As you may have noticed, I’m not a big fan of TV drama. I tend to have serious suspension of disbelief problems, and find much TV unwatchable. If I want melodrama I can always take a leaf out of Chris Gracia’s book and watch Mexican wrestling. However, Paul Cornell kindly asked if I would take a look at the pilot for his new medical horror series, Pulse, and I was delighted to do so. Paul is, after all, a good friend, both to me personally and to fandom in general. I’m pleased to be able to report that it is rather good.
The story is set in a teaching hospital called St. Timothy’s in which something mysterious is going on behind the scenes. Our heroine, Hannah Carter (Claire Foy) is a trainee doctor whose mother used to be a consultant at the hospital. Sadly mother died recently, but she seems determined to watch over Hannah’s career anyway. Understandably, Hannah is a little unnerved by this. There is other odd stuff going on too, but Hannah appears to be the only member of staff not determined to say nothing in case making a fuss damages her career.
I’m not a great expert on horror films, but it made me jump on several occasions, and watching people getting cut open, albeit in an operating theatre, is guaranteed gruesome. Paul even manages to drop in a particularly vicious “killing” (and no, I’m not going to tell you what those scare quotes are about). I don’t think many people will be disappointed with the ick factor.
The acting seems pretty good too. Claire Foy in particular seems to be someone to watch. She’s also playing Adora Belle Dearheart in Sky’s forthcoming adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal, and later this year she makes her big screen debut in Season Of The Witch alongside Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman.
Yesterday Paul blogged the news that the pilot episode will screen on BBC3 at 9pm on Thursday, June 3rd. It is fairly obvious from the pilot that Pulse has been planned as a series with a story arc. But, because of the way the BBC works these days, that series won’t get made unless the pilot gets a good reaction. So Paul needs good audience figures. Please do tune in, even if you do so from behind the sofa.
On Horrific Hospitals .. of what I hope is the the Non N.H.S kind .. and I can tell you that it is NO fun walking through a swing door clad in Official N.H.S surgical night-shirt and fully conscious, in accordance to the latest day surgical theory of several years ago, to be confronted by an entire Surgical Team clad in the Surgical finery complete with masks and gloves who ushered me toward a surgical bench thingy, only then for me to realize that the anesthetist was, shall we say, less than competent in sticking the shunt into the back of ones hand so that, in my case, the surgeon seized it from his hand and did a sleight of hand and fairly painless procedure in my other hand which was followed fairly swiftly by un-consciousness … I gather that they were short of competent anesthetists that month. Ah, weel.
Horrific Hospitals ? It is practically a genre in its own right. I can’t think why ..
http://www.google.co.uk/images?rlz=1T4GGLJ_enGB226GB226&q=Stephen+King's+Kingdom+Hospital&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=Z_HyS5WwBZHu0gSv2uyfDQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CDAQsAQwAw
http://www.amazon.com/Stephen-King-Presents-Kingdom-Hospital/dp/B00000F3SB
Was interesting ..
Or there’s this …
I haven’t the least notion whats going on here in “GTA 4 Horror Story: The Devil in Her (from Social Club TV Horror Contest) TRdonkeyshot ” ..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCrS2Uf_4W0
But I’m sure that it isn’t set in a British Hospital oh Dear Me NO !
Neither is this …
http://www.dreadcentral.com/reviews/masters-horror-right-die-tv
Hospitals do keep returning as Horror.
Whatever happened to Dr Kildare or even Dr Finley?
Anyway, before I watch ” Pulse ” which doubtless is a terribly original spin on the old theme .. my own Lump turned out to be Benign despite my having bled in an alarming, and Horrific Fashion .. it seems to me to be only reasonable to expect that you will watch LOTS of Medical Horror – and then do a Piece on the same .. No, not a piece that has been removed with a scalpel but rather piece in the journalistic sense of the term.
Still, ” Pulse ” has got to be better than the American version – ‘re-imagining ‘ they called it – of ” The Prisoner ” and so it’s got to be worth a trial.
Oh, and it seems to me that Adora Belle Dearheart in Pratchett’s ‘ Going Postal ‘ is a touching tribute to Leslie Charteris Simon Templar ‘ The Saint ‘ novels with Adora Belle Dearheart being ‘ Patricia Holm ‘ though of course Moist von Lipwig owes a bit more to The Saints incarnation as Harry Harrisons ‘ The Stainless Steel Rat ‘ .. aka Slippery Jim DiGriz.
I’m really looking forward to seeing how Sir Terry handles the tricky political problem of ‘ Raising Taxes ‘ .. I wonder what the Discworlds version of VAT will be?