Ryan Murphy has a television empire for a reason: The man knows how to make juicy, watchable TV. And for “Doctor Odyssey” (a mashup of “The Love Boat” and “Grey’s Anatomy” strained through Murphy’s singular aesthetic), he knew that there was one aspect of cruise ship travel that simply could not be faked on a soundstage.
The pool had to be real.
“In our first meeting, Ryan had said, ‘I want this built outside. I want water slides, a jacuzzi, a pool, all working. And it’s really important for me to have it outside, so you can see the stars and see the sky and see it’s all real,’” production designer Jamie Walker McCall told IndieWire.
The task was daunting beyond the usual demands of crafting an elaborate set for a weekly network series. As McCall pointed out, “Normally in television, we don’t build things to last outside in the elements. And certainly not where we ended up putting it, which is up in Santa Clarita.”
For those unfamiliar with southern California geography, Santa Clarita is in the valley north of Los Angeles and typically several degrees hotter than L.A. in the summer. “It’s really, really hot,” McCall said. “So when you see people sweating, it’s for a reason!”
The end result is an impressive production feat (a fully functional pool!) and a high-maintenance set piece that gets professionally cleaned every Monday and requires a revarnishing of the deck every four episodes. The whole concept is so atypical of TV production that McCall said it surprised even her peers. “Production designer friends say like, ‘Oh, did you take over a cruise ship for just for those outside scenes?’” she said. “I’m like, ‘No, we built it.’”
That might not have been exactly what McCall had in mind when she thought, “When in my career would I ever be able to design a cruise ship?” But she and the team pulled it off with aplomb, along with a cruise ship (happily built on a soundstage) that positively murmurs monied leisure.
“Ryan wanted it to read really quickly on camera that this was an ultra-luxurious cruise ship that was aspirational,” she said. A quick way to signal expensive good taste? Highly polished wood.
Initially, Murphy requested Madagascar rosewood, which has similar variegated ink lines as Brazilian rosewood. “Of course we can’t; it’s endangered,” McCall said. “We obviously can’t use that or afford it. So we did a couple of things. One of them is stain and then do a paint treatment with the variegated lines, and then we used an ultra-high sheen finish for a much cheaper process than regrowing Madagascar wood for the endangered list.”
The cabin sets do double and triple duty for guests and staff members — including new doctor Max (Joshua Jackson) and nurse practitioner Avery (Phillipa Soo) and nurse Tristan (Sean Teale) — artfully changed thanks to set dressing and props. But the truly stunning spaces are the infirmary and the dining room.
In fact, the infirmary was the first thing McCall designed because it needed to feel like part of the ship’s art deco aesthetic but also separate and sterile. “Because they’re in [the infirmary] most of the show, once I was able to navigate that, I felt like the rest of it would fall into place,” McCall said. The compromise was lighter floors and a darker ceiling, while the art deco came in through the warmer blues and woods in Max’s office.
But, McCall said, the dining room remains her favorite set. “Ryan really let me run with it in there,” she said. “And then he threw in some moments from ‘The Odyssey’ on the walls, [the reliefs] that flank the four sections of the dining room. And the ceiling, I wanted you to feel like you were underwater. So that’s why the whole ceiling was sculpted and painted a high gloss dark blue. That’s where my heart is, is in that dining room.”
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