an uncomfortable life

The post-surgery brain fog is real and I’m not fighting it. I assume that if my body wanted me to heal physically from having polymer threads drilled into my bones AND have coherent thoughts about television, it would be happening without effort. So this post is in many ways cursory, but I do want to talk briefly about The Pitt and Berlin ER.

I feel bad for Berlin ER that its run coincides with The Pitt

I’ve seen a lot of talk about how The Pitt is “groundbreaking” and “revolutionary”.

It is, frankly, none of these things. It’s just competent and well-written, and has a longer season than most streaming shows these days. That combination is somehow breaking people’s brains, which honestly feels like an alarming sign for television as a whole, but I do hope that more media companies are going, “Hey, maybe we should just make good television?”

The Pitt is also competence porn, and a lot of people appreciate that. We don’t just see professionals doing their work well, we see them learning and teaching, being called out on their mistakes and improving.

Berlin ER is … not competence porn. Unless you count Dr Weber successfully performing a trepannation while high on illegal fentanyl, which I don’t.

At this point in the series — I just watched the sixth of eight episodes — it feels like the writing is actively working against the characters. Zanna recommended a gallbladder removal for a patient who had gallstones, and somehow the patient ends up with a leg amputated (!) due to sepsis (!!) — and Zanna concedes this is her fault (!!!). I don’t understand it and I don’t buy it (surely the sepsis is down to the surgical team and those who cared for the patient afterwards?) but okay.

So that’s where Zanna is at. Let’s look at the rest of her team:

• Dr Weber: currently in the act of overdosing

• Cranky Dr Emina: remains the most competent member of Zanna’s staff, despite her brother being beaten into a coma by the cops and her understandable anger management issues

• Handsome Dr Dom: has just killed his father-in-law through incompetence because (whisper-screams) I DON’T THINK HE’S REALLY A DOCTOR

• The nurses: withholding pain medication from neo-Nazis, which, I get, but it’s not profesh or ethical, you know?

And meanwhile the paramedics are doing great. Perfect, no notes. Nothing but support for my ambos.

We are not immune to (medical) propaganda

Here’s something to think about: medical dramas are propaganda just as much as cop shows. It’s harder to spot, because public health is important and essential, and because rogue doctors aren’t going out and shooting people on the street, but it’s always worth thinking about agendas.

For example. The Pitt tells us, over and over again, that the American healthcare system is deeply in crisis, but its people are essentially good at their job, and worth investing in. American hospitals need more funding and less corporate interference, and shouldn’t be run for profit at all. Noah Wyle essentially looks directly in the camera and says, “Support nurses. Stop assaulting healthcare workers. We are seasoned professionals, and if you give us enough funding, we will work miracles.” (This last bit is essentially the guiding principle behind the production of The Pitt as well.)

Berlin ER is coming from a different context, and a more complicated one — it’s set in the German healthcare system, but the showrunner is in fact British, and a former NHS doctor. Berlin ER is saying, “The healthcare system is irretrievably broken. No one knows what they’re doing. Good people come in and destroy themselves trying to fix it. Society itself is damaged beyond repair.”

Obviously there are certain stereotypes you can apply here. The optimistic/aspirational US story versus the bleak and fatalistic German one. But I think what is interesting is that it’s Berlin ER, the grittier and darker show, which feels less realistic. There is a level of incompetence on display in Berlin ER which doesn’t conform with the internal logic of the series, let alone the reality of a European hospital.

(I am assured that real German hospitals do not have to be told to triage patients or put a lock on the opioid cupboard.)

In short, nothing will convince me that Zanna Parker is at fault when it comes to her patient’s amputation, and what she needs is a nice exchange trip to the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Centre.

The White Lotus, season 3, episode 7

It feels like everything is moving towards the inevitable and no doubt disastrous conclusion. The gun has changed hands, although I’m still not convinced it’s safe with Gaitok.

In lieu of in-depth analysis, here are some things I observed:

• Chelsea is reading the poetry of Rumi by the pool, which makes her the only person other than Piper who has some sort of intellectual life going on. Chelsea fascinates me and I love her.

• (No shade to anyone who is reading lighter fare by the pool; right now my brain has only managed to absorb the new Hunger Games book and some longform true crime articles.)

• Victoria’s costuming had me wondering, do I need a US$350 silk caftan? Well, do I?

• Piper, to the surprise of way too many people, turns out to be sincere in her spiritual malaise. She has a real daddy’s girl vibe, so I’m glad Tim emerged from his fog of benzos and suicidal ideation long enough to make his own connection with the monk from whom she wants to learn, and to be like, well, I don’t understand my kid, but I guess I’m proud of her, and also maybe Buddhism will help her deal with the fact that the family’s not rich anymore.

• I am still not talking about her brothers.

• I feel like Rick is a less interesting character without Chelsea at his side

• Belinda and Zion: healthy family dynamic, respectful of boundaries, like each other, NATURALLY I am CONCERNED about what Greg/Gary is planning.

• I have this fear that he’s going to buy her silence by giving her the money for her spa, and I love Belinda and I do not want her to be morally compromised.

Adolescence

Four-part British Netflix drama about the murder of a teenage girl by a 13-year-old boy. It’s bleak stuff, and the stylistic conceit — every episode is done in a single take — gives it a claustrophobic feeling.

If it wasn’t for the subdued colour palette, I wouldn’t know this was a Netflix drama. It feels more like the sort of low budget/high quality miniseries the BBC used to do, back when they had money. It’s too realistic to come to a satisfying conclusion, or even a simple explanation for why cute little Jamie Miller stabbed a girl to death in a car park, but the short answer is, “Toxic masculinity, probably.”

Adolescence is well worth your time; I’m less impressed that the lesson which seems to be coming from it is “ban kids from social media”. (At least one of the bullying vectors in this drama, Snapchat, is in fact exempt from the Australian government’s social media ban for under-16s.) But that’s not the fault of the miniseries, which is thoughtful and respects its audience.

Domina, season 1, episode 1

Did you enjoy HBO’s Rome but occasionally wonder if Roman women were people? Domina picks up shortly after the assassination of Caesar and the beginning of the civil war that would end with Gaius Julius Octavian becoming emperor of Rome in all but name.

The domina in question is Livia Drusilla, remembered by history and I, Claudius fans as the evil matriarch ruling Rome from the shadows, murdering anyone who stands to come between her kids and the emperorship. Here, she’s a scared, clever fifteen-year-old girl being married off to a political ally of her father’s, while making significant eye contact (and lip contact) with Octavian across the insula.

For all that it looks like “what if Game of Thrones but Roman and with girl power?” Domina actually has a more accurate sense of the lives of Roman noblewomen than most dramas set in this era. My beefs are things like “Livia would wear her hair up, not falling around her face in beachy waves” rather than “if a real Roman matron behaved like this, she’d be divorced and sent back her father before you can say Cicero”.

Representing the regular people is Livia’s former slave, now a freedwoman, Antigone. I appreciate that this is not an “only the villainous Romans own slaves” story, but it’s 2025 and maybe I don’t want a story about a dark-skinned Black woman being enslaved and suffering? As the pilot episode ends, she has been abandoned by her companions and is no doubt about to go through something terrible.

The Residence, season 1, episodes 1-5

I’m generally not a Shondaland fan, but I’ve been looking forward to The Residence ever since I spotted Star Trek: Discovery’s Mary Wiseman in the cast. And I am not disappointed. This is a very silly comedy-mystery with an amazing conceit: the Chief Usher of the White House has been found dead in the middle of a state dinner. Cordelia Cupp, the Greatest Detective in the World, has been called in to investigate. No one can leave the White House. Most of the staff and some of the guests have reason to want the Chief Usher dead. Let the games begin.

The Residence is not as smart as it thinks it is, but that’s absolutely fine because I am still on drugs. It’s also not as funny as it should be, but again, that’s fine, because I am a sucker for a running gag about Kylie Minogue’s feud with Hugh Jackman.

Oh yeah, that’s the other thing. The state dinner in question? Is for the Prime Minister of Australia and his entourage, because the previous administration managed to get on our national bad side and the new president needs to win us back. You know what doesn’t help with diplomacy? Murder. And also sugar kangaroos positioned on Uluru-shaped desserts. It’s culturally insensitive, y’know.

The Residence is exactly what I need right now. Cupp is an interesting character (asexual with a touch of the ‘tism, played by the always-charming Uzo Aduba) in the Benoit Blanc mould. Aduba is the calm centre of a whirlwind of increasingly unhinged White House staff, diplomats, politicians, hangers-on and Kylie Minogues. I would follow this character anywhere.

Oh, and for the record, Mary Wiseman plays the White House chef, Marvella, who hooks up with the Australian Foreign Minister in the grounds. Is this realistic behaviour for a Foreign Minister? Well, Brett Tucker plays him with a Gareth Evans beard, soooooo…