Wonderful first series, but THEN what happened?

MEFoley

In the first series, the ups and downs of William, the undertaker, and Mary, the midwife, were fascinating viewing. Each episode involved a death and a birth; I was so involved, I cried at least once each episode. It was satisfying drama, that left you each week with the feeling that the story had wrapped up and balanced, yet you wanted another one, right then, right there, because it was so good.

Then in the second series, the characters were replaced by aliens from a parallel universe, where women throw diamond rings away in hospital corridors, and men throw diamond rings away out the window into the garden. All the women went haywire in some way or another (except the forgotten middle daughter who never gets a look in), with Mary becoming so hateful, illogical, cruel and unreasoning that she almost became unwatchable, while William metamorphosed into a saint, who tolerated all. The female partner in William's business behaved like a spoiled teenager, and a sex-crazed female solicitor won't take 'no' for an answer.

The problems piled on and on, and while some made sense (Mary's fellow-midwife becoming pregnant and finding her boyfriend is married), some didn't (Mary's mother getting cancer and going, in the space of 5 or 6 episodes, from diagnosis to chemo (oops! didn't work) to radiation (oops! didn't work) to stem cell treatment (does that even exist yet?) to cure (with predictable scene of weeping where the viewing is padded as the main characters ask whether the news is good or bad)).

There seems to be a TV maxim that good relationships don't make good viewing, but that is rubbish. William and Mary's good relationship was a delight in the first series; the dramatic tension came from the external world, and it was wonderful to see the safe haven they had with each other. That made it make sense that William could surf the problems the way he did.

I tried to hang in there, but I'm sorry, they lost me with the rings. The only people who throw valuable diamond rings away are spoiled impossibly-rich kids under the age of 25. Why do they think we want to watch William behave that way?

I'm just so disappointed. Did they change writers or something? Can we have the old William and Mary back?

score /10

MEFoley 23 May 2005

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1086866/