When did Holby get good (with video)

Posted by me on August 14, 2007 12:24 AM | Permalink

I’m normally quite quick to dismiss Holby City (BBC1, 8pm) , largely due to the shocking performances recently displayed in its sibling programme, Casualty, since it won a Bafta.

But more through luck than planning, I found myself watching Holby the other Tuesday, and wasn’t able to get away from the screen (and it is quite rude to snatch the TV remote off someone, I find).

So sit through it I did, and it wasn’t that bad. In fact, it was actually very good. Whereas Casualty seems to be determined to stick to the 50% of patients coming through with nasty injuries must die formula, coupled with a determination to pair the A&E unit’s staff up with each other at every opportunity, Holby is much more grown up.

Perhaps that’s the benefit of setting it across two regular hospital wards – people tend to have more mundane injuries than those being stretchered into casualty. Perhaps that is the reason why the script writers have spent more time developing the characters into complex individuals. But then there is also the quality of the acting – it is simply in a different league to Casualty.

And because of that, it is more believable. The script writers go beyond the cliché of ‘management good, doctors bad, NHS rotten’ perception which Casualty tries to pursue at every opportunity. And it is in this setting that Holby, which admittedly began life as just a day-ward version of Casualty, has grown into something much better, much more like the sort of stuff we see from American writers.

If I was you, I’d see if you can check in tonight.

Also tonight:

Waking The Dead (BBC 1, 9pm): Gripping cop drama which was so complex the first time round, I’m almost glad of the repeat to see if I can work it out this time. Sue Johnston stars. Say no more.

You Can’t Fire Me, I’m Famous (BBC 1, 10.35pm): I’m pretty certain Piers Morgan won’t pull off as good a programme with Richard Bacon as he did with Anne Robinson last week, but his second series of the ‘tell us why you were fired’ has been just as good as the first.