Peter McGinn

Mar 30, 2020

10.0

This is one of those British family-safe shows that for me started way back in the Jurassic Period with All Creatures Great and Small and continued on with many similar offerings. They are known as Dramadies, I think, comedy-dramas I mean similar in style, not plot or characters necessarily. Lark Rise to Candleford and Call the Midwife also come to mind. I think they sometimes ran on Sunday nights. (I am in the U.S. so I am not an authority on them.) The episodes for this kind of program tend to follow a sort of formula. In this show, for example, Lily usually encounters a medical decision early in each episode that is questioned or even overridden, and the subplot of whether she is right or wrong plays out throughout the episode. And there is usually another subplot, a character with medical and/or personal issues that also play out as each episode moves along. But there is a lot more to the show than this. If you like the characters, which I do, the subplots following their lives plays greatly into you wanting to keep coming back. I watch different types of dramas that might include extreme tension and drama and spotty violence, but it is a comfort sometimes to take a break with a show like this. There is a stumbling romance that plays out which is, for me at least, less interesting because it is more predictable, but that might prove to be a bright spot for other viewers. So if you only watch the Breaking Bad or Broadchurch sort of programming you will want to give this a miss, but for stress relieving old fashioned entertainment, settle in for The Good Karma Hospital.