Cardiac Arrest (1994)

Directed by

David Hayman, Sam Miller, Peter Mullan, Jim Gillespie

Genre

drama

Country

United Kingdom

Length

3 seasons, 27 episodes

Rating

7.0 of 10 from 5 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This British series follows junior doctors as they cope with the harsh realities of hospital work. It shows their struggles with the National Health Service and the often grim humor they use to get by.

cynicalrealisticdarkly comicgrittytenseatmosphericwryunvarnished

What happens

Cardiac Arrest is a British medical drama series produced by World Productions for BBC One. It aired from 21 April 1994 to 25 June 1996. The show focused on the lives and challenges of junior doctors working in a hospital setting and was known for its realistic and sometimes dark portrayal of the medical profession. The series was controversial owing to its cynical depiction of doctors, nurses and the National Health Service (NHS), although it has often topped polls of the UK medical profession as the best medical drama of all time. Cardiac Arrest was created by Jed Mercurio, who wrote under the pseudonym John MacUre. Mercurio is a British writer and television producer and, before pursuing a career in writing, he worked as a doctor in a hospital in Wolverhampton. His experiences as a doctor in the medical field influenced the realistic and often gritty portrayal of the medical profession in the series. Mercurio's perspective provided a visceral, albeit wryly humorous, look at the NHS in the 1990s. At the time of airing, Mercurio was still a doctor. He later went on to create another controversial medical drama for the BBC in 2004, Bodies. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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