Doctor Climax
ドクター・クライマックス
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
1970s Bangkok: a dermatologist becomes an anonymous sex-advice columnist, and a moralising MP and a police captain set out to unmask him.
Bangkok, the 1970s. Nat is a dermatologist who treats venereal disease and would rather be writing adventure novels. He lives with his wife, Tukta, and his mother in an old-money house, in a marriage that is polite and joyless in bed. The Bangkok Express, losing readers, decides to answer readers' questions about sex, and its editor, Choo, and the newspaperman Thong Tien recruit Nat to write the replies. He agrees once he has met the paper's art director, Linda. Published anonymously as Doctor Climax, the column takes on masturbation, premature ejaculation and fetishes with frank medical kindness. Sales climb and letters pile up. So does the opposition: Pornchai, a moralising MP, and Pao, a police captain, set out to unmask the author, and settle on Thong Tien.
Nat and Linda become lovers at the office. Tukta, blaming herself, writes to Doctor Climax for advice, not knowing that her husband will read it; Nat, meanwhile, has been secretly giving her contraceptive pills. When the two women meet at his clinic, each understands. Linda, whose mother was raped by a married man and then blamed by his wife, will not be the other woman and goes home to the provinces. Tukta meets a stranger in a bar, discovers pleasure for the first time and begins an affair. Nat's mother, whose husband moved out after coming out to her as gay, hires a detective and decides her son must be sleeping with Thong Tien.
Doctor Climax tells Sangjaan, a young gay man, to live truthfully. Sangjaan kisses his boyfriend in public; his father beats him and throws him out, and the boyfriend denies him. He comes to the newspaper intending to take his own life. In the struggle Permpol, a young staffer, is injured; Linda talks Sangjaan down, a crowd beats him, and he is jailed. Nat, shaken, visits the father he has not seen in years and apologises to Sangjaan in prison.
In the last episode the police use a woman from a sex club to trap Thong Tien, who is arrested and fired. Nat and Choo expose the entrapment, and Pornchai and Pao are arrested. Tukta is found to be pregnant. Linda is pregnant by Nat and tells him she will have an abortion. Nat, who has just advised a young reader against one, walks out before the press and reveals that he is Doctor Climax. The season ends there.
Starring
Chantavit Dhanasevias Nat
A dermatologist and would-be novelist in a cold marriage who becomes the anonymous sex columnist Doctor Climax.
Nat’s story
Tired of his practice and of a marriage gone cold, Nat takes on the column once he has met Linda, and they become lovers; at home he secretly gives his wife, Tukta, contraceptive pills, not wanting children with her. When the two women meet at his clinic, Linda leaves for the provinces and refuses him. His advice to a young gay reader, Sangjaan, to live truthfully ends with the young man disowned, beaten and jailed; shaken, Nat visits the father he has not seen in years and apologises to Sangjaan in prison. At the end Tukta is pregnant, he cannot see how, and Linda says she is carrying his child and will have an abortion. Having just advised a reader against one, he faces the press and reveals that he is Doctor Climax.
Arachaporn Pokinpakornas Linda
The newspaper's free-spirited art director, who names the column and becomes Nat's lover before learning he is married.
Linda’s story
Linda's affair with Nat begins in teasing at the office; then his wife, Tukta, walks into his clinic. Her own mother was raped by a married man and then blamed by his wife, and Linda will not be the other woman. She slaps Nat and goes home to the provinces; when he follows, she turns him away and tells him to be patient with his wife. Back at the paper she talks Sangjaan, a young gay man, out of ending his life. Then she finds she is pregnant. She avoids Nat, listens through her door as he declares his love, and breaks down on the phone to her mother. In the last episode she tells him she is carrying his child and will have an abortion. The season ends before she does.
Chermawee Suwanpanuchokeas Tukta
Nat's dutiful wife, who blames herself for their cold marriage until she discovers her own desire.
Tukta’s story
Tukta hopes for a child, unaware that Nat is secretly giving her contraceptive pills. She buys new underwear to please him and, when that fails, writes to Doctor Climax, not knowing her husband will read the letter. Meeting Linda at Nat's clinic, she understands. After a school reunion she goes to a bar, where a stranger gives her pleasure for the first time. She keeps seeing him, and he gives her a butterfly ring in place of her wedding ring; then he leaves the country without a word. She tells Linda she knows Nat does not love her, that she does not love him either, and that she is still his wife. She faints at home, is found to be four weeks pregnant, and asks Nat whether he is happy.
Chaiwat Thongsangas Thong Tien
The newspaperman who brings Nat to the paper, struggles with impotence and is hunted as the suspected Doctor Climax.
Somlek Sakdikulas Choo
Editor of the struggling Bangkok Express, who launches the sex column and defends it against the paper's enemies.
Why it matters
Doctor Climax is about the distance between what people wanted to know about sex and what they were allowed to ask. The letters that reach Nat carry shame about masturbation, fear of impotence, a wife's certainty that her husband's boredom is her fault, and the series treats each as a real question that deserves a real answer. Its sharper point is that frankness is not the same as understanding. The doctor who frees strangers lies to his wife and secretly gives her contraceptives, tells a young gay man to come out without weighing what it will cost him, and meets the question of abortion only when it arrives in his own life. Around him a politician builds a career on outrage. Kongdej Jaturanrasmee, one of its two directors, has said he shaped the story after reading sex-advice letters actually published in that era. What stays open is whether advice can be honest when the adviser is not.