Doctor Climax hasn’t been renewed for Season 2, and this is probably a good thing. After all, you can only prompt a cultural sexual awakening once before it becomes a bit old hat, right?
I kid, of course — or do I? While it’s true that Doctor Climax ends with some things unresolved, that doesn’t mean it needs a second season. Season 1 made its point, and it was an entertaining dramedy with some pretty important things to say. But it said them already.
Doctor Climax Already Ended
People these days mistake stories being allowed to continue off-screen for stories not ending at all. Doctor Climax is one of these. It’s a multilayered narrative about an aspiring novelist, sexual conservatism in 70s Thailand, and the competing forces of business and politics. It ends with us reaching a natural stopping point in all of these things and then leaves us to imagine how things continue to play out.
It’s the “continue to play out” thing that people seem to have difficulties with.
Nat’s arc saw him deal with his latent prejudice towards homosexuality and his dulled creative ambitions; we don’t need to see him continue to develop The Climax Question.
The intention of that column — based on real newspaper Q&A columns of the time — was to allow repressed Thai citizens to ask the things they didn’t dare ask in polite society and receive genuine answers; it was successful.
We don’t need to see the slow creep of progressivism over the next several decades. We don’t need to see every editorial meeting at The Bangkok Express or check in on Pornchai and Pao. The story’s over for us. It’s just continuing without our involvement.
Will Netflix Renew Doctor Climax For Season 2 Anyway?
Of course, Netflix doesn’t care about any of the above. On the list of criteria for justifying a continuation, artistic merit is pretty low, if it’s on the list at all. Netflix would happily renew Doctor Climax for Season 2 if they thought there was an interest. However, it doesn’t seem like this is the case either.
Season 1 of the show did make Netflix’s Non-English Top 10 in 5 markets — Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and, of course, Thailand. But these aren’t huge markets, and even in them it only clung on for a single week, aside from in Thailand, where it managed two. This isn’t the kind of success that would move the needle for an industry-leading platform like Netflix.
This general lack of interest was reflected in critics. At the time of writing the show doesn’t have enough reviews for a Rotten Tomatoes score. It only picked up 232 user ratings on IMDb.
For what it’s worth, we were complimentary of Doctor Climax in our review, but we had our reservations, and it seems the other outlets who bothered to cover it felt the same. Again, this isn’t the kind of reception that’s going to justify a renewal.
Stranger things have happened, I guess. But I’d imagine we won’t see another season of Doctor Climax — and that’s probably best for everyone.
