Casualty

This programme started as a superb mould-breaking drama. Each episode was an exciting thrill-ride. Now it is just a silly soap.

What made this prog so special was precisely that it was not a soap. Each week we had a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people who found themselves in the A&E department because of the accidents or illnesses that befell them. Each episode presented a whole series of accidents - from the bizarre to the mundane. As we were introduced to the casualties, we wondered how they had come to be there and how would their lives be affected by its new turn. Would they live, die or be left crippled. Would their infidelities and indiscretions be unveiled. By the end of the episode we had a snapshot of their lives.

In the late '90s Auntie Beeb threatened to turn Casualty into a twice-weekly soap. In the face of an outcry they back-peddled on this and adopted the compromise of starting a new weekday drama set in the same hospital and "Holby City" was born.

Unfortunately the script-writing team seem to have missed the point of the objection: casualty is not a soap. They have turned into a soap anyway.

Now the series simply has an interminable and tedious focus on the increasingly implausible private lives of the permanent staff. Each episode focuses on one character. And now we even have that stalwart of the soap genre - the token gay. Toby does not work in this guise for me! We now seem lucky if a single accident occurs in an episode. Instead it is the hapless staff of the "ED" who have the illness and injuries. It is the department team who have their indiscretions exposed.

It is to be hoped that this programme will return to its roots. Otherwise it needs to be pensioned off.

JDD - 14 December 2008

I am not a Casualty buff, but what I do see of it is always quite good. It is drama at its most realistic - you are instantly brought into the serious, morbid, emotional world of modern hospitals. The lack of blood and gore only make everything seem even more real. When a death occurs, you sure do know about it - it manages to hit really hard, unlike in Hollywood movies. The drama itself is superb and somewhat painful at times - anyone who has been in a hospital will feel things coming back to them after an episode of this. The lack of musical score save for the credits and the complete lack of glamorisation in any form strip this down to the bare bones of realism. But sadly, this show is not perfect. While there's enough to warrant a viewing of a full episode, there really isn't much to make you want to keep coming back. And though the characters feel like real people, you just don't really know them and you can't sympathise with them - and that is the worst thing for a show like this. This is a real zombie of a show - it is moving and aware, but just doesn't feel alive, and just kind of drones for the hour each episode it plays. And, in spite of what I said earlier, there's way more blood and sweat in real hospitals too. 7/10

Fantastic series - I was always a great fan but the early part of each show, where they set up each of the story lines, used to worry me somewhat! As you can imagine, the show was centered around Holby City Hospital and the scenes were being set so you KNEW that the 'normal' people going about their 'normal' lives in 'normal' situations were about to experience something fairy dreadful to warrant their inclusion in the show and their appearance in the A&E (UK) or the ER (US) with any manner of tubes and machines beeping and blipping their lives away. Consistently superb storylines and great acting (don't you love 'Charlie!) made this compulsive viewing.

I first started watching this show in 2001 when I seen a promo for it and it looked good. The story-line hooked me in for a few episodes and I was hooked from then on.

'Casualty' is set in a British hospital called Holby City and the show follows the doctors and nurse's lives at work and off duty. I usually dislike romantic sub-plots in shows like this (I stopped watching 'The Bill' because of it) but in 'Casualty' I really like it. We get to know the characters as people with lives, not just doctors or nurses. The story-lines are interesting and gripping most of the time. And character story lines usually carry over many episodes.

It's not the most intelligent show ever written but it has a nice charm, and if you fall for it like me you'll be hooked!

I also love the shows symbol, 'Casual+y'. Very good!

But a word of warning for new viewers, sometimes I felt the show was a little boring at the beginning. I feel this is a show that really grows on you over time. It is very character based, so you need some time to get to grips with all of the staff. I stayed in there and love it now.

Casualty is good entertainment and drama for a Saturday evening, the show is always well directed. The script isn't always top notch but the writers do their best and the writing is usually of a very high standard which compliments the good job the directors on Casualty and such shows do. The show is centred around the "Accident and Emergency" department of Holby City general hospital and focuses on both the personal and working lives of the patients and the staff who go there. I would recommend this show to anybody looking for some good drama for their Saturday evenings infront of the tele, if however you prefer full on entertainment on a Saturday without the drama bit then this show may not be for you.