Doctor Foster (2015—2017) is a British drama series revolving around Gemma Foster, a successful doctor who seemingly has a perfect life. Everything is not what it seems, though, as one day she finds a blonde hair on her husband's scarf and begins to suspect him of having an affair. The storyline was inspired by the ancient Greek myth of Medea, the archetypal wronged wife and Woman Scorned. The first season aired in September 2015 on BBC. The second season aired in 2017. In 2020, the characters of Anna (having changed her name to Belle) and Neil appeared in another Mike Bartlett series, Life, where it was revealed they had gotten divorced.
The show has been remade several times:
Foreign Remakes
- France: Infidèle.Translation
- India: Out Of Love.
- Indonesia: Mendua.Translation
- Korea: 부부의 세계.Translation
- Philippines: The Broken Marriage Vow.
- Russia: Скажи правду.Translation
- Thailand: เกมรักทรยศ.Translation
- Turkey: Sadakatsiz.Translation
This show provides examples of:
- Affair Hair: Gemma Foster's discovery of a blonde hair on her husband's scarf starts off the whole plot.
- Awful Truth: Gemma discovers that her significant other is having an affair and slowly finds out that many of her friends and colleagues have already known about it and have been conspiring to hide it from her. In Season 2, Gemma realises that her ongoing battle with Simon is tearing her son apart.
- Blame the Paramour: Gemma thoroughly blames Kate for the affair with Simon. Although she is very angry with Simon, she assumes that she and Simon will be able to make it through for a large amount of Season 1.
- Brainy Brunette: Gemma has dark brown hair and her intelligence is mentioned several times throughout the series. She's a very succesful doctor.
- Heroic BSoD: Gemma emotionally shuts down at Simon's birthday party after discovering his other mobile phone. Her suspicion about him cheating on her gets confirmed and she can't cope.
- Insufferable Genius: Gemma, very intelligent and capable, means well but she can come across as haughty and arrogant. Lampshaded by Anna in the last episode of Season 1 when she calls her out on her superior attitude to everyone around her.
- Ms. Fanservice: Both Series 1 and 2 feature Gemma engaging in several sex scenes that see her strip down to her lingerie, showing off her rather toned physique.
- The Masochism Tango: Gemma and Simon stay together despite his cheating and their problems to torture each other, culminating in some hate-sex, which their son overhears. He doesn't take it well.
- The Mistress: Kate is Simon's lover. Simon is married to Gemma and he has a long affair with Kate. In Season 2 she becomes Simon's wife.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: If Simon had left well enough alone in the second series he could have remained successful and part of a happy family, but his determination to hurt his ex wife causes him to lose everything.
- Sherlock Scan: In the finale of Season 1, Gemma is able to deduce that Kate lied about aborting Simon's baby, because her stomach is swollen and she didn't drink wine at dinner. She also realises it was a test to see if Simon would come back for her without knowing about the baby.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Simon in the second series. Whilst in series one, he is seen as a genuinely loving father and husband who simply saw no reason why this should interfere with him having an affair with Kate. In series two, many of his actions are seemingly done just to spite Gemma, with him admitting as much, and there are implications that he never really cared about her at all.
