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 started watching the show in 2001 and i was hooked from the first episode i saw, I love the show and make sure i never miss an episode (even though i am on the casual+y website every Sunday morning looking at the preview clip). The show never fails to impress me, the story lines are great, very creative and make you want to watch more!!

It is a sort of drama but i think it is a bit different to all the others they all have that sort of seriousness about them and i find this boring so i don't watch them. But Casual+y is different, you don't just see the Staff at work, you get to see them out of their working life and into their home life, this helps you understand their personalities and why they act like they do. Understanding the background of a character makes it more interesting and helps you understand them a bit more making you feel closer to them, i think you need this to make a successful show and the crew on Casual+y have mastered this unique quality!!!!!!!!

Keep up the good work!!!

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

When this show first began I was still a schoolboy and I loved it because my dream was to be a nurse in a casualty unit. Since that time I have realised that dream, and also realised what utter tripe this show has become. True to BBC drama form these days it seems that everything must be miserable or depressing to be considered good drama. Over the years I have seen the show deteriorate into the realms of nothing more than a political hobby horse. Bearing little resemblance to reality in any way all this show does for me is ensure I turn over stat!

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.