The Good Doctor: Hill Harper's exit explained in season 7 premiere

Season 7 of The Good Doctor kicked off on Tuesday, February 20, with fewer familiar faces for the viewers.

Hill Harper, who played Dr. Marcus Andrews on the show for seven seasons, called time on his acting career to pursue political endeavours.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the 57-year-old actor is running for Michigan’s open Senate seat, which incumbent Debbie Stabenow will vacate after over two decades next year.

Andrews resigned from his position as president of the hospital in season six finale and as per his love interest Nurse Dalisay Villanueva, played by Elfina Luk, he is currently enjoying a retreat in Spain.

“Marcus sends his greetings from Spain,” Dalisay told Dr. Audrey Lim, played by Christina Chang as she showed her a postcard from the absent doctor.

“Oh, I thought he was at a meditation retreat in Vietnam,” Audrey responded, to which the nurse said, “He was, and now he’s walking the Camino de Santiago.”

“How nice for him. I’m two surgeons down with no one to approve hiring a new one,” the chief surgeon scoffed.

Speaking to TVLine, executive producer Liz Friedman weighed in on the tumultous character arc of Andrews.

She shared: “Since he got divorced, Andrews has been juggling a lot [at the hospital] and trying to find a fit for himself. He was involved with Salen [Rachel Bay Jones] — that, obviously, was not meant to be — and he had a relationship with Villanueva, but I think the job has been very subsuming for him.

“To have him take a moment, having stepped down, to go and find himself, seemed like the right thing for the character,” Friedman added.