Dr. Levi York doesn't fit in among the regular doctors of the 1890s, with their mercury treatments and bloodletting, nor is he at home amidst the traveling medicine men who pitch their opium tonics to the poor and unsuspecting.

SYNOPSIS:

PILOT SYNOPSIS

An eastern-backed medicine show troupe operating along the coast of Northern California picks through the charred remains of their burnt-out staging area the morning after some calamity has befallen their traveling enterprise. In the wake of the mysterious disaster, the show’s cook, sharp shooter, strong man and fortune teller all decide to quit and seek out Dr. Levi York to ask if he is interested in teaming up. They appear to be impressed by something Levi did during the previous night’s destruction. Dr. York embraces the idea of expansion but is reluctant to tell his story when his new collaborators ask questions about how a sensitive, soft-spoken man such as he wound up becoming a traveling medicine man.

He agrees to share his creation myth, which also involves his companion Mary. Through flashbacks we witness his childhood in New York, apprenticing under his father, Samuel York, an arrogant ill-informed doctor who received his training during the Civil War. Samuel’s zealous commitment to mercury treatments and bloodletting have led to the deaths of many of his patients including his wife, Levi’s mother. We also experience scenes depicting Levi’s close relationship to his grandmother who teaches him the rudiments of herbal healing and later, his painful expulsion from medical school. It is there that he meets his nemesis, Donald Marcel, who teases him mercilessly for his interest in alternative medicine. Despite Mary’s objections, Dr. York tells the story of Donald Marcel marrying Mary before the war and then having her committed to a mental institution out of spite after his families plantation is burned to the ground.

Levi tries to leave his story unfinished, but his collaborators insist that he continue. Further flashbacks reveal Levi’s time working on a scow schooner along the Hudson River before becoming an assistant to a pharmacist where he was able to witness the damage being done by the patent medicine craze first hand. Levi eventually secures a job as an apprentice to a naval doctor in charge of a quarantined island in the Bronx River. While sailing south toward his new distinguished position in a new suit, Levi and Donald Marcel catch a brief glimpse of one another. Donald looks at his own gaudy attire and is embarrassed by the fact that he has become a fast-talking medicine man.

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