WOOF! first post in over six years - i'd been off the casualty bandwagon longer than i thought. sorry 4 hoarding this url lmao
i've been watching casualty on-and-off since 2006 (series 21 i think). none of the cast that were there when i started watching (excluding long running extras - shout out to paul oscar anderson!), and i'd often tune in after a period of non-watching to a cast of characters i knew nothing about. but up until this march, there was an exception to this rule: charlie! he was a familiar face, a constant and comforting presence and anchor - though i did often wonder if he had a short term memory issue given that he was remarkably emotionally stable given the loss of two spouses and all the traumatic coworker deaths. i wouldn't be surprised if they numbered in the hundreds after nearly 40 years (come to think of it, there have been a couple of character deaths where other characters been shown planting a tree outside the hospital to memorialise them - i always think, how is the hospital not now surrounded by forest?).
anyway. going off on a tangent there. i always assumed that casualty would end when charlie left. he's almost synonymous with casualty. i obviously had to watch his exit. started watching the episode before, then had the typical casualty re-entry experience of realising i had no context for what was going on, or any of the characters, with the exception of dylan, iain, jacob (who i thought was a nurse but is apparently a paramedic now? am i misremembering?), rash (who i think first appeared not long before i last fell off the bandwagon, so he still felt fairly new to me), and of course charlie. so i went back and watched all of a history of violence (casualty series have names now??? was news to me). i didn't really watch casualty at all from 2018-2023, and i notice that the format has changed a bit - the mini-series with more frequent breaks, which i think is probably a good idea, but also the sort of disintegration (to some extent) of the classic casualty dramatic distaster-of-the-week formula, which... yeah okay, i understand why they did it, it's hard to maintain that after 40 years. but i really liked it, even when it was cheesy or silly. hell, especially when it was cheesy or silly. i loved it when an episode started with something like a woman up a ladder in slipper socks holding a bunch of glassware and a long metal rod in a lightning storm. oooh, is she gonna fall? is she gonna get struck by lightning? is she going to safely descend the ladder as we cut to her husband gasping and clutching his chest? or her son collapsed on the toilet with a needle in his arm? is the whole house just going to burst into flame? all possibilities in holby - most casualty watchers have played "guess the accident". i was sad to see that format break down a bit. but then i was extra pleased that they brought it back with a vengeance for charlie's last episode. the road accident was an absolutely classic casualty Series of Unfortunate Events (tm) - just escalation after escalation, and then an oil tanker barrelling in just to double fuck everything right when you thought it had finished. it felt like the writers had just thrown out all their reservations about cheesiness or believability to give charlie one last absolutely classic casualty disaster. and i LOVED it, despite the undeniable cheesiness - not just in the disaster but charlie's flashback, the 80s dialed up to 11 (tears for fears on the walkman, someone said "sod thatcher", everything looks yellow), the reveal that the little girl he treated in the flashback was stevie, the "whatever the bloody hell i want" response to being asked what he was going to do with his retirement. i know some people thought it was a bit much, but i liked it. the final scene where he leaves the hospital was really touching as well, mostly because you could tell that there wasn't really any acting involved there - it was as much them acting out a scene in which the hospital staff applaud charlie as it was genuinely just all the actors and crew applauding derek thompson. and there's a moment where he's clearly caught off guard by it and chokes up (don't get me wrong, i've got a lot of respect for derek thompson, but i don't think his acting ability is quite up to that) and jfc i nearly did the same.
the prospect of charlie giving his life to the NHS and then facing death because the system is breaking down and there wasn't a surgeon available for him was heartrending, too, even though i was sure they were never actually going to let charlie die. one thing i love about newer casualty is that they're not afraid to be honest about the state of the NHS in a way that is undeniably political, to the extent that sadly it sometimes surprises me that the BBC allows it. whilst they are "quasi-independent" or whatever it's called, their status as a government-funded entity means that there have been instances over the last 14 years where it has felt like it has pandered to tory opinion (perhaps in the hope that it won't experience any further drastic cuts if it can endear itself to those in power? i don't know). my train of thought is getting lost here but hopefully you get what i mean
the only thing was, i was sort of expecting more of... i dunno, a fuss? a feature length episode, or more classic character guest appearances? i was expecting zoe, and was pleased to see her face (and iconic purple stethoscope) in the ED again after all these years. i was caught off guard by josh, and i genuinely jumped out of my seat and cheered when he appeared on screen (despite it being about 2am at the time lmfao). but i was expecting more - especially in comparison to his 30th anniversary episode. i know a lot of them in the 30th anniversary ep were clips (i imagine so the actors were able to do the scenes remotely rather than on set), but honestly i wouldn't have minded if they pulled the same trick again. if departed characters recorded clips for his 30th anniversary party, surely they'd record them for his retirement party? eh
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