life of this doctor will be revealed. “I was warned that it won’t be easy with this character,” said Aleksandr during a break between the scenes. “But I never expected it would be like this!”
In spite of all the drama, the lyrical component won’t disappear: many characters will reveal their feelings.
The life of Nadya Pavlenko, the beauty of the clinic, will abruptly change. She’ll find herself in a love triangle – she will have to choose between two very worthy candidates for her heart.
What we saw: when a scene of declaration of love was filmed, we noticed that some women present at the set involuntarily shed several tears – so touching and even tragic it was.
In the new season, the viewers will see doctor Andrey Mazur again. The first and final episodes of the season will leave a particularly lasting impression as they will feature Mikhail Zhonin. Mazur’s actions will be heroic, passionate, risky and brutal – all those things we love this doctor for!
“When I read the script the actions of my character didn’t surprise me; everything matched my concept of Mazur,” said charismatic Mikhail Zhonin, commenting actions of his character.
Finally, doctor Gursky… Radical changes will happen to him as well…
But no more spoilers: you’ll find everything out soon enough!
It’s always exciting to find out about the reverse side of the process, right? To learn some professional secrets, we went to see costume designers and makeup artists.
Please note that each medical employee has own costume. Costume designer Oksana Timonina tells about the selection of clothes:
“We agreed from the start that doctors will have one kind of costumes, and the nurses, another. We decided to play with color: the doctors wear costumes made of light blue fabric, and the nurses wear a greenish hue. In total, during the three years of project existence about 250 costume sets were made.”
Doctors wear out approximately one costume each per season. “Why approximately? Different things happen: sometimes you cannot wash the blood off the costume, stains and tears appear – and the actors wear out two or even more sets per season,” Oksana says.
The emergency clinic is a place where they save lives. That is why the doctors wear a strict minimum of jewelry so that the audience is not distracted. For example, only the head doctor wears a wedding ring, and only Olga Sobol among the doctors is allowed to wear earrings.
It seemed to us that adorable nurse Sofi has a frivolous mini robe. But Oksana dispelled our doubts: “No, we didn’t want to showcase Sofi’s sex appeal at all! It is just that she is taller than the other colleagues, so the length of the robe also went up.”
The makeup artists have their own tricks. This is where actors are transformed into patients and doctors, where the screen blood is boiled along with the making of wounds, cuts, burns, etc.
We found out that complicated makeup – a surgery cut or a fracture with bones turned out – needs two to three hours for completion. The makeup artists had to learn on the spot: they found injuries on the Internet and produced something similar. Naturally, the look of burns and fractures was scary at first, but with time everyone got used to that.
As for the blood – you’ll be surprised when you find out what it is replaced with at the set. No-no, there are no sauces or cranberry juice – this substance is bought in special shops. Then it is diluted and brought to the set. Nothing scary, if you get down to the bottom of things…
We only have to add that action like in the last episodes of season five hasn’t been seen in Doctor on Call! The new episodes will be premiered on air of Ukraina TV channel in early December.
But we are not saying goodbye – very soon the filming of seasons six and seven will start…
“The writers have lots of exciting stories and radical plot twists in stock, and the main characters still have hidden surprises and room for development. So there’ll be enough stories for the following two seasons. We’ll keep the bar high,” said showrunner Yulia Mischenko in conclusion.
Our congratulations go to the project team! We are looking forward to the new episodes!
Director: Pavel Maschenko, Andrey Osmolovsky
DOP: Andrey Shvets
Head writer: Yulia Mischenko
Executive producer: Kirill Gorobets
Creative producer: Yulia Mischenko
Producers: Irina Kostyuk, Anna Eliseeva, Elena Kanishevskaya, Oksana Kalityuk
CAST: Irina Tkalenko, Ruslan Sokolnik, Nadezhda Levchenko, Aleksandr Norchuk, Mikhail Romanov, Aleksandra Polguy, Svetlana Knyazeva, Sofi Pashkual, Valentina Baranovskaya, Leonid Popadko, Galina Bortnovskaya, Viktoria Levchenko, Larisa Sheloumova, Bogdan Oleynik, Elena Novikova
GENRE: Medical drama /Detective /Melodrama
TYPE: Vertical daytime series
SEASON: 4-5
Timing: 80 х 45 mins
YEAR: 2017 - 2018
PRODUCTION: FILM.UA LLC upon commission of TRC UKRAINA LLC
