The Doogie Howser, M.D. reboot Doogie Kamealoha, M.D. is moving forward on Disney+. The streaming platform ordered the show to series, with ten half-hour episodes expected to debut next year. The new show will tell a story similar to the original 1989-1993 series about a teenage doctor, which turned Neil Patrick Harris into an overnight star. Harris and David E. Kelley, who co-created the original series with Steven Bochco, are not involved in the new project.
Disney announced the project was in development back in April. Doogie Kamealoha, M.D. will tell the story of a mixed-race 16-year-old girl working as a doctor in Hawaii. She has to juggle her medical career with her life as a teenager. Her family includes an Irish mother who works at her hospital and her Hawaiian father who has to accept that his daughter is growing up. Kamealoha was written by Kourtney Kang (How I Met Your Mother, Fresh Off The Boat), who will executive produce with Jake Kasdan, Melvin Mar, and Dayna and Jesse Bochco. 20th Television is producing the series.
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“Doogie Howser, M.D. is beloved by everyone at our studio, so we knew that if we were going to reinvent it for a new generation, we had to have both the blessing and participation of the Bochcos and a creator with a fresh, new take that made us lean in,” Carolyn Cassidy, president of 20th Television, said in a statement to Variety. “Kourtney’s vision for the character is so inspired, we’ve been dying to collaborate with Melvin and Jake again, and Disney+ is exactly the right home for this idea. We couldn’t be more excited.”
The original Doogie Howser ran four seasons and 97 episodes. Harris starred as the title character, a teenage doctor who balanced his career with his home life. The rest of the cast included James B. Sikking as Doogie’s father, a doctor, and Belinda Montgomery as his mother, a patient advocate at the hospital. The original series is available to stream on Hulu.
The Doogie Howser reboot is Disney’s latest move to revive a beloved property. The studio is also working on reboots of Turner and Hooch and Mighty Ducks as series for Disney+. The studio already had a hit with High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, which was available when Disney+ launched last year. Disney was working on a sequel series about Lizzie McGuire with Hilary Duff returning, but that project was put on hold indefinitely with Duff advocating for the show to move to Hulu.
