Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Doctor Climax’ On Netflix, The Story of How A Dermatologist Became A Sex Columnist

The sexual revolution of the 1970s seems to be a ripe topic these days, with shows like The Deuce and Minx, among others, exploring the time period and how women especially discovered levels of sexual freedom they weren’t allowed to explore in prior decades. But a new Netflix series from Thailand shows that this revolution wasn’t just a phenomenon in North America and Europe.

DOCTOR CLIMAX: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A teenage girl sits on the toilet, reading one of her mother’s erotic novels. As she does, we hear her voice reading a letter she wrote about the funny feelings the novels arouse in her.

The Gist: The girl is a patient of Dr. Nat (Chantavit Dhanasevi), a dermatologist who, for some reason, does a lot of gynecologic work on his patients. While he’s examining one woman’s reproductive system, the aspiring writer imagines her vagina as a horrible teeth-filed monster that hides in the jungle, ready to be hunted down by his heroic character.

His attitude towards sex is pretty practical, though; everyone does it and it’s nothing to be embarrassed about, which is what he says when patient asks him for birth control because she doesn’t want the pharmacist to know that she “does it.” The girl who we saw reading the erotic novels wanted to know how not to cut herself when she decides to address those stirring sensations in her privates. But she’s so embarrassed to talk to Nat about it, she gives him a note and scurries out of his office.

Nat asked his friend Tien (Chaiwat Thongsang), an editor for the Bangkok Express newspaper, to read his movie script. Tien feels that it’s too dull for Thai movie fans’ tastes, but when he sees the note that the teen left Nat about her masturbatory habits, he feels that’s the type of stuff that people will read. Nat, though, is skeptical, as he doesn’t think his job is interesting at all.

His home life is certainly reserved; he’s part of a prominent family in Bangkok, and his mother Korapin (Utoomporn Silaphan) generally won’t leave Nat and his wife Tukta (Chermawee Suwanpanuchoke) alone. In her desire to have a grandchild, she listens in as Nat and Tuka have robotic sex; because of it, Nat has problems performing.

Mr. Choo (Somchai Sakdikul), the paper’s editor, gets an earful from the owner, whose sales are lagging behind the city’s Nownew tabloid, which has pictures of naked women on the cover. He meets with the staff to get some ideas on how to boost sales; Linda (Arachaporn Pokinpakorn), the art director, insists that exploiting women’s bodies isn’t the way to go, a view that’s definitely against the late-’70s norm. Tien proposes that the paper publish a sex advice column, showing the staff the teen’s letter about masturbation.

Of course, Tien knows just the person who can do it. But it’ll take come convincing to get Nat on board. Two things convince him to try, though: Choo’s offer to make the movie he’s writing if the column is a success, and the presence of Linda, whom he happened to meet the night before he’s given the column offer. They were at a pharmacy — he was buying birth control for his clinic, she was buying condoms for a shy teen that was in line in front of her — and he found her free-spirited personality very attractive.

Linda isn’t convinced Nat can pull it off, though; she thinks he’ll come off as clinical, and she advises him to “take their feelings into account” when responding to letter writers. Nat decides to answer the teen’s masturbation query first, but he’s surprised when Linda makes a change to the graphic she creates for the column, which is called “The Climax Question”; she cuts out Nat’s actual name and changes the byline to “Doctor Climax.”

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Because of the ’70s setting, we kept thinking of Minx while watching Doctor Climax.

Our Take: Kongdej Jaturanrasmee, the writer and showrunner of Doctor Climax, seems to have a good handle on what is universally funny about people’s discomfort with sex, whether it’s in Thailand in the 1970s or in the United States in 2024. Yes, the sexual freedoms that people experienced in the U.S. during that era were only starting to filter through to places like Thailand, but the issues around people trying to figure out what’s OK and what’s a little kinky — but still OK — are pretty universal.

We laughed a lot during the first episode, especially at Nat’s vision of a vaginal-shaped monster as he examines a patient’s privates. But we also felt for him as he and his wife try to have a normal marital sex life despite the presence of Nat’s mother pretty much ruining everything. We also loved how completely horny everyone in the office at the newspaper got as they read Nat’s first column; the discomfort the intern Pol (Thonhon Tantivejakui) felt as he typed out Nat’s written copy was palpable.

It certainly gives us hope that the series will continue to be funny as Nat figures out how to navigate doing this column and how long he’ll stay anonymous. Will it improve his and his wife’s sex life, even if it’s due to him thinking about Linda? And what kind of blowback will Nat and the newspaper get from Pornchai (Nimit Lugsamepong), a member of parliament who will no doubt have an issue with Doctor Climax?

Sex and Skin: Well, the show is called Doctor Climax. Surprisingly, though, there is very little nudity in the first episode, aside a shot of Nat’s bare butt.

Parting Shot: Ponchai reads the first Doctor Climax column and smirks, knowing he’s got an issue to rail against.

Sleeper Star: Arachaporn Pokinpakorn’s Linda has a bit of Manic Pixie Dream Girl in her, but it could also be because she’s a fairly liberated woman in a time and society where women her age act more like the subservient Tutka.

Most Pilot-y Line: Nat’s mother feeds him oysters, even though he doesn’t like them, because of their mythical aphrodisiac characteristics.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Doctor Climax is a funny show with characters who have universal appeal. And it’s about sex, so it’s got that going for it, which is nice.

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.