Masterpiece Theater has reached a new low - prime time soap opera

emuir-1

As if 'Call the Midwife' wasn't bad enough, 'Breathless' is a prime time soap opera about the dysfunctional sex lives of doctors and nurses set just before the Profumo scandal turned post war Britain upside down. The story is slow and dull. The costumes are way overdone and too lurid, as are the ghastly hair dyes and crimson lipstick. Melodrama follows melodrama as a sleazy trio of surgeon, anesthetist and nurse go out at night to perform illegal abortions, that is when they are not cheating on their spouses/fiances. There is an obsessed Chief Inspector blackmailing a surgeon's wife over something that happened in Cyprus nine years ago, we are not told what. She should have told her husband the first time he approached her and reported him to his superiors. A respected surgeon would have had enough clout to be heard.

I really don't think the show captures the times very well. I was in my 20's then so I can remember it well. Having struggled through the first and part of the second episode, I will not be bothering with the rest. Time for PBS to get back to what it is best at.

score 1/10

emuir-1 1 September 2014

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3079035/