No Series 3 - Bodies (2004) Discussion

[–] ruttlesRevenge 19 years ago

How do you know?

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[–] Gary-161 19 years ago

Tea leaves. Always worked for me.

I felt during this series there shouldn't be a third. It was becoming a soap opera. Direction is always good though. All those tight close ups and eye contacts. Whose doing what to whom and why?

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[–] jameslamont 19 years ago

From MediaGuardian.

Bodies sews up loose ends

Jason Deans
Tuesday November 29, 2005

The good news for fans of downbeat BBC2/BBC3 medical drama Bodies is that it will be coming back. The bad news is that it's only for a final one-off special.
The creator of Bodies, Jed Mercurio, has been commissioned to write a 90-minute special for next year, tying up all the loose ends from the second series currently on air.

The drama, like Mercurio's previous creation Cardiac Arrest, had received critical plaudits for its dark, cynical portrayal of the NHS, where incompetent doctors' deadly mistakes are covered up and even the more appealing characters are routinely forced into morally compromising situations by the system.

However, perhaps partly because of its uncompromisingly dark tone, Bodies, which stars Max Beesley and Keith Allen, has failed to become a ratings success on BBC2 on Saturday nights.

Last weekend's ninth, and penultimate, episode of the second run attracted 1.1 million viewers and a 5% audience share.

However, fans of the show would no doubt argue that the BBC has failed to get behind it and that it has also been compromised by being juggled between BBC2 and BBC3.

The first series was broadcast last year on digital service BBC3, before being repeated on BBC2.

For the second series, the BBC adopted a different scheduling strategy, premiering Bodies on BBC2 and then showing the next episode immediately afterwards on BBC3.

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[–] DVDfever 19 years ago

Thanks for the Guardian text, but they were wrong about series 2 as the first ep was premiered on BBC3 a week before it began on BBC2.

Usually with a series (eg. Spooks), because BBC3 has a remit to make 80% of its first-run content as premieres, they'd show ep.1 on a terrestrial channel and every other would get ahead on the digital variant except for the finale, but Bodies ran a week ahead on BBC3 the whole time (although I stuck with BBC2 as I don't need an Onscreen Next and it would've clashed with Family Guy & American Dad)

Dom

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[–] spunk_sock 19 years ago

I found the last couple of episodes of Series 2 rather disapointing. It was building up to be something quite dramatic but just sort of fizzled out... I'll not say anymore at the final episode hasn't been on BBC2 yet, but I'm not sure what loose ends they need to tie up. Perhaps they just need to come up with a better ending!

What I liked most about Bodies was the complete lack of any redeamable feature in pretty much all of the central characters - something I haven't seen on TV since perhaps Blakes 7.

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[–] Gary-161 19 years ago

I thought the Blake's Seven characters had plenty of redeemable points, but I don't want to start a geek war!

Nobody to root for is maybe why Bodies flopped. I couldn't believe in the Whitman character. The writer didn't so much keep hitting the irony button as let off a klaxon: Hurley getting screwed for being the only character not to cheat, Donna and Whitman stitching up Whitman despite being philanderers, etc.

Dr Lake just got more and more slimey and repulsive as the series progressed and his reptillian smirk sends shivers down my spine. Now he's found true love (eeyuuw). I just hope the writer really got his pound of flesh (and flesh of pounds) after leaving the profession fifteen years ago.

Very watchable, though!

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[–] ruttlesRevenge 19 years ago

The only reasons it has flopped, in terms of ratings, is due to lack or advertising and maybe some people don't like downbeat programmes full stop.

Nobody at my work knew the programme existed. People are still caught up in reality tv and aren't on the look out for good quality drama or even aware that it exists.

By the way Rob Lake is a fantastic character and I would want him operating on me. Maybe you don't remember the first series but Roger Hurley is a nasty piece of work! Whitman is a brilliant surgeon (and would want him operating on me) but a horrible human being.

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[–] jameslamont 19 years ago

But the difference between Whitman and Hurley is that Whitman has some good deep down inside him. The ending shows that for sure, and the way he finally took blame for Pollys report. There have been varous glimpses of good in him throughout the show but with Hurley there is none.

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[–] ruttlesRevenge 19 years ago

Agreed, Whitman is the better egg but I remember he refused to help Rob Lake with a difficult labour just because he was annoyed with him that day.

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[–] slcuk 19 years ago

I disagree that Whitman is the better egg. Hurley's mistakes come from his incompetence not arrogance like Whitman, plus Hurley is a man with moral principles regarding his family, he genuinely loves his wife and children. We knew that he wanted Mya because of the scene in the fertility clinic but he did the decent thing at the conference and turned her down. With regard to his treatment of Mya after the non event, he could have managed her with more grace but he is weak. Without his family and home he is nothing and I like that vunerablity in the characterisation, we don't see enough of it.

Whitman is married and his countless affairs simply become accepted and I suspect he only fell in love with Polly because she didn't want him in that way. He used his daughter to set Chrissy up and clear himself of the sexual harassment charge. I still can't believe that Donna fell for him it really undermined her and Rob Lake's relationship.

Yes Whitman/Allen is sexy and bad and all those things that makes for good drama, but as for who is the better egg-HUrley. AS for who is the better character, doctor, looking-Whitman. Who is the man I would want to spend the rest of my life with-Rob Lake.!!!!

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[–] Gary-161 19 years ago

*SPOILERS*

I think Bodies is the archetypal wednesday night show. Maybe it's just too Gynecologically explicit and too damn frightening to people starting families. I can't dispute it's topicality, especially when it was announced half way through the series that hundreds die in the NHS every year due to negligence.

As for Whitman, people are forgetting that he also tried to get one of his patients killed early in the series. He has no place in the medical profession. I didn't buy his expulsion, though. There must be absent mindedness in canteens all the time. Most likely management would just tell him to go and pay.

Rob Lake was the middle man of the series.

Overall, the weakness was in the writing. It just didn't come off as credible. At least that's what I'm praying!

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[–] ruttlesRevenge 19 years ago

'Stealing' the coffee was just an excuse to get rid of him.

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[–] gwyndafwilliams 19 years ago

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/3591491.stm

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[–] allseeing 19 years ago

Ha Ha! Fantastic. Life can imitate art. He looks fairly incredulous in the photo too.

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[–] gwyndafwilliams 19 years ago

'Bodies' is the best hospital/doctor drama that has ever been on telly!
Unfortunately it is all too realistic. It seems that a great deal of the storylines is based loosely on past events that have occurred in hospitals e.g. the suspended anaesthetist in series one - something similar happened a few years ago in a UK hospital etc.
Bodies beats the socks off any other hospital drama such as holby or casualty for quality storylines, credibility and acting.
I can’t wait for the DVD’s to come out in September - I may have to break in to the BBC vaults!

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[–] rwbingham 19 years ago

According to a recent article in "The Radio Times" there definitely will be a third series, but until the availability of current cast members is known the direction it will take has not been planned.

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[–] jameslamont 19 years ago

I read that as saying it was 90 minute episode only, no season 3.

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[–] allseeing 19 years ago

The reason they didn't make Whitman simply pay for his coffee is because they wanted to get rid of him as he opposed the HRPU.

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[–] Gary-161 19 years ago

I'm aware of that, but it was not even the slightest bit credible.

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[–] allseeing 19 years ago

However it was/is a lawful means for enquiry and dismisal. The incredulity of it highlights the ludicrous politics of the Hospital Trust. Like Al Capone done for tax evasion rather than for being the head of a crime syndicate.

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[–] Gary-161 19 years ago

Well, in fairness, at least Whitman wasn't dispached from the programme by a falling helicopter.

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[–] 19 years ago

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[–] Dyathinkhesaurus_Rex 19 years ago

I read in the Radio Times that they would have a 'feature length episode' (I quoted those three words).

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[–] yvonne0509 19 years ago

i only started watching bodies halfway through the second series so i havent seen much of it at all and i only started watching it when it was on channel 2 coz i was flicking through the channels and then saw max beeslay and had to watch it. i found it really good when i started watchin it (maybe slightly too graphic) but i think it didnt get seen enough to become popular. i dont know whether it was just me but i dont remember seeing much advertising for it and it wasnt on at a prime time! i think that in all it didnt become popular enough coz it wasnt out there for people to see enough. i would have loved a third series as ive just started to get into and will be gutted when it doesnt come back!

does anyone know or think they will be repeating season one?

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[–] glacier_white 19 years ago

You'll probably have to catch season 1 on UKGold now or get the DVD when it comes out and no, there wasn't ANY advertising for it 'cos the Beeb are a bit useless like that. It had to be on after the watershed because it was so graphic. And it doesn't sound like they'll do a third series. Pillocks.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I'm a schizophreniac,
And I am too!

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[–] slcuk 19 years ago

My Saturday nights are simply not the same any more since the current, and last series of Bodies finished. I know that this makes me sound extremely sad and lacking in social life, but I feel as though I have lost an old friend!!!

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[–] filmspark 19 years ago

As a crew member of series 1 and 2 of "Bodies" I can state that having talked to other members of the production there will not be a third series of the show but a 90 minute 'one off' to tie up the story lines has been suggested but not yet confirmed.

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