• Login
  • Register
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

Breathtakingly Awful: The ITV Drama Department Outdoes the BBC with New NHS-Worshipping, Pro-Lockdown, Anti-Tory Propaganda Series

by In-house doctor
21 February 2024 1:00 PM

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.”

Tags: BreathtakingDr Rachel ClarkeITVLockdownNHSPPE

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

Rachel Levine is Wrong About Black People Being Particularly Vulnerable to Global Warming. In Fact, They’ve Disproportionally Benefitted

Next Post

“London is Not London Any More, I Literally Feel Unsafe”: Jewish Father Reveals “Horrendous” Pain at Discovering Home Office Staff “Defaced” his Baby’s Birth Certificate

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

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.

55 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

DONATE

PODCAST

The Sceptic | Episode 38: Chris Bayliss on the Commonwealth Voting Scandal, Sarah Phillimore on the Bar’s Scrapped EDI Plans and Eugyppius on ‘White Genocide’

by Richard Eldred
30 May 2025
2

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

Comedian’s Show Cancelled Over Liverpool Parade Crash Joke

30 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

BBC ‘Damages Countryside’ to Film Chris Packham’s Springwatch

30 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

There Will Be No Climate Catastrophe: MIT Professor Dr Richard Lindzen

29 May 2025
by Hannes Sarv

Miliband Attacks Blair Over Net Zero Criticism and Admits He Could Lose Seat to Reform

30 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

Useless Covid Data Analysis Riddled With Basic Flaws

30 May 2025
by Rebekah Barnett

Comedian’s Show Cancelled Over Liverpool Parade Crash Joke

40

Miliband Attacks Blair Over Net Zero Criticism and Admits He Could Lose Seat to Reform

25

News Round-Up

33

BBC ‘Damages Countryside’ to Film Chris Packham’s Springwatch

17

Electric Cars Halve in Value After Just Two Years

15

John Rentoul’s Fake Cost of Net Zero

31 May 2025
by Paul Homewood

Are Schools Actually Institutionalised Childcare?

30 May 2025
by Joanna Gray

Trump is Handing Africa to the Chinese for the Sake of Social Media Clout

29 May 2025
by Noah Carl

Hooked on Freedom: Why Medical Autonomy Matters

29 May 2025
by Dr David Bell

So Renters WILL Pay the Costs of Net Zero

29 May 2025
by Ben Pile

POSTS BY DATE

February 2024
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
26272829  
« Jan   Mar »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

POSTS BY DATE

February 2024
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
26272829  
« Jan   Mar »

DONATE

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

Comedian’s Show Cancelled Over Liverpool Parade Crash Joke

30 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

BBC ‘Damages Countryside’ to Film Chris Packham’s Springwatch

30 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

There Will Be No Climate Catastrophe: MIT Professor Dr Richard Lindzen

29 May 2025
by Hannes Sarv

Miliband Attacks Blair Over Net Zero Criticism and Admits He Could Lose Seat to Reform

30 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

Useless Covid Data Analysis Riddled With Basic Flaws

30 May 2025
by Rebekah Barnett

Comedian’s Show Cancelled Over Liverpool Parade Crash Joke

40

Miliband Attacks Blair Over Net Zero Criticism and Admits He Could Lose Seat to Reform

25

News Round-Up

33

BBC ‘Damages Countryside’ to Film Chris Packham’s Springwatch

17

Electric Cars Halve in Value After Just Two Years

15

John Rentoul’s Fake Cost of Net Zero

31 May 2025
by Paul Homewood

Are Schools Actually Institutionalised Childcare?

30 May 2025
by Joanna Gray

Trump is Handing Africa to the Chinese for the Sake of Social Media Clout

29 May 2025
by Noah Carl

Hooked on Freedom: Why Medical Autonomy Matters

29 May 2025
by Dr David Bell

So Renters WILL Pay the Costs of Net Zero

29 May 2025
by Ben Pile

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

  • X

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In

© Skeptics Ltd.

wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment
Perfecty
Do you wish to receive notifications of new articles?
Notifications preferences