Doc is back in primetime in the 2025 TV schedule after kicking off Season 2 with a hostage situation, all while the first season is crushing it on Netflix. There was a big casting change between the end of Season 1 and start of Season 2, and I'm not just referring to the two cast members who were bumped up to series regular status. Scott Wolf, who was the "villain" of Season 1 as Dr. Richard Miller, seemed to be done with Doc after his character's fate was decided. Now, he's coming back in two different ways, and I'm just glad the writers figured out how to do it.
According to TV Insider, Scott Wolf will be back as Dr. Richard Miller for a multi-episode arc as a guest star later in Season 2... although perhaps I shouldn't say "Dr." for him after how the first season ended with his medical license suspended. He'd been ousted from the hospital after the truth came to light that he not only accidentally killed a patient, but attempted to take advantage of Amy's amnesia to pin the blame on her. (Season 1 is available with a Netflix subscription now.)
Since most of the action of Doc happens at Westside Hospital, it was hard to imagine what could bring Richard back short of a medical emergency with literally no other hospital in Minneapolis available to him and/or his family. It's not yet clear what brings him back, but with Felicity Huffman joining the cast as the new Chief of Medicine, it's a safe bet that he's not coming back to interview for the position. Scott Wolf will also direct an episode that will air on Fox in 2026.
Doc executive producer Hank Steinberg opened up to the outlet about the decision to bring Richard back despite the door seeming very tightly closed on the character in Season 1. He previewed:
It will be a surprising dynamic, a new angle, and an interesting, different ‘way in’ with his return. The Doc family adores Scott so much personally. It was so important to us to find a way to bring Scott back. It took us a couple of months to figure out how. We would talk about it almost every two weeks. And we couldn’t quite crack it. And then as the story of the season evolved, it gave us an organic, cool way to bring him back and we embraced it. Fox and Sony were so excited. It’s going to be very cool.
I'm not sure what would constitute an "organic" and "cool" way to bring him back, but I'm on board to find out! I was among the fans who started out Season 1 expecting Richard to pretty much be a selfish antagonist who would be easy to root against from start to finish. Instead, Doc delved into his backstory, and Scott Wolf carried the emotional weight of some flashbacks, with the result being that Richard ended up being a sympathetic character.
What he did was still very wrong, but his reasons for why he did it made him a much more interesting character than if he was just a villain who killed a patient and didn't care at all beyond what could get him in trouble. Based on the executive producer's comments, I'm not the only one who had that reaction. Hank Steinberg said:
The audience completely devours him, loves him, is clamoring for him back. He was such a dynamic and amazing part of the texture of Doc and played the antagonist in such a complicated, interesting, three-dimensional way.
No dates for Scott Wolf's return as Dr. Richard Miller have been confirmed at the time of writing, but you can find new episodes of Doc on Fox on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET ahead of Murder in a Small Town, the latter of which stars Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk. Both shows stream the latest episodes next day with a Hulu subscription.
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