Trying to force somebody to move for work and threatening to sack somebody if they don’t move is pretty well illegal. Inverness is not the end of the world! I suppose at least it wasn’t Lerwick (Shetlands). What is it about English people think that anywhere north of Manchester is like going to the end of the planet? As a Scottish person – what the hell is wrong with Scotland? Ironic given the number of cast-members who have had to relocate to Wales to participate isn’t it? And its DEEP FRIED AND BATTERED chocolate bars Mr Masters! Get it right! Truly sublime with properly done with chips and something fizzy from Barrs and Sons of Cumbernauld. Bliss!
Max’s joke about his mother, “she who breathes fire?” – classic. Automatically assuming Connie – God that woman has crapped on her own doorstep hasn’t she? Can’t move for screwing-up anymore can she? The couple-y stuff is cute and sweet and shows the relationship as well as Max’s basic decency off to its best extent and ties-in reasonably successfully to an other-wise anodyne patient story. The whole gossip about the engagement thing is just classic Casualty, it’s a family environment, a different kind of family, a built one, but a family – which ironically for the first that I remember, the Lead isn’t part of really.
The accidents are getting less interesting and more predictable with every passing week – as much as I like Dixie, it’s difficult to see quite what these sequences adds now-a-days – the crappy patient stories can be boring enough without needing to see it set-up so laboriously. And look, the Paramedic bloke who has no lines again!
Sorry, didn’t Louise used to have a fear of blood and Resus and refuse to enter? Perhaps she’s made secret, off-screen efforts to get over that phobia – presumably quite debilitating in an ED, but it would have been nice to see a hint of it, unless they just forgot….And lo, Louise has a storyline at last! Miracle! Either she and the Gonad are exes, or they are close relatives, haven’t decided yet. I don’t know, he’s clearly properly dodgy though, I just feel it – I might be wrong, but he just feels wrong. It is funny that one rather annoying man can have two women fighting over him (Mrs B and Rita) and another one trying to avoid him like the plague! I presume he’s going do something fairly egregious shortly and these are three women I would not like to have ranged against me as enemies….I mean Rita will send people to prison for crimes they didn’t commit, just imagine what Mrs B would do – complementary penis-removal with a side testiclectomy? She’s got skills and something tells she’s gonna pissed enough, after-all she has the most appalling taste in men imaginable!
And Dylan, Dylan, Dylan. His slow-drip deterioration is both fascinating and deeply sad to see such an other-wise competent man unravel so badly – that place really claims its pound of flesh doesn’t it? So much more effectively done than a somewhat similar storyline on Holby City with Digby falling apart. And that’s because it’s a slow-burner that’s allowed to build slowly, no theatrical near collapse week after week a la Connie, unlike most storylines in present Casualty, its allowed to breathe and its much better for it. Rita actually being a semi-positive force trying to get to the bottom things and seeking to figure out how to proceed, FAR better than normal. Signs of the woman she might have been if TPTB weren’t so obsessed by pursuing a mutual hate party with Connie – which makes it even sadder.
Oooh Lily! Make up your mind Ethan! It would work – the whole wondering about what’s best, listening to your heart (and your hormones) or putting your career first, with the added complexity of a rather odd triangle going on to – sadly though Honey is not the ideal partner, even though she at least elicits positive input from Noel who gets to be Dad and boost her confidence which is nice. I just wish they hadn’t decided to go for Chelsee Healey in the first, I just can’t see the chemistry. It’s just me….
I actually really enjoyed that. Two decent patient storylines and a very good game of spot the guest actor: Tommy Knight, formerly of Sarah Jane Adventures, appearing alongside an actress who was in the last Sarah Jane Adventures unless my actor memory's on the blink, the sublime Rupert Halliday-Evans, Jake Deam, one of those actors whose name no-one remembers (including me) but you'll recognise him because he usually plays downtrodden working class blokes...Simple family dramas that don't stretch to breaking point the need for a happy ending, to the point that I'm not even that worried about what the working class dad's going to do next because him telling his odious boss where to go was such a joyous moment. And it was very smart to have the parallel with Max, who's also just got engaged with a big age gap, there without anyone pointing it out, letting the viewer make their own connection. He took a gamble giving the ring to the son instead of the father but it let him redeem himself.
Aside from the eye-rolling "Connie and Rita fighting over him" scene, Jacob wasn't too bad here and was allowed to just do his job rather than trying to get the audience's attention. We saw Louise avoiding Jacob last episode: Here, he seems pleased to see her while she seems friendly but embarrassed. Those who've read spoilers might know but my speculation: Given Jacob seems to be a self-appointed social worker, might he and Louise have come into contact through that? (Louise acts like someone from a middle class background, but then again her brother's a prison officer which isn't really white collar work.) Her question about him being single suggests he may have been involved with someone when she knew him.
Connie and Rita's inability to stick to their own remit continues. Connie should have talked to Jacob's direct superiors about having him trail her for the day rather than just grabbing him, while Rita should be going to her about Dylan. Problem is their working relationship is so poor that Rita might not trust Connie to sort it and Connie definitely doesn't respect Rita enough to take her suspicions seriously. Rita acting as though everything was sorted after a five minute chat was absurd (then again it's how Ash cured her alcoholism...), but I'm guessing she approached Zoe rather than make it official. Problem is...it's all a bit silly. Dylan looking scared every time he sees or hears the number four and saying "two and two" feels more like a running gag in a Carry On film than a serious portrayal of OCD. (It might be accurate but that doesn't stop it looking silly to an outsider.) Rita refers to three deaths in Bay 4, so either the noir episode isn't canon or that patient didn't die. Or she missed one.
Honey's still back. It does feel like someone realised she was a disaster last time and toned her down slightly: She seemed to have functional intelligence although she still acts about half the age she's meant to be. Still a very pointless character, bar one nice scene with Noel which was mostly down to him. It's incredible that Ethan's been put in a love triangle with two women who are both completely wrong for him. (With the slim pickings of the current cast, the only female castmember that even stands a chance of working as his girlfriend is Robyn. Depending on what personality she has that episode.)
I'm probably way off, but I'd guess that the Louise/Jacob connection would be
that she began training as a nurse alongside him, but withdrew (because of her fear of blood?). It would explain his reaction when he saw her: "What's with the...." - receptionist clothes rather than scrubs? And thus leading to her trying to become a nurse again in the trailer.
Sarah Jane Adventures? Damn, I knew I knew the face. D'oh!....
I'm great with recognising that I've seen a face before but can often be a bit crap at zeroing-in on where from - like that time years ago I wasted about 20 minutes watching the remainder of an old Grange Hill episode saying "I know that face, I know that bloody face!" just to see the credits and realised I was looking at a young Connie! Ironically at a school very much like the Peckham one the Boss would have went for 'real'....
My dear skteosk, I think I can probably buy the OCD stuff a little easier given my own Asperger's which is related enough that there are parallels without being the same thing. I've been similar enough, without it being so debilitating or potentially disasterous, to empathise.
And the Louise speculate might make sense Pandora....
I agree about Dylan - this storyline is far superior to Digby's as there has been a good build up. I felt so sorry for him tonight. The upcoming episodes look very interesting in terms of his storyline.
I really liked Iain's scenes tonight. I hated his first stint as I just didn't get the character, but I really like him now.
Loved Max and Zoe We're now on the countdown for the 30th anniversary!
I also agree about Connie. They should either have kept her as being the ice maiden, but a well respected Clinical Lead, or done something which is very different to what they did! I've lost all interest in her
Is it any coincidence that the most interesting character / storyline in Casualty at the moment is non-romance related? Dylan Keogh is possibly the only reason why I'm staying tuned to Casualty - a combination of good writing and good acting from William Beck. Why can't all Casualty characters be as well written for? Instead, we have the vast majority of the cast walking around doing the typical soapy "who loves who?" nonsense. The staff gossipping about Zoe and Max is one thing. The return of Honey - why, why, why? What is the purpose of this character? What does she bring to the show? Similar to the Jacob Masters effect on the women who go weak at the knees at the sight of him (even out-of-character Connie), we are treated to Ethan drooling over her and a love triangle with Lily getting in on the act. In the meantime, we have Tony McHale giving Lily great dialogue such as "You could be one of the top doctors in the country". Do doctors actually talk like this to one another? Really?
You wouldn't think that there's a crisis in A&E departments across the UK or that there's a debate raging about medics' hours at the moment. No, because Holby ED functions on lurve and staff gossip and relationships. It's also an ED where the staff inexplicably have sufficient time to stand around, observing patient conversations and intervening when necessary. I'm not asking for documentary political realism in Casualty - but, blimey, this programme used to pride itself on giving a pretty good reflection of society and the pressures facing the NHS. It's so far removed from that now, it's a joke. I know, I know, I should accept Casualty now for the second-rate farcical soap it has become.
As for the patient storylines - has Lorraine Newman got herself involved with Casualty? We had a snake storyline in the dark old days of Newman's EastEnders. They're scraping the barrel of accidents with that one tonight. The patient storylines generally weren't without interest tonight - but everything feels so "safe" and "beige" at the moment. All it takes is a writer or producer to inject some life and passion into this show, with a desire to tell engaging stories with heart, grit and reality (and, no, I'm not referring to those experimental genre-bending episodes we've been "treated" to in this series). I wish that person / those people were around at the BBC.
I'm probably way off, but I'd guess that the Louise/Jacob connection would be
that she began training as a nurse alongside him, but withdrew (because of her fear of blood?). It would explain his reaction when he saw her: "What's with the...." - receptionist clothes rather than scrubs? And thus leading to her trying to become a nurse again in the trailer.
I think you might be right on this one as in the summer trailers she is wearing scrubs
My dear skteosk, I think I can probably buy the OCD stuff a little easier given my own Asperger's which is related enough that there are parallels without being the same thing. I've been similar enough, without it being so debilitating or potentially disasterous, to empathise.
It's weird: I'm probably borderline Asperger's, possibly have very very mild OCD and definitely used to suffer from panic attacks, but I still find Dylan's behaviour more akin to the character Kenneth Connor plays in Carry On Constable. (Actually, I'm probably more similar to Arthur in Holby: Rituals to me are more a way of being organised than something I have to do to stop something bad happening, so if I've got it straight in my head what's going to happen and then someone throws me a curveball it can put me on edge a bit.) Maybe it's that lack of logic and limited self-awareness that has Dylan acting less like someone with a psychological problem and more like an actor who won't say MacBeth. (Insert Blackadder flashback here.)
OCD can vary significantly. At the moment, Dylan doesn't understand what's happening but knows he has to do it - typical OCD. OCD can be brought on by a number of things and spiral out of control.
That scene with Rita was unfortunately very realistic. People not understanding and just thinking it's like anything other 'little' rituals everyone has.
I think people on here are being a bit unfair on Connie because she is a good person deep down but she cannot forgive Rita for what she did to her. I'm glad there's still tension because it would be ridiculous for Connie to accept what Rita did to her.
I'm really enjoying Dylan's storyline and William Beck is doing a phenomenal job. Finally Zoe knows about her friend so hopefully she will give him the support and help Dylan desperately needs.
Lofty's scene was pointless - give him a storyline!!!
I don't really pay much attention to the patient storylines nowadays because I don't find them interesting anymore. But it was good to see Tommy Knight again.
I think people on here are being a bit unfair on Connie because she is a good person deep down but she cannot forgive Rita for what she did to her. I'm glad there's still tension because it would be ridiculous for Connie to accept what Rita did to her.
I'm really enjoying Dylan's storyline and William Beck is doing a phenomenal job. Finally Zoe knows about her friend so hopefully she will give him the support and help Dylan desperately needs.
Lofty's scene was pointless - give him a storyline!!!
I don't really pay much attention to the patient storylines nowadays because I don't find them interesting anymore. But it was good to see Tommy Knight again.
BIB: I agree. He really does. At least we know he's going to get one
Tommy Knight is great. He was great in Waterloo Road.
I enjoyed it enough. I had a horrible feeling they were going to wrap up the Dylan-storyline with his telling Rita about his rituals - pleased to see they're going to roll with it.
I think Louise's secret is that she was a nurse or even a doctor with Jacob at some point, but something happened. She didn't actually ask if he was single - Charlie filled in the gaps there, she merely called him 'good-looking'.
The snake thing bugged me though. I googled Western hognose - they are venomous but have no effect upon humans beyond some localised swelling (unless you're allergic but they never mentioned that!). Plus, I hate snakes so those scenes made me uncomfortable.
I enjoyed it enough. I had a horrible feeling they were going to wrap up the Dylan-storyline with his telling Rita about his rituals - pleased to see they're going to roll with it.
I think Louise's secret is that she was a nurse or even a doctor with Jacob at some point, but something happened. She didn't actually ask if he was single - Charlie filled in the gaps there, she merely called him 'good-looking'.
The snake thing bugged me though. I googled Western hognose - they are venomous but have no effect upon humans beyond some localised swelling (unless you're allergic but they never mentioned that!). Plus, I hate snakes so those scenes made me uncomfortable.
Lily is being horrendous.
She was being treated for anaphylaxis rather than snakebite
Hello! For various reasons I've been quite behind with both Casualty and Holby City for a while... I'm very slowly catching up, I just watched Jacob's first episode yesterday (so don't give me any spoilers!)
I was going to avoid the forums for a while, but there is something that has occurred to me about Jacob that I want to put to the forum. I'm not sure if we've learned anything about his background yet, but the fact that in his first episode he knew everyone so well leads me to have an idea where he comes from. (This is going to sound a little weird, so bear with me). I reckon that Jacob is a real person, a fan of the show, who has somehow crossed dimensions from the real world to the fictitious world of Holby, and knows all the staff from his many years of watching Casualty!
I just think this because if I somehow ended up living in my television, playing mind games with all the staff is exactly what I would do. I would find it tremendously entertaining.
Comments
Lily is amazing, I love her being a bunny boiler, one of the few decent characters in the show
Good patient storylines too.
Line of the episode for me
Max’s joke about his mother, “she who breathes fire?” – classic. Automatically assuming Connie – God that woman has crapped on her own doorstep hasn’t she? Can’t move for screwing-up anymore can she? The couple-y stuff is cute and sweet and shows the relationship as well as Max’s basic decency off to its best extent and ties-in reasonably successfully to an other-wise anodyne patient story. The whole gossip about the engagement thing is just classic Casualty, it’s a family environment, a different kind of family, a built one, but a family – which ironically for the first that I remember, the Lead isn’t part of really.
The accidents are getting less interesting and more predictable with every passing week – as much as I like Dixie, it’s difficult to see quite what these sequences adds now-a-days – the crappy patient stories can be boring enough without needing to see it set-up so laboriously. And look, the Paramedic bloke who has no lines again!
Sorry, didn’t Louise used to have a fear of blood and Resus and refuse to enter? Perhaps she’s made secret, off-screen efforts to get over that phobia – presumably quite debilitating in an ED, but it would have been nice to see a hint of it, unless they just forgot….And lo, Louise has a storyline at last! Miracle! Either she and the Gonad are exes, or they are close relatives, haven’t decided yet. I don’t know, he’s clearly properly dodgy though, I just feel it – I might be wrong, but he just feels wrong. It is funny that one rather annoying man can have two women fighting over him (Mrs B and Rita) and another one trying to avoid him like the plague! I presume he’s going do something fairly egregious shortly and these are three women I would not like to have ranged against me as enemies….I mean Rita will send people to prison for crimes they didn’t commit, just imagine what Mrs B would do – complementary penis-removal with a side testiclectomy? She’s got skills and something tells she’s gonna pissed enough, after-all she has the most appalling taste in men imaginable!
And Dylan, Dylan, Dylan. His slow-drip deterioration is both fascinating and deeply sad to see such an other-wise competent man unravel so badly – that place really claims its pound of flesh doesn’t it? So much more effectively done than a somewhat similar storyline on Holby City with Digby falling apart. And that’s because it’s a slow-burner that’s allowed to build slowly, no theatrical near collapse week after week a la Connie, unlike most storylines in present Casualty, its allowed to breathe and its much better for it. Rita actually being a semi-positive force trying to get to the bottom things and seeking to figure out how to proceed, FAR better than normal. Signs of the woman she might have been if TPTB weren’t so obsessed by pursuing a mutual hate party with Connie – which makes it even sadder.
Oooh Lily! Make up your mind Ethan! It would work – the whole wondering about what’s best, listening to your heart (and your hormones) or putting your career first, with the added complexity of a rather odd triangle going on to – sadly though Honey is not the ideal partner, even though she at least elicits positive input from Noel who gets to be Dad and boost her confidence which is nice. I just wish they hadn’t decided to go for Chelsee Healey in the first, I just can’t see the chemistry. It’s just me….
Nice enough, but not memorable….
Aside from the eye-rolling "Connie and Rita fighting over him" scene, Jacob wasn't too bad here and was allowed to just do his job rather than trying to get the audience's attention. We saw Louise avoiding Jacob last episode: Here, he seems pleased to see her while she seems friendly but embarrassed. Those who've read spoilers might know but my speculation: Given Jacob seems to be a self-appointed social worker, might he and Louise have come into contact through that? (Louise acts like someone from a middle class background, but then again her brother's a prison officer which isn't really white collar work.) Her question about him being single suggests he may have been involved with someone when she knew him.
Connie and Rita's inability to stick to their own remit continues. Connie should have talked to Jacob's direct superiors about having him trail her for the day rather than just grabbing him, while Rita should be going to her about Dylan. Problem is their working relationship is so poor that Rita might not trust Connie to sort it and Connie definitely doesn't respect Rita enough to take her suspicions seriously. Rita acting as though everything was sorted after a five minute chat was absurd (then again it's how Ash cured her alcoholism...), but I'm guessing she approached Zoe rather than make it official. Problem is...it's all a bit silly. Dylan looking scared every time he sees or hears the number four and saying "two and two" feels more like a running gag in a Carry On film than a serious portrayal of OCD. (It might be accurate but that doesn't stop it looking silly to an outsider.) Rita refers to three deaths in Bay 4, so either the noir episode isn't canon or that patient didn't die. Or she missed one.
Honey's still back. It does feel like someone realised she was a disaster last time and toned her down slightly: She seemed to have functional intelligence although she still acts about half the age she's meant to be. Still a very pointless character, bar one nice scene with Noel which was mostly down to him. It's incredible that Ethan's been put in a love triangle with two women who are both completely wrong for him. (With the slim pickings of the current cast, the only female castmember that even stands a chance of working as his girlfriend is Robyn. Depending on what personality she has that episode.)
I'm great with recognising that I've seen a face before but can often be a bit crap at zeroing-in on where from - like that time years ago I wasted about 20 minutes watching the remainder of an old Grange Hill episode saying "I know that face, I know that bloody face!" just to see the credits and realised I was looking at a young Connie! Ironically at a school very much like the Peckham one the Boss would have went for 'real'....
My dear skteosk, I think I can probably buy the OCD stuff a little easier given my own Asperger's which is related enough that there are parallels without being the same thing. I've been similar enough, without it being so debilitating or potentially disasterous, to empathise.
And the Louise speculate might make sense Pandora....
Dylan's struggle with his OCD is so sad. Well-acted and I really felt for him.
I also felt for Honey and Ethan. That scene at the end.
Lily is hysterical (in a good way) - it's fascinating watching her trying to ensnare Ethan and fend off Honey!:D
Louise and Jacob - interesting. I'm inclined to agree with the scenario a poster above posted in spoilers.
I actually liked Rita tonight. She figured out what was behind Dylan's OCD (the number 4) and was trying to help him. I felt sorry for her at the end.
Aah, I was trying to figure out where I'd seen the young lad before - Sarah Jane Adventures!
I really liked Iain's scenes tonight. I hated his first stint as I just didn't get the character, but I really like him now.
Loved Max and Zoe
I also agree about Connie. They should either have kept her as being the ice maiden, but a well respected Clinical Lead, or done something which is very different to what they did! I've lost all interest in her
You wouldn't think that there's a crisis in A&E departments across the UK or that there's a debate raging about medics' hours at the moment. No, because Holby ED functions on lurve and staff gossip and relationships. It's also an ED where the staff inexplicably have sufficient time to stand around, observing patient conversations and intervening when necessary. I'm not asking for documentary political realism in Casualty - but, blimey, this programme used to pride itself on giving a pretty good reflection of society and the pressures facing the NHS. It's so far removed from that now, it's a joke. I know, I know, I should accept Casualty now for the second-rate farcical soap it has become.
As for the patient storylines - has Lorraine Newman got herself involved with Casualty? We had a snake storyline in the dark old days of Newman's EastEnders. They're scraping the barrel of accidents with that one tonight. The patient storylines generally weren't without interest tonight - but everything feels so "safe" and "beige" at the moment. All it takes is a writer or producer to inject some life and passion into this show, with a desire to tell engaging stories with heart, grit and reality (and, no, I'm not referring to those experimental genre-bending episodes we've been "treated" to in this series). I wish that person / those people were around at the BBC.
I think you might be right on this one as in the summer trailers she is wearing scrubs
That scene with Rita was unfortunately very realistic. People not understanding and just thinking it's like anything other 'little' rituals everyone has.
I'm really enjoying Dylan's storyline and William Beck is doing a phenomenal job. Finally Zoe knows about her friend so hopefully she will give him the support and help Dylan desperately needs.
Lofty's scene was pointless - give him a storyline!!!
I don't really pay much attention to the patient storylines nowadays because I don't find them interesting anymore. But it was good to see Tommy Knight again.
BIB: I agree. He really does. At least we know he's going to get one
Tommy Knight is great. He was great in Waterloo Road.
I think Louise's secret is that she was a nurse or even a doctor with Jacob at some point, but something happened. She didn't actually ask if he was single - Charlie filled in the gaps there, she merely called him 'good-looking'.
The snake thing bugged me though. I googled Western hognose - they are venomous but have no effect upon humans beyond some localised swelling (unless you're allergic but they never mentioned that!). Plus, I hate snakes so those scenes made me uncomfortable.
Lily is being horrendous.
She was being treated for anaphylaxis rather than snakebite
Really? Must have missed that.
Think so
I was going to avoid the forums for a while, but there is something that has occurred to me about Jacob that I want to put to the forum. I'm not sure if we've learned anything about his background yet, but the fact that in his first episode he knew everyone so well leads me to have an idea where he comes from. (This is going to sound a little weird, so bear with me). I reckon that Jacob is a real person, a fan of the show, who has somehow crossed dimensions from the real world to the fictitious world of Holby, and knows all the staff from his many years of watching Casualty!
I just think this because if I somehow ended up living in my television, playing mind games with all the staff is exactly what I would do. I would find it tremendously entertaining.
What does everyone think?
I think I was having a conversation during that part.