Given the star power involved, it’s somewhat surprising how little notice A Young Doctor’s Notebook has gotten stateside so far. That’s probably by design, though: The series, which will premiere on Sky Arts in the UK next month, does not yet have a U.S. air date, so promoting it here at this point would likely just encourage illegal streaming and downloading upon its premiere in December—always a risk when a popular British series takes a while to cross the Atlantic.
Whether the series proves popular remains to be seen, of course, but it certainly has potential: Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame plays Vladimir Bomgard, the young doctor of the title, while Mad Men’s Jon Hamm plays Bomgard’s older self, who appears to the young Bomgard and has “comic exchanges” with him. The series is based on a collection of autobiographical sketches by Mikhail Bulgakov, set just before the Russian Revolution. According to the Guardian, the idea for the series came from Hamm, who visited London to promote Mad Men (with limited success, it seems) and “all he wanted to talk about was this book.”
Radcliffe, it turns out, is also a Bulgakov fan, and so Sky Arts was able to secure a second enthusiastic star with a considerable following. The first trailer for the miniseries appeared over the weekend. You can watch it below.
