I’ve got the (Holby) blues
The BBC1 police drama series Holby Blue started its second series on Thursday night (the first of twelve episodes). I discussed this distant relation of Casualty and its spin-off, Holby City, just under a year ago when the first series began airing, but for some reason forgot to give my appraisal of it once the series had finished. Therefore, for the sake of clarity, I’ll briefly sum up my feelings here: essentially, it was enjoyable but highly variable, falling uncomfortably between a drama and a soap opera in much the same manner as its parent shows. Its biggest problem, I suspect, is that the use of the “Holby” brand name gave viewers false expectations, because, while it does share certain tonal elements with Casualty and Holby City, it was ultimately a more mature and, dare I say it, more intelligent programme than either of these two stalwarts of the schedule are at the moment.
On the flip-side, I do wonder if perhaps the powers that be shot themselves in the foot by failing to provide strong links between this show and its predecessors beyond the title itself. Barring a very brief and inconsequential visit to Accident & Emergency at the beginning of the first episode, there was absolutely no interaction between the programmes. Frequent mentions of A&E and trips to the hospital (supposedly the same one, but fairly clearly filmed on a different set) to interrogate injured suspects notwithstanding, you’d be forgiven for assuming that the executives in charge of branding said something along the lines of “Hey, we’ve got yet another cop show and we don’t know how to sell it. Which show that pulls in decent viewing figures can we tenuously link it to?”
The Season 2 premiere, therefore, did a significantly better job of selling this as a series taking place in the same world as its parent shows than anything in Season 1. The central concept was that of a two-part storyline, starting on Holby City on the Tuesday and continuing on Holby Blue on the Thursday, involving one of the former’s regular characters, registrar Jac Naylor, because accused of murder and hauled down to the local nick for a grilling. As written by both shows’ respective creators and showrunners, Tony McHale and Tony Jordan, the two-parter surpassed my expectations considerably, and a lot of this, I think, is down to Rosie Marcel, who plays Jac. She’s a decent actor, and has successfully sold the character as a ruthless, selfish, borderline psychopath throughout her two-year tenure on the show. It’s difficult to play a villain, particularly for so long, and have them remain engaging, not to mention convincing, and I think crucial to the character’s success has been the fact that Rosie Marcel recognises that her character is an absolute cow with little or no redeeming qualities. In recent years, both Casualty and Holby City have fallen into the trap of featuring characters who can only be described as absolutely loathsome, hoping that their insertion into the mix will stir up some drama (note to writers: “drama” does not always necessarily equal “conflict”), something which is continually undercut by an irritating habit, on the part of the writers, of suddenly transforming the aforementioned villains into angels, once they have exhausted all potential use of them as villains but can’t bear to let go of the people playing them. Often, when asked about these characters, the actors playing them will attempt to claim that they are simply misunderstood, a trap which Marcel has so far not fallen into, continually stressing in interviews that her character is absolutely loathsome and that she is not at all like her.
Anyway, Holby Blue did the impossible and made me feel sorry for Jac. That the character is more or less devoid of anything approaching human empathy makes this an all the more impressive feat, but watching her crumble in the interview room, when it became clear that the case against her was airtight, was actually genuinely moving. To use a tired cliché, it showed a different side to the character, and yet at the same time avoided falling into the trap of having her break down in histrionics (a tearful “I don’t understand” was sufficient to convey what was going through her mind). To the experienced viewer, it was obvious from the start that Jac was innocent (and, given that the actress has just signed another one-year contract, the character was hardly going to be convicted of murder), so the outcome was never in any real doubt, but, even so, the writers skilfully wove in an intriguing twist that seemed to come out of the blue and yet still made perfect sense.
The episode, as a whole, was far from perfect. Along the way, we had to endure the risible sight of a bobby barking like a dog in order to lure a criminal out of an attic (this sort of thing doesn’t even make sense written down, let alone filmed), and someone really ought to take Zoë Lucker aside and explain to her that it’s okay to make more than one facial expression. Still, the Jac Naylor case, as well as the seemingly unrelated storyline involving an assault victim that they successfully wove into it, were strong enough for me to overlook these irritations. It’s always nice when a series that is considered safe and undemanding manages to surprise you with a genuinely thoughtful and moving storyline, and, while I am of no doubt that the two shows will now go their separate ways and not interact again (at least until the next time a rating boost is called for), I’m now sufficiently optimistic about the remaining eleven episodes.
Incidentally, the first series of Holby Blue is coming out on DVD this April 21st. While I would welcome the opportunity to watch these episodes again, part of me is livid that this show, which is less than a year old, is already getting a DVD release, while BBC have yet to release any DVDs for Holby City (I would probably welcome the first two and a half series), or Casualty beyond its third series. Given that Casualty, at its peak, was pulling in 16 million viewers per week while Holby Blue struggled to hit 5 million during its first series, I’m not sure I see the logic.
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