This was a zero series, wasting good actors and great background props.

Camargue

Oh,dear! This is a hospital drama, a pot-boiler and a page-turner, with doctors, and nurses, and the promise of a deep secret worth keeping. HOWEVER, after much wordy dialogue, and knowing glances, and beautiful costumes, and zippy cars, and the drama of "women's problems," and "the hospital ward," and "sex out of wedlock," we are left with just about zero.

The cast included many competent actors including a number from Downton Abbey. Zoe Boyle, Catherine Steadman, and Iain Glen (in DA as Lavinia Swire, Mable Lane Fox, and Sir Richard Carlisle) moved from the heights of DA to this underachieving effort. Jack Davenport, Shaun Dingwall, Natasha Little, Oliver Chris and Joanna Page were all faithful to their "Breathless" characters, while Finbar Lynch and Pippa Hayward were completely wasted. The cast was aided by impressive costumes (although, having everyone embrace the same "stage" of 60's attire did seem a bit extreme; some of them should have been a bit more stuck in the 50s and not so eager to jump headlong into the 60s, but it certainly set a structured modern tone). Also, there was a salute to personal automobiles and the "reality" that doctors were a class who could afford to own snazzy little sports cars. There is a scene where Otto ardently (with obvious leers) tries to give Angela a ride home, but she clearly prefers the discomfort of the bus to being seen riding in a married doctor's fast car.

The beginning contained a frenzy of "set ups," with personal relationships, doctor/patient relationships, husband/wife relationships, doctor/nurse relationships, but then obvious questions set in. How could the "top docs" continue to keep their (illegal) "abortion on demand at home" lucrative business a secret when they traveled in such obvious medical style with doctors bags, a nurse, an anesthetist, and tanks of oxygen, etc. And, if the abortions were so noticeable, then what could their DEEP secret be? The disappointment came full bore at the end because the quick and easy "tying up of loose threads" was so pathetically convenient and ultra PC (politically correct)that it RUINED the entire experience. The setting (costumes, cars, hospital wards, apartments, casserole dishes, eyeglasses, and eye shadow) was early 1960s but the forced conclusions were strictly 2010!

In fact, the deep secret was something that could have been easily resolved by the four people involved. Changes in character at the end? A guy who seemed afraid of his own shoelaces committed a violent act that was completely irrational. Angela's mysteriously lost husband? He reappears but is such a zero he should have stayed lost. The conclusion was silly; a "PC" ending that lacked reality, or imagination, and was an insult to our intelligence! NO WONDER it was canceled!

score 3/10

Camargue 4 June 2017

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3723668/