Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Bad Surgeon: Love Under The Knife’ On Netflix, About The Surgeon Who Was A Fraud And The Journalist Who Fell For Him

Bad Surgeon: Love Under The Knife is a three-part docuseries, directed by Ben Steele, that discusses how Paolo Macchiarini, previously considered a pioneer in regenerative surgery, was found to be a fraud. Via archival interviews with Macchiarini, as well as interviews with the doctor’s colleagues and families of patients that dies under his care, a picture of the surgeon is pieced together. But the biggest contributor to the narrative is his former fiancée, former Dateline producer Benita Alexander.

BAD SURGEON: LOVE UNDER THE KNIFE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A group of doctors performing surgery. “Surgeons are kind of like superheroes,” says a woman’s voice. “Because when things go badly wrong and we’re in deep trouble, they’re the ones we look to… to save us.”

The Gist: Macchiarini came to prominence by pioneering esophageal transplants using plastic replacement parts that are covered in a patent’s stem cells. The idea is that the “bath” of stem cells would greatly reduce the patient’s immune system from rejecting the foreign body that’s been introduced. He was telegenic and charming, not only able to convince patients to trust him with this experimental surgery, but he was also able to convince his colleagues and journalists that he was on the right path.

One of those journalists was Alexander, who traveled to Sweden, where the doctor was doing his work at the Karolinska Institute, to interview him for a Dateline story back in 2013. She tells Steele that as soon as he locked eyes on her, she felt “like a schoolgirl,” but she tried to keep her professionalism intact. Against her better judgement, though, she fell for him, and they set off on a whirlwind romance that included him essentially paying for every expensive dinner, gift, and vacation they experienced together. In the meantime, he also dropped hints that he had celebrity clients that helped fund his studies, one of which was Barack Obama.

But the more heartbreaking interviews were with the family of Christopher Lyles, who was dying of esophageal cancer when Macchiarini did the transplant. He died soon after the surgery, but Lyles’ family stayed supportive of the doctor, knowing that Lyles putting himself out there would help others. But Alexander then tells the story of Julia, a Russian dancer and mother whose windpipe was damaged after an accident but was otherwise healthy. She won a “lottery” of sorts to get the transplant, and was presented in front of the press after her surgery as a success, but was dead within hours, and suffered terribly in those last hours.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Bad Surgeon: Love Under The Knife has the same feel as other docuseries and documentaries about fraudsters, like Bad Vegan, The Inventor, Love Fraud, Madoff, etc. (It’s also worth noting that the upcoming second season of Peacock’s Dr. Death is also about this same subject matter.)

Our Take: If you’ve followed the stories about Macchiarini, you know that he not only made up much of what he told Alexander, who ended up hiring a private investigator to look into his claims and found out that he was already married, but his medical claims about his esophageal transplants were also fabricated and exaggerated. He has been convicted of fraud and medical malpractice in two countries due to his activities. Bad Surgeon: Love Under The Knife is going to detail this two part fraud on the part of Macchiarini, and it’s a compelling watch.

Yes, while you’re watching Alexander talking about how she fell for Macchiarini and how he essentially wined and dined her until he gave her an engagement ring that he claimed was worth $100,000, you’re going to get frustrated. It seems like yet another profile of a strong, intelligent woman who was seemingly taken by a too-charming man, and she seemed to be too swept away to look at the obvious red flags. But given what we know about the case, we are waiting to hear from Alexander about the time when her journalistic instincts finally kick in and she starts to realize that the things he said about his life don’t add up.

But the part that was much more riveting to us were the tales of the patients who put their trust in Macchiarini. Not just because they’re heartbreaking to listen to, as we mentioned above, but because the story of just how Macchiarini came to be so prominent in this field while essentially doing human experiments is a more fascinating — and infuriating — story.

We do know, however, that the love fraud and the medical fraud go hand in hand, so we understand why there needs to be room for both. And Alexander is a skilled journalist who (eventually) got wise to Macchiarini and provides a firsthand account of what the man was like. But it does seem that Alexander’s story is one we’ve seen many times before, and her story is just going to make us frustrated that we’re not hearing more about the medical fraud.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Johannes Wahlstrom, a Swedish investigative journalist, talks about hearing about Julia’s final hours from her mother, and “I realized the story I had heard a few hours earlier was a lie.”

Sleeper Star: Chris Lyles’ sister, Erica Greene and mother, Dorne Lyles, gave riveting interviews about how much trust they had put into Macchiarini when it came to Chris’ care.

Most Pilot-y Line: Like we said earlier, we would have liked to have seen less from Alexander and more about the patients that received transplants.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The scope of Paolo Macchiarini’s likes is breathtaking, and Bad Surgeon: Love Under The Knife does a good job of explaining just how he was able to fool so many people.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.