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Well, it’s all over once more. Another tortuous and overlong series of Casualty wound to a close tonight, and in what has become something of a trend of late, it ended with a whimper rather than a bang. A friend of mine recently asked me why I continued to watch this programme when I had almost nothing positive to say about it, and I must confess I was at something of a loss to explain myself. I suppose the best answer I can give is that, every now and then, it throws something at me that makes slogging through hour after hour of poorly written, inadequately researched, at times frankly embarrassing mush seem worthwhile after all. These moments are rare, but they do come along every now and then. Anyway, as befits something into which I have sunk a good 40 hours out of the last 11 months (each episode runs for 50 minutes), I’m going to treat Series 22 of Casualty to a mammoth post. You have been warned. Ratings: These are my ratings (out of 10) for each of the 48 episodes of Series 22. I’ve marked particularly good (8/10 or higher) episodes in bold and particularly bad (3/10 or lower) ones in italics. 22.01: “My First Day” (Part 1 of 2) by Mark Catley - 9/10 Key writers: Jason Sutton (6 episodes), Mark Catley (5½ episodes), Sasha Hails (5 episodes), Rachel Flowerday (4 episodes) What worked:
Season premiere: The two-part opener which began the series was everything I used to expect from Casualty and more besides. It may have set up unrealistically high expectations for the rest of the series, but at the time I was very happy indeed. In addition to dispensing with the soap opera element, these two episodes above all grounded the drama by focusing squarely on two characters, one new recruit (Toby) and one old stalwart (Charlie), and their reactions to the unfolding carnage. I wrote quite extensively about these two episodes immediately after they aired, and I direct you to my original post on the matter. Scaling back the soap: Initially, the soap opera elements which blighted the last few years (specifically the Series 16-21 period) were toned down considerably in Series 22, to the extent that, for the first few episodes, they were almost entirely absent. Inevitably, they started to creep back in after a while, but I don’t personally have too much of a problem with that. While the “who fancies who” element doesn’t do much for me, particularly when I find it hard to care about either party, I’m certainly not about to begrudge it to those who do enjoy that element. It’s all about balance, and, provided the soap element doesn’t overwhelm the medical element, then I have no problem with it being there.
An increase in good episodes: While the output of this series has, on the whole, been very varied, with several weak episodes and a few truly awful ones, there were far more genuinely good episodes this series than in the previous one. In addition to the excellent two-part opener, Sex and Death stands out as an episode which, despite my reservations about the portrayal of the character of Ruth, was a solid achievement in terms of storytelling and jetisoning the Casualty formula. (You can read my extended thoughts on this episode here.) In addition, several other episodes, although lacking the “special event” factor of the ones I previously mentioned, nonetheless stood out as being solid efforts, whether because they managed to tell a standard storyline in an interesting way (in the case of the effects of addiction in A House Divided), or because of a standout performance from a guest actor (as with Aisling Loftus in Broken Homes), or for any number of other reasons. In the glory days, such episodes would have been considered the norm rather than the exception. These days, however, I’m sorry to say that I tend to be pleasantly surprised when I get something that makes me think or affects me emotionally. The “film look”: With this series, Casualty finally abandoned the old interlaced video look that it had used since its inception in favour of a more film-like, non-interlaced appearance. While the colour grading and contrast tweaks that initially accompanied it seemed to largely be abandoned after the first three episodes (perhaps it was deemed to time-consuming to colour correct 50 minutes’ worth of material on an almost weekly basis, or perhaps they got too many complaints from fuddy-duddies), the show, as a whole, now has a more professional look than it had in the last few years prior to this change. The removal of Harry Harper: While I thought the storyline involving his exit was eye-rollingly idiotic in the extreme, words cannot express how glad I am that this (to quote a friend of mine) “crass, overbearing, arrogant, insufferable, hypocritical, bottom orifice” was finally given the boot after blighting our screens for nearly six years. His arrival, towards the end of Series 16, seemed to coincide with the dismantling of what the show originally stood for, pushing out the ensemble element in favour of a one-man show about a pompous consultant and his adoring underlings (even his five-month hiatus last year seemed to be structured entirely around how everything was going to pot without him there to steer the ship), and, as the months turned into years, he become more and more insufferable. It doesn’t help that the actor playing him, Simon MacCorkindale, appears to have graduated from the School of Scenery Chewing, magnifying the character’s negative traits and ensuring that ignoring him whenever he was on screen simply was not an option. All in all, I was delighted to see this dreadful character finally hanging up his stethoscope, and I’m just sorry it took so long.
More Charlie: Charlie (Derek Thompson) is the only character out of the original cast to still be in the show, and for many people, he is the strongest anchor to what Casualty once was. He remains the most well-rounded character, and while the actor’s performance can be a little, erm, erratic at times, he continues to provide a strong anchor for the show, grounding it in some semblance of reality and serving as someone with whom the audience to identify. (He’s also an atheist, and there aren’t enough of them on TV.) In recent years, and particularly as the series have become longer, Charlie has had fewer and fewer appearances, and when he has appeared has done little of any value. There was something of a change this series, with two episodes (Charlie’s Anniversary and (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding) being shown entirely from his point of view. He played a far more significant role than he has for years, being at the centre of two of the longest-running storylines this series (although, given the overall quality of these storylines, I’m not sure this is necessarily something to be celebrated). By my count he appeared in 31 out of 48 episodes, including a straight 14-episode run at the end of the series, which is a first since… oh, Series 14 at least. That might not sound like much, but it’s an improvement on his 20 appearances in Series 20, and 25 in Series 21, and that’s despite a three-month sabbatical this year. What didn’t work: Scaling back the soap, part 2: For all the writers’ good intentions, the decreased emphasis on the soap opera element didn’t last, and, after a few months, they fell right back into their old habits. As the second half of the series rolled round, the soap became more and more pronounced, to the extent that, if things continue in this vein for much longer, I fear that we could be right back where we started again within a year.
Cast turnover: This series saw a grand total of 9 characters leaving and 13 new ones joining (two of the departures being characters who had only joined the show during this series) - a ridiculously large turnover that has not been matched by any previous series. While, for the most part, those who left were characters I either didn’t like or didn’t care about either way, there is one particularly egregious exception, and that is the departure of Josh Griffiths (Ian Bleasdale), a stalwart of the show who first joined way back in Series 4. Had his departure occurred about a decade ago, I would probably have been disappointed but would eventually have moved on, given that he would have stood a high chance of being replaced by a character who was decent in his or her own right. In any event, Casualty in the early days survived the departure of several mainstays thanks to the quality of the ongoing storylines. In recent years, however, the show has come to rely more and more on an ever-dwindling group of established characters, who have helped keep its head above water by countering all the inanities with a degree of normality. Josh was one of the last of these characters, and losing him was what someone described to me as “the penultimate nail in the coffin” (the final nail, of course, being the character of Charlie, who exited briefly at Christmas but mercifully returned three months later). Of course, it doesn’t help that, like virtually every other exit this series, Josh’s departure storyline was utterly daft (my thoughts on it here). By the end of this series, only seven characters remained who had been introduced during previous series, less than half of whom had been with the show for more than two years. Worse still, two of the characters who were introduced this series were each brought in solely to fuel a particular storyline and were them promptly discarded as soon as it had run its course. And this leads us on to my next criticism…
Too many characters = not enough screen time: Casualty, as it currently stands, has a regular cast of 19 characters (although, given the end of series departures, the ranks will have been thinned a little when Series 23 begins), which, given that each episode is only 50 minutes long, is an absurd number and causes serious problems in terms of giving everyone adequate screen time. While I can certainly see the point of having a decent number of characters - each episode takes two weeks to film, which means that between two and three episodes are in production at any one time, necessitating the need for there to be enough actors so as not to require someone to be in three places at once - surely there’s a happy medium to be achieved? There were characters in this series who got to speak one or two lines per episode (for example poor Alice, pictured opposite, being used as a footstool by the producer… sorry, I mean a patient), provided they opened their mouths at all, while the main action seemed to be centred around a chosen few. Quality of episodes: While, as mentioned above, there was an increase in the number of good episodes this year as compared to the previous series, the standard still fell way short of what I would have liked to see. The majority of the episodes were neither particularly good nor particularly awful. (Some episodes combined the very good with the spectacularly awful, such as Salt and Sugar, which was made watchable by an interesting portrayal of anorexia, despite the utter drivel going on around it.) Most were simply uneventful and unremarkable in every way, while others contained some good ideas but were let down by being mixed in with bad ones, or by ineffectual execution. As with last year, the biggest slump came immediately after New Year with a series of episodes that were either mind-numbingly boring or featured central concepts so flawed that they were impossible to enjoy. The biggest debacle during this period was the storyline involving Ruth Winters’ attempted suicide, which led Harry Harper to take action that eventually resulted in him being forced out. While this gave us two highly positive outcomes (the excellent episode Sex and Death and the removal of the most odious character in Casualty’s 22-year history), the actual storyline itself was not only fudged but also completely and utterly reprehensible from a moral standpoint…
Absurd storylines: For those who don’t know, Harry decided to read Ruth’s private diary while she was lying upstairs in a coma, and then took it upon himself to publish the aforementioned diary to “highlight the plight of junior doctors everywhere”. Words cannot express how moronic this is. Not only is it illegal to publish something someone has written without their consent, the contents of the diary made it blatantly obvious that the problem was not the system and its treatment of junior doctors but rather Ruth herself. But oh no, Harry was made out to be a righteous crusader for justice and was even greeted by a round of applause from the staff during his send-off. In reality, I suspect that the only storyline that would have remotely satisfied me in terms of an exit for this character would have been to have the entire episode consist of him writhing on the ground as every single person he had ever belittled, bullied, sneered at or otherwise demeaned in any way took it in turns to kick him very hard where the sun doesn’t shine. Come to think of it, such an event would probably require an entire season to be devoted to it so as to fit everyone in, so perhaps I should be grateful for what we actually got. To be honest, more or less every long-running storyline this series was either botched in its execution (such as the aforementioned MIU storyline, which could have been quite interesting from an ethical standpoint) or a stupid idea to begin with (let’s introduce a new character purely so we can play out a pointless storyline involving an unidentified member of staff posting derogatory comments about his/her co-workers on a blog - hey, do you think the new guy who show up one episode earlier might be the culprit?). Oh, and let’s not forget when we were expected to forgive the actions of an internet stalker (who fabricated an identity and wooed a hospital employee for several months before getting cold feet and faking his creation’s death) because he turned out to know sign language. Lack of continuity: There has been a really nasty habit throughout this series of ignoring past characterisations and events. Sometimes this can be fairly minor, such as a long-running character who has been shown in the past to know sign language conveniently losing this ability so that another character can come in and save the day. Other times, it’s far more damning, with basic aspects of a character’s personality being completely ignored in order to serve the ongoing storyline. Charlie, for example, a man of strong principles and a staunch believer in the NHS, was reduced, in the second half of the series, to a rambling buffoon who, in objecting to the establishment of a privately-funded minor injuries unit within the hospital, decided to turn his misgivings into a personal vendetta against one of its employees. On a less severe but still incredibly irritating and stupid level, we got to experience the age-old soap opera trick of accelerating a character’s ageing process to a ridiculous degree, with Charlie’s son, Louis (born September 1996) mysteriously transforming into a stroppy, spotty-faced teenager (played by a 20-year-old, no less) purely so the writers could play out some half-baked storyline about him truanting and smoking pot. It’s at times like these that the powers that be demonstrate their utter contempt for their audience. Age acceleration is something I’ve never seen Casualty do before, but continuity as a whole was a problem last year as well, and I think the blame can be attributed to two issues: the absurd length of the series (48 episodes - come on!), and the lack of attention being paid to characterisation by the script editors. In British TV, a script editor’s job is to maintain continuity from one episode to the next - a very important role given than many different writers are involved, most of whom are freelancers. Based on the total lack of consistency that has been demonstrated by Casualty of late, the script editors are completely incompetent. Too many cooks spoil the broth: I’m a big believer in consistency, both in front of the camera and behind it. There’s a reason for my including the writer(s) responsible for each episode in the listing above, and that’s to give some idea of just how many different people had their ladles in the pan. In certain cases, these writers had already written for Casualty in the past, some of them back when the show was still good on a reasonably consistent basis (Patrick Wilde, Katharine Way, Suzie Smith, Jeff Povey), but for many of these writers, this was their first time contributing to Casualty, and more often than not this inexperience manifested itself in poor writing and characterisation. I realise that British TV shows don’t have a permanent group of staff writers like they do in the US (instead, each episode is essentially written on a freelance basis), but surely it makes sense to at least have the key episodes written by those who know the show and its characters instead of farming them out to some random person who has written a couple of episodes of EastEnders or Doctors (if that)? Casualty in its golden age boasted some pretty impressive writing talent - Barbara Machin, Bryan Elsley, Bill Gallagher, Peter Bowker, Ben Aaronovitch - but nowadays it seems that the only required criteria to qualify as a writer is to be able to hold a pen and construct some domestic strife. The death knell of any show is when you find yourself thinking “I could do better than this,” and I’m sorry to say that that is exactly what I was thinking on several occasions. Best and Worst: Top 5 episodes: I think there may be a pattern here. Bottom 5 episodes: Well, that’s it for another four or five weeks. Now I just have time to recharge my batteries before doing it all over again with Series 23. I am nothing if not a glutton for punishment. |
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Land of Whimsy Copyright © 2001-present by Michael Mackenzie. All rights reserved. |
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