The demise of Doctors is a disaster for television drama
A week today, we’ll reach a depressing landmark in the history of British television. Doctors, a daytime drama that has been on BBC One since 2000, will come to an end. It has never been a high-profile show, and definitely not one discussed in media circles, yet it’s a crucial part of this country’s drama ecosystem – and its demise is nothing short of a disaster for the TV industry.
For those of you who’ve never pulled a sickie or been detained at His Majesty’s pleasure, let me explain. Doctors airs at 2pm for four days a week, and follows the staff, family and friends of those who work at an NHS surgery and a university campus surgery in the fictional West Midlands town of Letherbridge. I’ve watched three episodes in my life, and while it certainly isn’t Shakespeare, I engaged rather well with the private lives of the medical staff and the various ailments of the patients. Some of the writing was sharp, and the performances were often well observed.
“Issues”, of course, are the meat of soap operas, so Doctors fans have seen storylines about rape and homelessness and OCD, as well as less dramatic – but also important – concerns such as NHS overtime. Doctors has also offered several firsts: the first British drama to show a gay wedding, and the first to address the pandemic (with cast members filming the episode on their smartphones). It was also expert at making you care about its regular cast, bringing in the mundanities of everyday life in a way that British drama has always done particularly well.
Nothing lasts for ever. Every show has its day, and many more outstay their welcome, but the demise of Doctors represents a very serious crisis. There are now going to be talented production staff and technical crew on the job market, not to mention those for whom it provided such a vital training ground. In terms of actors, Eddie Redmayne, Nicholas Hoult and Phoebe Waller-Bridge all made early appearances on the show, presumably catching the eye of at least one influential casting director. But most importantly, Doctors provided work for an increasingly beleaguered scriptwriting community, and offered early opportunities to such names as Tim Price, the great Welsh playwright who recently gave us Nye at the National Theatre, and Nazrin Choudhury, who has worked consistently on hit TV shows in America, most prominently the bewilderingly successful Walking Dead franchise.
I often think that writers are born, not made; but there’s no doubt that even the most promising ones can improve. They need space to learn their craft and make mistakes. Without shows such as Doctors, these writers have nowhere to go. It’s unlikely that a streaming service, with all their algorithmic data, will take a punt on an unknown. Companies such as Netflix and Amazon offer development programmes, but there is nothing like actually writing live – working on a script as it goes into production. It is clear that Doctors isn’t written by committee; this is scripting as a cottage industry, with writers having an active involvement.
Nor can fledgling scriptwriters simply migrate to another soap. The genre is a particular victim of the demise of linear TV, as it relies on a format of cliffhangers, an episodic structure and nifty scheduling. Times have changed: in the days of Den and Angie Watts, a single episode of EastEnders would attract around 30 million viewers, but the soap now averages five million. I suppose the omnibus was an early form of streaming-style binge-watching, but I never knew many people who consumed them in this way. The appeal came from tuning in on its first airing, and then talking about it at school or in the office the next day. While the fact that the BBC and ITV have invested in new HD-friendly sets for their flagship soaps suggests that they’re safe for now, I wonder whether their chances of survival will feel so strong in 10 years’ time.
The problem, as is so often the case, is that there is no more money. The BBC has said that the Drama Village in Birmingham (where Doctors was made) would have needed further investment as the series, presumably owing to its frequency, was expensive to produce. It is clear that Doctors is a high-profile victim of Corporation cutbacks.
Nor is it just the BBC struggling. Last month, Channel 4 reported record losses of £52 million for 2023, while Sky’s annual losses for the same period doubled to £224 million. Both broadcasters have, in recent years, shown a commitment to new and original drama; this will clearly subside in the face of financial hardship.
ITV drama, meanwhile, has been in the news for two different reasons. Firstly, because the drama of the year, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, made a loss of £1 million – presumably because this very English story was a hard sell to international markets – and secondly, for their recent job advert seeking a “head of generative AI innovation”, a person who, among other terrifying matters, will be responsible for implementing tools such as “AI-driven ideation” and “character development”.
We don’t really know what the effects of AI on TV drama will be. (Well, not unless you happened to watch Netflix’s The Perfect Couple, which feels like it was written by ChatGPT.) But I’m sure no robot will ever script anything with the same degree of glorious unpredictability as Doctors, which, over the years, has veered from epic storylines to small-scale tragedies, dream sequences to outright farce. AI can produce a veneer of competence; it cannot create something reflecting the raw creativity of the human mind.