Because of the large fanbase of medical examiner shows in China, after almost 20 years since “Untraceable Evidence” debuted on Chinese TV in 1997, the Asian giant now has its own homegrown medical examiner show.
It is “Medical Examiner Dr. Qin” which premiered over video streaming platform Sohu TV on Thursday, Oct. 20. The series was adapted from “The 11th Finger,” written by Qin Ming, a real medical examiner who shifted to writing. He named the main character after himself.
Besides Dr. Qin, the two other major characters in the online drama are Da Bao, his assistant, and Lin Tao, a police officer, who as a team solve various bizarre cases, China Entertainment News reported.
According to Sunshowerfields, the story starts with Qin’s male assistant resigning from his job because he could not stand the eccentric tendencies of his boss. To fill in the vacancy, Li Da Bao is temporarily transferred to help the doctor and the police officer. Qin initially distrusted his new female assistant but changes his mind when she demonstrated her strong reasoning and observation skills, plus keen sense of smell.
Sohu TV representatives said two new episodes would be released every Thursday. It would try to be realistic, but the production team is also avoiding unnecessary gory scenes amid concerns by fans that the show could eventually be removed from Sohu because of the display of dead body parts and other graphic images such as corpses with peeled skins.
Chinese viewers were introduced to the medical examiner genre by Hong Kong TVB’s “Untraceable Evidence” in 1997 and 1999. It was followed by the “CSI” series and “Hannibal” which helped establish a large audience for those kinds of shows.