Joshua Jackson Weighs in on the Internet’s Theory About Doctor Odyssey – But Is He On Board?

Is Doctor Odyssey a fever dream?

Joshua Jackson is weighing on the internet’s theory about his new series Doctor Odyssey.

On the series, Jackson, 46, plays Dr. Max Bankman, the on-board doctor of a luxury cruise ship, where the staff “works hard and plays harder,” according to an official synopsis.

Now, fans are hypothesizing Max never actually recovered from COVID — after his experience as “patient zero” was revealed in the pilot — and is in limbo between dead and alive. Of course, the opulent ship would be actually heaven, which is beckoning him.

“I love this theory,” Jackson told TVLine. “I cannot tell you what goes on inside the mind of [series co-creator] Ryan Murphy, but we also had a similar theory operating on set. Only Ryan Murphy knows.”

“I have appreciated the internet sleuths’ work on it and I think it’s great,” he added.

Ahead of the show’s premiere last month, Jackson told Entertainment Weekly that the show — which also stars Don Johnson, Phillipa Soo, and Sean Teale — is meant to be an escape for viewers.

“Our mission statement is to be enjoying ourselves at all times so that the audience can have an hour in the week where they can just sit back and enjoy,” he explained at the time. “It’s supposed to be a one-hour vacation every week.” 

“You come aboard this boat as the medical cases happen, but also life happens, and by the end of the hour, hopefully you laughed, maybe even cried, and you go back into your week feeling just a little bit more relaxed for having gone on a nice cruise with us,” he added.

Following the first episode, the actor also spoke about his character Max focusing on joy after surviving COVID.

“Speaking of that specific character beat, it’s both a specific reason why he’s doing the thing that he’s doing,” he told The Wrap. “But I think it’s also, in Ryan’s eyes, a metaphor for where we’ve all have been. Nobody got out untouched by COVID, and whether you were in a pod with other people, whether you were isolated, whether you got it early, whether you got it late or God forbid you lost somebody — we all have gone through this radical and, just to use therapy speak, traumatic event collectively together. I don’t know anybody who didn’t, at some point during that, reassess their life.”

“I think it’s a beautiful launching episode for the show, because I just feel like we all were there,” he added. “Not all of us decided to go work on a cruise ship, but all of us thought about it, ‘Maybe I do need to just start again’ or ‘Maybe I’ve just been quietly getting through but not really living my life.’ Everybody’s been in the spot that Max is at, and that’s what launches the show. That’s the mission here: Let’s all collectively exhale, turn the page and commit to life.”

Doctor Odyssey airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.