A major benefit of having low expectations is that one is rarely disappointed. Hence when the Daily Sceptic asked me to review Breathtaking on ITV I was initially pleasantly surprised.
As an example of the medical dramatisation genre, Breathtaking is well crafted; as one might expect when the writing team includes the former doctor Jed Mercurio, probably familiar to readers as the producer of Line of Duty. To doctors of my generation, Mercurio will be remembered for Cardiac Arrest, the brutally accurate portrayal of working life on the wards in the mid 1990s featuring smoking hot Helen Baxendale as the ruthlessly effective junior physician Dr. Claire Maitland.
Sadly, Breathtaking lacks such an alluring female lead. Nevertheless, the acting is high quality, plausibly depicting how hospital staff interact with each other and their patients, even down to the totally clueless junior doctor.
The first episode also succeeds to large degree in portraying the uncertainty of early March 2020 about the nature of the Covid virus. Hindsight can distort memory. At the time it was not clear that for the vast majority of the population, COVID-19 would prove to be little worse than a bad outbreak of seasonal influenza. There was genuine and well-founded anxiety within the medical community that we were facing a very serious public health emergency, and it was rapidly obvious to front line clinicians that preparations for such an eventuality were non-existent. Insofar as it is possible to convey a sense of unease and impending catastrophe, the first episode does a reasonably good job.
Unfortunately, that’s about it for the positives. Breathtaking soon reveals itself as a thinly disguised political polemic, featuring the customary tropes of our sacralised NHS. In the opening scene, the selflessly heroic Dr. Abby Froggatt finds her facemask doesn’t pass the test designed to prove exclusion of aerosolised particles. From this observation, she deduces that PPE is only for men. From there, the writers indulge themselves with the full smorgasbord of sanctimonious virtue signalling victimhood. In the middle of the second episode, an overly emotional middle grade doctor accuses the hospital director of being unconcerned with the plight of frontline clinical staff. In a particularly confrontational moment, he utters the memorable line: “Do you know who’s dying down there? It’s certainly not the white people up here.” From that low point, I’m afraid the series continues rapidly downhill.
That really sums up Breathtaking. It’s a slickly produced piece of propaganda, pushing a retrospective defence of the lockdown protagonists and their attendant ideological baggage. Again, this is hardly surprising when the writing team includes former journalist and palliative care physician Rachel Clarke. Readers will recall Dr. Clarke’s vigorous pro-lockdown activism during the Covid period. The series illustrates many of the reasons why such catastrophically bad decisions were made. When emotion and fear take precedence over reason and logic, big mistakes follow, particularly when hysteria is amplified by the mainstream media.
I could spend considerable time detailing the dramatic devices juxtaposing heroic clinical staff with incompetent evil conservative politicians – to be frank, just listing the recognisable stereotypes would take several hundred words. There’s no point reciting this litany because readers of the Daily Sceptic can easily figure it out for themselves. As episodes roll by, the script ramps up the intensity of the narrative arc, spraying blame for Covid deaths on politicians, administrators and online disinformation with an increasingly crude editorial line that abandons any attempt at concealing pro-lockdown bias. My only surprise is that the phrase ‘like a war zone’ didn’t crop up until the end of episode three.
The timing is slightly curious, dovetailing as it does with the ongoing Covid enquiry and an impending election. A cynic might suspect ITV executives were trying to convince the public that the Government erred in not locking down sooner and harder. Perish the thought…
Breathtaking is a formulaic, predictable and ultimately tedious piece of low-grade 21st century TV. I have little doubt it will attract excellent viewing figures. When a programme is so blatantly manipulative, it ceases to be entertainment and becomes mildly irritating. I rarely watch television. Breathtaking has reminded me why.
The author, the Daily Sceptic’s in-house doctor, is a former NHS consultant.
Stop Press: The Mail reports that in tonight’s episode a doctor declares that the country should have been quicker and harsher on the second lockdown in autumn 2020. Dr. Abbey Henderson, played by Downton Abbey‘s Joanne Froggatt, declares on a radio phone-in: “I believe there have been deaths from Covid in care homes, in hospitals, in the back of ambulances, that resulted from locking down too late and incompletely.”
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
If you feel threatened by a group of ladies carrying out a vigil on behalf of a lady raped and murdered by a policeman then maybe you’ve made the wrong career choice? But what other job in the UK offers a psychopath the opportunity to indulge their blood lust against innocent, defenceless civilians? Maybe these poor threatened coppers could go and volunteer to join Putin’s army?
“Maybe these poor threatened coppers could go and volunteer to join Putin’s army?”
If this is sarcasm it misses the point. If you are serious you have a faulty understanding of the Ukrainian situation.
So Putin’s army are not brutalising innocent civilians?
Innocent civilians are brutalised in all conflicts. The argument made by Russia is that they’re aiming to stop the brutalisation of innocent civilians in the east of the Ukraine, by demilitarising and denazifying the country. Worth remembering that this is after eight years of attempts to resolve diplomatically, during which thousands died in indiscriminate shelling; very well documented and not really in dispute.
While there is always the chance that elements in any military ‘go rogue’ and commit atrocities, it is not in the Russian state’s interest to cause unnecessary suffering in a country that sits on their border. So I believe them when they say they are trying to avoid killing civilians. They are not trying to conquer the country, despite what western talking heads say. They don’t want it – they just want it to not be a threat to them, which it categorically was and increasingly so.
I doubt any of these coppers would last an afternoon in Putin’s army. What you and many others seem not to realise is that Russians feel existentially threatened by the West and for good reason. They have been looted, undermined, humiliated, ignored, interfered with, attacked via proxies, blamed for things they had nothing to do with, vilified, lied about, deceived, and disrespected for the entire post-Soviet period. They have had enough; it’s a catastrophe that Ukraine is now feeling the brunt of this, but ultimate responsibility lies with the criminal gangsters in Washington, who have only ever seen Russia as a target for exploitation. Those days are over.
I haven’t read the article in full so these comments are based on the above synopsis.
Given the utter stupidity of the comments quoted by various members of the police gang members I seriously wonder if their mental faculties had been properly evaluated prior to employment.
A large crowd of predominantly women gather at a vigil to remember another woman who was kidnapped, raped and murdered by a police gang member and some women direct verbal anger at the attending police. Perfectly understandable.
Clearly the most senior copper in attendance did not have sufficient intelligence to tell his gang to back off which would have been the most sensible course of action. Oh no, the vigil had become an anti police protest. What the firkin hell did the police expect?
A gang of police surround a crowd of peaceful women mourning the death of another woman and then voices are raised! Plod didn’t see that coming? Good grief.
A crowd of women are surrounded by a gang of police who decide their vigil has become an anti police protest and who decide to wade in and make arrests.
Of course there are bad apples but Sarah Everhard was FAILED by the police who recruited the murderous Couzens. His psychopathic nature had not been detected during recruitment so the anger of the protesting women is understandable.
The women were breaking C1984 rules.
FFS.
Some senior coppers should have lost their jobs over this.
What a bunch of mendacious, petulant pansies.
Very well said HP. Especially the last sentence
Thank you CG.
Interestingly, as a teenager (nearly 50 years ago), I remember commenting to my dad that the two worst male bullies in our year had joined the police force.
My dad (born in 1918) said “it was ever thus!”
The Covid Tyranny continues
Deputy Director, Delivery Lead Covid Pass
https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi?jcode=1791653
Department of Health and Social Care – Apply before 11:55 pm on Wednesday 15th June 2022
(… and they say Covid is over now …)
Stand for freedom & make friends with our Yellow Boards By The Road
Friday 10th June 4pm to 5pm
Yellow Boards
Junction A3095 Warfield Road &
Harvest Ride, Warfield
Bracknell RG42 2QH
Stand in the Park Sundays from 10am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham
Howard Palmer Gardens
Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Bracknell
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA
Henley
Mills Meadows (bandstand) RG9 1DS
Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell