Always on Call Trailer: Netflix’s First Nordic Medical Drama Hits the ER

A surgeon with more talent than patience lands in the last place she wants to be. Here's your quick guide to Netflix's Always on Call, arriving November 26.

Pagers are buzzing, the coffee is questionable, and one very unwilling surgeon is about to have the shift of her life. The Always on Call trailer has landed, and it marks a first for Netflix: its first-ever Nordic medical drama. Original title Legevakta. Premiere date: November 26, 2026.

The premise: a talented surgeon in the wrong place

Meet Sofia, played by Sara Khorami. She’s a surgeon with, in the show’s own words, more talent than patience. Her career needs saving, and the fix is a posting to the emergency room, which is the last place she wants to be.

The ER she finds is short-staffed and short on time, fuelled by perhaps one too many cups of coffee. It’s also full of a demanding crowd of patients. The synopsis lists them with relish: rich or poor, influencer, carpenter or minister. If you’re bleeding or you’ve broken something, you get help. Nobody jumps the queue.

Among the exhausted but resilient doctors and nurses, Sofia runs into disorder and resistance. She also finds something she didn’t plan on: warmth, community and love. The question hanging over the series is whether she keeps climbing alone or joins something bigger. Netflix’s phrase for that bigger thing is simply “a family.”

The cast and the people behind it

Khorami leads. Thorbjørn Harr plays Anders, a doctor described as truly dedicated. The ensemble also includes Jan Gunnar Røise, Silje Storstein, Alfred Ekker Strande, Oddgeir Thune, Nader Khademi, Ola G. Furuseth, Tora Dietrichson, John Emil Jørgensrud, Zoe Mæland Rodgers and Mohammed Aden Ali. That’s a full waiting room of talent.

Stian Kristiansen and Liv Karin Dahlstrøm direct. Harald Rosenløw-Eeg and Jan Trygve Røyneland created the series and are its main writers, joined in the writers’ room by Ane Isungset, Maren Skolem, Thorkild Schrumpf and, on top of directing, Kristiansen and Dahlstrøm themselves. Magnus Ramsdalen, Esben Bundgaard-Jørgensen Selvig and Kaare Daniel Steen produce, and Klynge is the production company. There are seven episodes, which is a tidy weekend if you’re the type to clear your calendar.

The tone: heart over hysterics

The trailer promises racing pulses, but the stars talk about something gentler underneath the adrenaline. Khorami says she has always been fascinated by the emergency room, “a place where anything can come through the door at any moment and everyone is treated equally.” She calls Sofia “stubborn and completely out of her comfort zone,” and says playing her was “such a gift.”

Authenticity seems to have been a priority. The production filmed on location in Oslo, including in a real former ER. Khorami says being there every day “made it all feel real” and gave her “a huge respect for the people who do this work every single day.” She also singles out the “incredibly talented colleagues” around her.

Harr has a similar mission for Anders. He calls the role “both a joy and a responsibility,” noting that most of us only meet ER staff at some of the most difficult moments in our lives. “Through Anders, I wanted to show all sides of the people who do this work, not only their professionalism, but also the exhaustion, compassion, and humanity that can sometimes be hidden behind the white coat,” he says. If the series helps viewers appreciate those workers “a little more, that would mean a lot to me.”

So expect the usual medical-drama ingredients: a ticking clock, a crowded waiting room and a lead who’d rather be anywhere else. Expect a human story about colleagues becoming each other’s support system, too.

Save the date

Always on Call arrives on Netflix on November 26. Clear the evening, and maybe stock up on coffee for the occasion.

Via Netflix