Season 3 of “New Amsterdam”, available on Netflix, is marked by the departure of Anupam Kher, a historical figure in the cast who played Doctor Kapoor since the very first episode. Why did he leave the medical series?
Available for a few days on Netflix, season 3 of New Amsterdam, already broadcast on TF1, quickly rose to the top 10 of the most watched series on the streaming platform in France.
Fans who have already devoured this third batch of the medical series led by Ryan Eggold and Freema Agyeman will not have failed to notice that these new episodes, shot in 2020 and 2021 during the Covid-19 epidemic, are marked by the departure of an emblematic figure from the cast.
Doctor Kapoor bids farewell to the series
Present only in the first two episodes of season 3, Anupam Kher, the interpreter of doctor Vijay Kapoor, has indeed left New Amsterdam and will not appear in seasons 4 and 5 (as a reminder, the series ended last January across the Atlantic after five seasons).
In episode 7 of this third salvo available on Netflix, Iggy (Tyler Labine) learns that Vijay Kapoor has resigned from the hospital after a fight against Covid, open heart surgery, and a long period of rehabilitation having left unable to return to his position as head of the neurology department at New Amsterdam.
Peter Kramer/NBC Anupam Kher, Ryan Eggold and Tyler Labine in New Amsterdam.
In fact, according to TVLine, the scenes from the first two episodes of season 3, during which viewers discover that Dr. Kapoor is positive for coronavirus, are “leftovers” from the never-aired season 2 episode, titled ” Pandemic”, which originally saw the character played by Anupam Kher catch a deadly flu during an epidemic.
This suggests that the actor did not shoot any sequences at all for this third season, shortened to 14 episodes because of the pandemic, and that he made the choice to leave the series in 2020, at the time of the first wave of the coronavirus epidemic and the cessation of all filming for several months in the United States.
Why did Anupam Kher leave New Amsterdam in 2020?
Although he hasn’t really spoken about it, it seems that Anupam Kher decided to leave New Amsterdam for family reasons, his wife, Kirron Kher, having battled blood cancer at the same time, as the revealed The Hindustan Times at the time.
In April 2021, the actor posted the following message on his social networks, in order to thank the production and the fans of the series: “The past year has been so difficult for so many people around the world, and also for Dr. Kapoor. Being part of this series has been an incredible adventure, which I will never forget. The New Amsterdam family will forever have a special place in my heart”.
“I thank the public for their love, support and heartwarming messages, especially to my wife, Kirron. I hope you will continue to follow me in my future projects”.