Max Beesley's come a long way from "Glitter." His U.K. series "Bodies" comes to the U.S. on BBC America.
BBC America’s Med Drama
Bodies Comes to the U.S.
Bodies is unlike any other medical drama - it's raw, disturbing and uncompromising. Inside every hospital exists a world that few people have seen - a world of ruthless politics, institutionalized cynicism, malpractice, and pitch-black humor. Bodies, written by former doctor Jed Mercurio, is to hospital drama what The Shield is to police drama. It throws open the medical world with stories of such unbearable power and intensity it is hard to look away. Bodies premieres Thursday, September 29, 2005 at 9:00 p.m. ET/10:00 p.m. PT.
Bodies begins as fresh-faced resident Rob Lake (Max Beesley, Tom Jones) starts work in the Ob Gyn unit of a large city hospital. The workload is enormous and the pressure is on. Shortly after arrival, he comes to suspect that his new boss, Roger Hurley (Patrick Baladi, The Office), is incompetent. Accidents happen - in fact Rob is himself responsible for the death of a patient - but with Hurley, accidents happen a lot.
When one of Hurley's blunders results in the permanent disability of a young mother and the death of her newborn, Rob considers blowing the whistle. While he is struggling with his conscience, Dr. Maria Orton (Susan Lynch, Enduring Love), the anesthetist on the case, comes forward to officially complain about Hurley. Rob watches in disbelief as the doctors close ranks against her - even those that agree Hurley is a risk, like rival surgical consultant Tony Whitman (Keith Allen, De-Lovely). They are clearly working under a different oath. First rule is, do no harm - to your career. He hates to admit it, but Rob realizes that his future at the hospital lies in the hands of Hurley, and to go against the flow will end his career before it begins.
Rob's life is further complicated when he falls for co-worker, nursing supervisor Donna Rix (Neve McIntosh, Gormenghast), who also happens to be married. Their white-hot secret meetings in his on-call room lessen his isolation, until he realizes that being with a married woman is almost as bad as the predicament he faces at work.
Bodies portrays the all-too-real dilemmas of those who work in professional healthcare and offers an authentic insight into hospital working life - the furtive comings and goings in the corridors, the gossip, the backstabbing, and the black humor which help to keep them sane. Uncomfortably realistic though it may be, this is undeniably powerful stuff made all the more dramatic by being set in a unit which should be all about new life.
Creator, writer, and producer Jed Mercurio describes his inspiration for Bodies, "Medical drama is one of the most popular genres in television, yet I've never felt any of them grappled with gritty realities that I encountered in my working life. I wanted to create a medical drama that was an antidote to all the medical dramas that had gone before.
"In Bodies, you will see doctors make mistakes. They do so because they are flawed human beings like the rest of us. But their mistakes have enormously tragic consequences. In Bodies, you will see how some doctors cover up their errors and others are haunted by them. You will see some doctors try to fight for the truth to come out, and others who'll stop at nothing to bury their mistakes. One doctor risks his career to seek justice for the victims of medical negligence.
"Doctors possess all the flaws inherent in human nature. In Bodies, you will see doctors act out of arrogance, ambition, self-interest and lust. In my career as a doctor, I was witness to all manner of incidents that the outsider is never permitted to see. This is the dark side of medicine - and fortunately it's only one side, not the whole - but it's the side that outsiders know next to nothing about."
