BBC One’s Holby City isn’t quite as good as parent show Casualty but it’s definitely one of the Beeb’s better shows.
That said, it’s starting to over use a couple of tired and predictable plot devices, namely ‘someone new changes things in ways the regulars don’t like’ and ‘tough bitch riles her colleagues’.
In a possible sign of budget cuts, new girl Serena (fantastically played by Catherine Russell) seems to have been created to fill both at once despite the audience already having witnessed Hanssen’s disruption to the hospital’s smooth-running and Jac Naylor (Rosie Marcel) being abrasive enough to piss off the entire NHS, let alone one improbably dramatic hospital.
If the writers aren’t careful they’ll find themselves mimicking their EastEnders colleagues who, through either creative paucity or laziness, are incapable of introducing a new character who isn’t a “trouble-maker” determined on upsetting the already miserable inhabitants of Albert Square.
Holby City has an impressively low mortality rate but these are two plots the writers should definitely not resuscitate…