Casualty: She’s my baby

(Series 36 ‘She’s My Baby’ by Lydia Marchant 15.1.22) Please pop over to Metro where you can read this week’s review (and also last week’s, as I didn’t get round to posting about that on here).

But before you go…

I might have mentioned before how much I love Rosie Jones. She’s been excellent in Casualty and this was the most heartbreaking performance. I think the real skill is we don’t feel sorry for Paula in a pitying way. In some ways she’s hard to like, and there’s no doubt that the details revealed about her first child were horrible to listen to. But like Dylan we can see a person who’s trying, who deserves a second chance.

And whoever came up with the idea to put William Beck and Rosie Jones together in so many scenes was a genius.

I have to say I do like Paige Allcott. She’s at the bouncy/annoying end of the junior doctor scale, but I like that she’s so open and keen. She’s already good at the emotional hand-holding stuff, so probably Stevie is the best mentor she could have had to get all the medical stuff lined up behind it. She’ll be fine.

Casualty: The one with the exploding gender reveal cannon

(Series 36, ‘Short fuses’ by Rachel Harper 28.8.21) Please see Metro for this week’s episode review. But before you go…

Line of the week: (Dylan telling Matthew and Ethan off for) ‘squabbling about who’s got the longest stethoscope.’ And yes, it’s a euphemism.

Predator of the week: Stevie’s behaviour towards Matthew is verging on harassment. He can hardly wander past without her asking him out for a drink, and when he says no she gets that, ‘He’ll come around to my way of thinking sooner or later’ look on her face. I’m more than all for powerful, assertive women, but how would it look if it was him perving at her in an unwanted manner?

Poor Ffion. And poor Jan. Though mainly poor Ffion because she’s the one with breast cancer and she isn’t the one who was smuggling drugs into prisons.

There is no way that I would have taken a naked flame to that home-made gender reveal cannon. It was obviously an accident waiting to happen – frankly the first ten minutes of Casualty is always an accident waiting to happen because that’s very much the point of the show, but this one even more than most. That was a heck of a bang, though. I was wearing headphones and I literally lost contact with my chair for a second.

Casualty: What kind of relationship is it?

His luck is about to change.

Please pop over to Metro to read my review of this episode. But hang on a minute – I’ve had some random thoughts…

The moment when Faith and Dylan finally got together was a bit low key after all those months of simmering sexual tension. That’s covid restrictions for you.

Will Faith and Dylan be allowed to be happy now? I’m guessing not, as it’s Casualty, but we live in hope. Meanwhile she’s bound to have a struggle with her conscience and then there are the children, Luka and The Others, to worry about. And Lev, with his short temper and fat knuckles.

Jordy and his mum Claire was a nice story, but also provided several subtle clues to let Faith know where she was headed. ‘If the relationship’s built on lies, what kind of relationship is it?’ uttered Jade re Jordy and his mum. ‘If someone wants to leave you can’t make them stay, no matter how many lies you tell them,’ Claire uttered at Faith.

But Line of the Week was probably Robyn’s ‘Wake up and smell the dirty nappies.’ That’s going to be Ethan’s life from now on until potty training. Such fun.

Grace really needs some hobbies so she doesn’t have to hang around the ED waiting for the lunch breaks that never happen. And no, Leon doesn’t count as a ‘hobby.’

(Picture: BBC)

Casualty: Show Noel what a great team we are

(Picture: BBC)

(Series 35, ep. 1 by Kevin Rundle 2.1.21) For my review of this episode please wander away to Metro. But before you go… 

I found this episode even more powerful than the Holby City coronavirus special from a few months back. I think it was because this one went all-in on the gritty realism. Starting with a traumatised Connie looking back was a strong way to lead us into the story and I liked that events weren’t shown in chronological order.

They really set it up well so we wouldn’t be too sure who it was who was going to die. For a while it could have been Dylan or Jacob as well as Noel.

For me the most affecting scenes were Karla saying goodbye to her husband and daughter on Skype (it was so lovely to see them reunited at the end), and Ethan having to call people and tell them they couldn’t be with their dying relatives. Jade quietly sitting with Doris as she died, and Marty offering to go with Karla while she was being ventilated were lovely touches of kindness. Everyone played their part to perfection and the result was a raw, realistic but sensitive look at what’s happening in our hospitals even now.

And poor Noel! I really can’t imagine the reception desk in the ED without him. He was a very sweet, quirky character. I was glad the writers gave him that last little comedy scene where he was filming the video. It was the sort of light moment that Noel has always provided so well and it was much needed.

Casualty: Keeping calm, carrying on

(Series 34, ep. 43 by Simon Norman 26.9.20) For a full review of this episode please head over to Metro. But before you do that…

– My Casualty-starved self really enjoyed this episode. The set-up of the woman collapsing in the field, and then showing how the nasty chemical got spread so easily from hand to hand, was very well done.

– Have I missed something about Dylan? Why was he particularly affected by being in his protective suit?

– Jade’s frustration that the PPE stopped her being able to hear and made lip-reading more difficult was well done.

– Will picking fights with Ethan didn’t exactly cover him in glory, though.

– Connie announcing the Code Orange over the PA system was about the most sinister thing I’ve ever heard. 

– But Connie feeling the need to talk to her daughter after everything was over was a nice touch.

– And her line ‘We will always find new ways to save each other’ is my line of the week because we need that kind of optimism and faith in the current awful times. It’s like that lovely line that in a disaster you should ‘Look for the helpers.’ It’s true and it’s comforting to remember.

(Picture: BBC)

Casualty: Charlie’s not himself

(Series 34, ep. 32 by Jeff Povey & Steven McAteer 25.4.20) Pop to Metro for a full review of the episode. But first…

– That was a mad number of pregnancy tests for Fenisha to take.

– And Will was a bit of a twonk, the way he reacted to her news.

– It’s much more interesting that the father is probably Ethan.

– Though if anyone was going to ‘be careful,’ you’d expect it to be Ethan.

– I do realise that accidents happen no matter how ‘careful’ you are, though.

– Poor Charlie. Derek Thompson played these scenes beautifully. 

– The patient storyline with the idiot stealing the car and the idiot dad locking the injured boy in the garage – meh. The whole lot of them needed their heads banging together.

– Line of the week (Charlie) ‘You’re calling me Charlie but I’m not him am I? Not any more.’ In fact yes you are and you always will be.

– Line of the week 2 (Connie) ‘Your efforts to provoke me are transparent and doomed.’

Casualty: You look so much older

(Series 34, ep. 20 by Rachel Paterson 18.1.20) Have a look at my proper review over at Metro, please. But before you rush off…

– Oh, Charlie. Where do I even start with what an amazing man he is to put his own hurt aside to contact Bill for Duffy’s sake? This storyline is completely heartbreaking.

– And with Faith and Lev discovering their little boy is seriously ill, there weren’t a lot of laughs in this episode, despite the presence of both Dylan and David.

– Nice to see a little Holby/Casualty overlap with Rosa getting a new porter’s uniform the same week as Jason on Holby got his.

– Robyn and Ruby living together? It might work, I suppose. Marty and Jade will be quite relieved to not be woken up by baby Harmony all night long too.

– I’ve just realised that Clive Wood, who plays Bill, was Gordon Wray in The Bill. So when Duffy disappointedly told him he looked much older, she’s probably thinking of Bill-era Bill.

Casualty: The one with the extreme hoarders

(Series 34 ep. 11 by Gerard Sampaio 2.11.19) Off you pop to Metro to read my proper review. But first…

– Ethan and Effie are beautiful and tragic, aren’t they? Like something from a Young Adult novel.

– I guessed toxoplasmosis would be involved as soon as we saw Raymond lying adjacent to the cat litter tray. It’s a medical drama classic (and don’t forget to wash your hands when dealing with that sort of thing, obvs).

– I was desperate to know what was in the letter Jade had from her mum. I was hoping Marty would get in the car and helpfully read it out loud for us, but he didn’t.

Casualty: Seashells

(Series 33, ep. 41 by Rachel Paterson 29.6.19) For my full review of this episode please pop over to Metro. But first…

– Well this was a sad one, wasn’t it? Ellen Thomas was so touching as Omo, I felt genuinely sad to be losing her. I was glad that she and Jacob had made peace with each other by the time she died.

– I’m quite excited to find out how Ciaran and Archie are going to pursue Connie. I’m definitely on Team Archie in this dispute, because Connie was clearly in the wrong when she blamed Archie for her own mistake. But Connie is clearly not her normal self and for her own good she needs to be stopped before her behaviour gets even more self-destructive.

– Also every week I’m loving Archie more and more.

– David is also an absolutely precious character. Arriving at Omo’s house to give Jacob some support and a break (and Robyn’s lasagne) – what a lovely man.

Casualty: His auras are in fine shape. All none of them

(Series 33, ep. 38 by Chris Murray 8.6.19) For my thorough review of this episode, have a look at Metro. But first…

– Is Dani dangerous or just sad and lost? I still can’t quite decide. She obviously is sad and lost, and Ruby was lovely to recognise that she was trying to fill the void in her life now she wasn’t caring for her mum. But there’s sometimes a glint in Dani’s eye that makes me think the obsessive tendency is something she’s always had.

– I love Jade and I’m glad that Dylan is taking her seriously. I also love Dylan, and his responses to Magdalena Spellbinder’s ‘alternative’ ideas were very amusing.

– I also love Archie, especially her voice. If she was my doctor I would find her voice very reassuring and soothing.

– Do you think there is a romance brewing between Archie and Will? I can’t quite see it myself.