Holby City: Just make sure she doesn’t kill anyone

(Series 14, Ep.31)  Regular readers of this blog will know I usually lift the title of the post from a bit of the dialogue in the show that strikes me as particularly apt. Near the beginning of last night’s episode, I jotted down, “Just make sure she doesn’t kill anyone,” which Michael Spence said regarding the new junior doctor, Ella Barnes. Michael was talking to Sacha, who had faith in Ella even if no-one else did. He’s like that, Sacha – he sees the best in everyone, he wants to do right by people, he’s kind and he’s just all-round lovely.

So what kind of a shock was it when the person Ella possibly ended up killing was Sacha himself? Not directly, but via a chain of events that ended with Sacha being accidentally stabbed by a scalpel wielded by an angry boy. Ella rewarded Sacha for all his kindness by freaking out and leaving him to bleed on the floor in AAU, where thankfully he was soon found by Chrissie. I did find it hard to believe that, in a hospital where at least three consultants are only a paper aeroplane’s throw away from any given incident, Chrissie was practically all alone and had no better idea than to ring Michael (who was in theatre) for advice. What about the A&E department downstairs, stuffed full of experts in stabbings etc? But let’s fling that aside – I’m just too worried about Sacha to nitpick right now. Particularly as the last words of the episode were these ominous utterings from Michael Spence: “I’ve done my best, but I gotta be honest – the next few hours are critical.”  

Holby City: An operating theatre full of my admirers

(Series 14, Ep.19) Finally, finally we got a glimpse of Sahira Shah the Registrah’s invisible husband Rafi. What have we learned? (a) He’s not invisible. (b) His surname is not Shah, it’s Raza (or “Razzer,” in Irish Dr Greg-speak) and (c) he mumbles. That’s about all we’ve learned, really. “Have you met Rafi?” Sahira said to Jac, by way of introducing them. “I’ve heard almost nothing about you!” said Jac. Having met Rafi myself now (televisually speaking), I can see why he wouldn’t be a major talking point.

Irish Dr Greg was not pleased with the appearance of Dr Razzer, but at least it stopped him wandering the corridors uttering his desperate cry of “Sahira! Sahira!” Instead he was reduced to Gazing Mournfully and rescheduling people’s operations to try and avoid his beloved Registrah. Of course it all went tits-up in theatre, when an under-age patient turned out to have an allergy he hadn’t thought of mentioning to the aforementioned Dr Razzer when he did his pre-op checks. Speaking of which, isn’t it funny how, when we have a main character who’s an anaesthetist (Zubin, Annaliese) they’re always hovering around the wards and ITU. But the rest of the time, anaesthetists are confined to sitting at the head end during operations and not saying much.

Sahira had to pitch in and help save the patient, and Hanssen paid a visit to loom at everyone through the glass, so we had an operating theatre full of Sahira’s admirers. I’m not including the scrub nurse in this, but she can’t be immune to the charms of the Registrah, surely? 

Holby City: Brains duly spoken by a gangrenous foot

(Series 14, Ep.17) Ooh, but I loved this episode. There was so much going on. So many amusing sets of sparring people, so many funny lines, I hardly even noticed Jac Naylor wasn’t there.

To Dull Dan first of all (he’s a bit less dull these days, but it’s so hard to let a good nickname go). Last week we had his sexual orientation being illustrated via the metaphor of a reluctant stallion. Apparently that was not enough to make Dan properly think about whether he’s a gay man trapped in a dull man’s body, so this week’s speak-your-brains came courtesy of a woman with a gangrenous foot. If she didn’t deal with it, Dan told her, it would have to come off. “What you don’t deal with will eat you away,” somebody said (it might even have been Dan himself). In case that was too subtle, Malick weighed in with, “Ignore it till it goes toxic.” Dan’s Thinking Face was in position for a great deal of the episode, apart from when it was replaced by his Confuzzled Face. This was generally thanks to Mary-Claire (hurrah! Given a bit of screen time at last), who spent the episode winding him up. As did Malick. “Orthapaedics. Real man’s work!”

Goth Dr Frieda is rather like Sacha, in the sense that she lights up any scene she’s in. Not bad for a surly Ukrainian emo. She also brings out the best in the other people in the scene, mainly because her bullshit detector is so finely tuned and so ruthless that people can’t get away with any pompous nonsense. When Frieda’s around, Eddi’s rather fun and forgets she’s supposed to be The Best Nurse in the Hospital and all the pressures that involves. One of the very best partnerships is Frieda and Michael Spence. They play off each other beautifully, Michael seeming to get Frieda’s humour and appreciate her no-crap integrity. So it was a bit upsetting to discover that this was Frieda’s last day on AAU. New consultant Alex Broadhurst (Sasha Behar) thought Frieda should try to get a place on Darwin. While there are a few up there (yes, you, Sahira)who could do with Frieda’s brand of telling-it-like-it-is, I really want her to stay on AAU. So does Michael. “I’m gonna miss you, Petrenko,” he told her, adding, “I can’t believe I just said that.”

Michael had other worries, as Hanssen, with his usual penchant for treating people rather like chess pieces, decided the clinical lead position should be open to competition. The competition includes the aforementioned Alex Broadhurst, who is seriously competent and doesn’t have a murky background of exploding boobs to blot her copybook.

In the absence of Sahira, Greg channelled his energies into being horrible to Dr Oliver Valentine. He kept getting little digs in about Oli being under Jac Naylor’s thumb (hello? Oli is not the one who spends most of his time wandering the corridors bleating, “Sahira! Sahira!”), but Oli had the last laugh when his and Jac’s research project on therapeutic hypothermia came in handy and saved his patient’s life. Oliver was really sweet with this patient. Her baby had been stillborn and she carried the ashes everywhere in a little urn. While Irish Dr Greg could only manage a very wooden, “I’m sorry for your loss,” when she told him, Oli took the time to listen and help her. He’s very good at all that touchy-feely stuff.

Next time: It’s Valentine’s day, so what luck that there’s a character called Valentine, and what luck Chantelle hearts him. Or is it? Does he heart her back? And Sacha has money worries.

Posted by PLA (more Holby City here)

Holby City: Shake yourself by the hand

(Series 14, Ep.16) The power of love, eh? A force so immense and marvellous that at least five people have had a hit single about it. It’s a force that’s reduced Irish Dr Greg from being a rogueish charmer with a twinkle in his eye to being a moping, dopey fool constantly sighing about his unattainable love. If the unattainable love was Jac Naylor, I’d understand it, but it’s only Sahira Shah the Registrah, a woman who has done little to impress us apart from show off her brilliant parachute stitching, cry a lot and bring cupcakes in for the staff.

Greg’s devastating sex appeal hasn’t been enough to convince the Registrah that he is the man for her. His witty banter and ever-available shoulder to cry on haven’t done it either. What’s a lovesick boy to do? Run off to Hanssen and try to get him to convince her not to leave, that’s what. As if that’s going to make him look any less spineless than he does already.

It’s not a bad plan, as plans go, because Hanssen not only harbours fond feelings for the world’s most emotional CT surgeon himself, but he also has Influence. Such is the reach of his mighty power that Sahira’s invisible husband, Rafi, has now been offered a job at Holby. Well, they haven’t had a proper anaesthetist since Annaliese and Weird Dr Green left.  Though his invisibility may present a bit of a challenge in theatre.  Now Rafi has no reason to go to Nottingham and Sahira can stay under the wretched gaze of Hanssen and Irish Dr Greg for a bit longer. That’s the plan, anyway.

Meanwhile, everybody’s favourite Ukrainian emo, Goth Dr Frieda, had her F1 results. Things didn’t look good, as she was summoned to Hanssen’s office. Had she failed? She thought so, but no – she’d passed with the highest score in the region. Top F1 in the whole of Holbyshire! Or Wyvern District or whatever it is. Hurrah! After hearing this good news, Frieda felt it was only polite to give Hanssen a little compliment in return. “Nice job… running the hospital,” she told him. “Shake yourself by the hand.”

Chrissie and Sacha were back from their holiday in Australia, and looking all tanned and lovey-dovey.  Sacha’s attempt to be nice to Dull Dan backfired a little when Dan assumed Chrissie had told Sacha about Dan’s complicated sexuality. It all ended amicably when Dan supported Sacha when a patient accused him of causing her to get an infection during surgery. This patient was a horse breeder, and in possibly the most blatant example of speaking-your-brains I’ve ever heard on Holby, she told Dan about a stallion she had who was somewhat reluctant to do his stallionly duty. “You can’t fight nature, can you?” she said. This caused Dan to assume his Thinking Face.

Next time: New consultant Alex Broadhurst (Mad Maya from Corrie) keeps Michael Spence on his toes. Dr Oliver Valentine shows us what he can do.  And Dull Dan is still struggling with “who he really is” and gets another patient to speak his brains about it.

Posted by PLA (more Holby City here)

Holby City: The champagne’s chilling in the mini fridge

(Series 14, Ep.13)   It was The Big Day at Holby. The day when they finally found out whether they’d achieve Foundation Trust status. It was a big deal, because without it they wouldn’t get funding for research and equipment and Holby would die a slow death. Hanssen was confident, though. He even had a bottle of champagne in the mini fridge in his office, as we could see from the fridge cam cunningly placed inside it.

The day didn’t start too well when the person who turned up to do the assessment was the horrible one whom I previously described as being “so stern he made Henrik Hanssen look like Graham Norton.”  The day didn’t start too well for Irish Dr Greg, either, as he had a hangover and was put in charge of Darwin for the day. It got even worse when Sahira Shah the Registrah went off to pick up her adorable little son Indy from nursery and then news came in of a nasty car crash and a child with a coat labelled Indy was brought into the hospital. Greg went from being frantic that there was no Registrah present when the CTU Traumafone rang, to being frantic that the woman of his dreams may just have ended up tangled in some wreckage on one of Holby’s highways. Greg was worrying about Sahira, Hanssen was worrying about Sahira and Jac was annoyed that everyone was busy worrying rather than knuckling down and suturing arteries. 

Holby City: Warms the cockles of your heart

(Series 14, Ep.11)   The ends completely justified the means in this episode, which was sometimes a bit wordy and had more plot holes than a jumper knitted by a drunk person in boxing gloves. But who the heck cares about all that when we had a triple fairytale ending – Sacha finally getting the woman of his dreams (it was Chrissie), and Frieda and Michael Spence heading back to Holby, where they rightly belong.

Chrissie seemed determined to scupper the happily-ever-after, though. After a deft bit of jazzy piano playing in the bar from Sacha (who knew?), Chrissie’s eyes went all twinkly  and she realised she was in love with the cuddly father of her child. Sacha wasn’t convinced and asked her to name one thing she loved about him. And she couldn’t! Idiot, idiot woman. I could have named at least ten without thinking. So Chrissie headed off to the airport with Daniel, en route to Sydney. She was in luck as well – you can’t usually get a flight to Sydney from Stansted, but they’d apparently laid one on specially for her. We just knew Sacha would end up hurtling to the airport to catch up with her, the chase to the airport being very much a staple of the Heartwarming Romance, but we never guessed he’d do it on the back of Jac’s motorbike.

Holby City: Gimme a break

(Series 14, Ep.3) First of all, it’s good news for the metaphorical and actual bird who was last week living in Henrik Hanssen’s desk drawer. It has now graduated to a cage of its own, and is cheeping happily, until Hanssen throws a towel over it to keep it quiet. This is much how he treats his staff. Obviously the diet of bread and Swedish blood have done it the world of good, but I’m still a little nervous that it may fly into the window as soon as it feels ready to fly. Either that or we’ll have a poignant moment when we see it soaring across the rooftops of Borehamwood, accompanied by Eva Cassidy singing something heart-tugging.

Anyway, let’s not worry about that just yet. There’s Michael Spence to worry about first. Returning to Holby for a disciplinary hearing, he found his erstwhile colleagues were giving him the cold shoulder. At Holby, it’s not the done thing to look too ambitious. People don’t like it when Jac does it, and they don’t like it when Michael Spence does it either. His willingness to shaft his colleagues to get his plastics empire up and running has, understandably, miffed the likes of Ric Griffin and Elliott Hope, who are doctors by vocation rather than being in it for the glory or the cash. Of course, it’s perfectly possible to be motivated both by helping people and by being the best in your chosen field, and again this is where Jac and Michael are very similar, and what not everyone gets about them. But more of Jac later.

Holby City: Dig us out of this hole

(Series 14, Ep.1) A new series, and not much has changed (it’s only been a week, after all), apart from a few people have had haircuts. Among them is Eddi. Frieda, who so often says what the rest of us have been thinking, asks her if she got tired of the helmet head look. I do love Frieda. I do love Eddi, too, now that Tedious Josh has wheeled off into the sunset. This week Eddi was required to hold her ruler of professionalism against Chrissie to see if she measured up. Chrissie is striving to be a Nurse Practitioner, whatever one of those is (I think it involves wearing a suit, like Mark “Jesus” Williams used to do), and this means she has to pass a module in emergency medicine. Since everyone pretends A&E doesn’t exist most of the time, this means AAU and Eddi.

But this was a sub-plot. The meat of the story (vegetarian options are available) concerned Henrik Hanssen’s continuing attempts to salvage what’s left of the hospital’s reputation following the Bogus Boobs Debacle. Sir Fraser (I know I should hate him, but I rather like his icy cold eyes) installed a small team of experts to scrutinise all the hospital’s doings. Luckily one of them was an ex nurse, and when he pitched in to help Hanssen in one of those inevitable “Can we have some help here!” moments in a basement corridor, he witnessed the skill and passion of Holby’s finest Swedish medic. He couldn’t help but be impressed.  

Holby City: Standing in awe of Sahira’s balls

(Series 13, Ep.45) The vultures landed in Holby this week, in the form of a team from The Mythical St James’s. They wanted to see what they might be getting, in terms of surgical skills, when Holby’s CT department is shifted over to their Mythical Premises. I actually visualise it like Darkplace Hospital (of Garth Marenghi fame), with lightning flashes overhead and a standard-sized hellmouth beneath.

Not the sort of place Elliot Hope would be happy, and this was confirmed when he heard that they were offering him only one day of operating time a week. “The sheer joy of surgery – that’s what I’ll miss most,” Elliot reflected sadly, as it became clear that the master plan was actually to oust him altogether. It made me wonder why he didn’t cast his CV a little wider in search of a position where his talents would be more appreciated – after all, when his domestic arrangements were last discussed, he was living in his car with his dog, so it’s not like he’s not mobile. 

Holby City: “Unhelpable” – is that even a word?

It’s amazing how the presence of Goth Dr Frieda lightens proceedings, which may or may not be ironic depending on how you feel about Goths. Her bullshit detector set as usual to 11, it wasn’t long before she was busily winding up Lulu, and she found a willing ally in Eddi, a woman who similarly had a low tolerance for spoiled brats. Winding up Lulu proved to be all too easy.

Having a more difficult time was Funny Little Nurse Tait, who was busy trying to pretend that her mother didn’t have a psychiatric problem. This meant that we had to endure a great deal of FLNT looking mildly put-upon and getting a bit snappy with Chantelle (which is like stamping on a fairy, really). It’s got to the stage now where, as soon as FLNT’s troubled visage appears on the screen, I start staring out of the window or try to engage the cat in a blinking contest, anything to lift the monotony.

Irish Dr Greg was still being bothered by his old mate Andy. Greg didn’t want to face up to whatever it was that was The Dark Secret, but eventually it turned out that the old football coach had been sexually abusing those in his charge, which had led Andy to a lifetime of turmoil and a prison sentence for downloading child porn. Greg may or may not have been a victim of the football coach himself – it was a bit vague but I think he had been, though had clearly dealt with it better than Andy. Unusually for Holby, when Andy wanted to end it all he headed for the hospital roof. It’s usually the basement (it’s Casualty where people end up on the roof).

Wherever Greg is, Sahira is not far behind, looking annoyingly caring. Wherever Sahira is, Hanssen is not far behind, being sarcastic about anyone male and attractive whom Sahira might be looking annoyingly caring about. Greg found this so irritating that he actually dared to shout at The Swedish Scalpel. Yikes.

Posted by PLA (still via iPhone from Lake Fernando’s)