The BBC’s long-running, award-winning, daytime medical soap opera, Doctors, has been cancelled. It’s been a staple of daytime television for over 24 years. It was actually cancelled late last year with the BBC Media Centre stating the reason for the cancellation, including “super inflation in drama production” and “funding challenges”, although I suspect other issues were at play. “The final episode will screen in December 2024”, although I believe that’s been brought forward one month. Here’s just a sample of some of the scenes from recent episodes this year to see if you can work out why this gripping television show will no longer be with us.

In June this year, the character of Dr Graham Elton joined the surgery portrayed as a bigot, ableist, and uncaring about people’s pronouns. In one scene when he first meets a short female administrator, he said, “Sorry, didn’t see you down there!”, with the receptionist returning a look of disdain and saying, “I really don’t appreciate being spoken about like that!”, with which the Doctor simply replies, “Like what?”. In another scene, the good Doctor pushes the receptionist’s head out of the way in order to access the fridge with the receptionist rightfully standing there in shock, and then when the phone starts ringing, he simply says, “Are you going to answer that? I think there’s a phone call.” You know, because this is an extremely realistic situation that happens all the time. Doctors around the country pushing little people out of the way in order to get some milk for their tea in a more timely fashion. He also borrows her steps without asking in order to fix the clock in the staff room leaving her unable to reach her desk!

In another story arc, he suspects one of the nurses as being gay, you know, the male nurse that’s going around wearing a dress. He asks one of the other doctors, “So he is a queer, then?”, with the other doctor correcting him and saying, “Luca is gay. He is a part of the queer community.” In one scene, they are seen speaking together about a patient named Mr Bowman. “So you mean ‘he’, Mr Bowman, ‘he’ was confused?” Of course, ‘he’ is the wrong pronoun, with the nurse correcting him, “No, I mean ‘they’. The patient’s preferred pronoun is ‘they’.” Of course, things kick off with the Doctor saying, “Oh, not this preferred pronoun nonsense!”, with the nurse putting the Doctor in his place, saying, “It’s not really nonsense, is it? The patient identifies as non-binary.” And perhaps one of the most bigoted lines of the season, the good doctor says, “Treatment is more important than identification.”, with the nurse seemingly disagreeing. Later, the nurse sarcastically asks the Doctor to go out to a drag show with him, which of course the good Doctor refuses, with the nurse proceeding to berate him.

The Doctor also meets one of Nurse Luca’s friends in the break room who wants to work in healthcare, who also likes wearing makeup and jewellery. After finding out his (or her) name is Skye, he says, “Is that a made-up name? What’s your real name, the name you were given at birth?” And then leaves a bit of parting advice, “If you want to work in healthcare, you’re not going to get far looking like that. No one will take you seriously. My advice? Clean your face. You look like a clown. And wear something normal.” With her wanting to leave the healthcare profession forever.

But it’s not just at work, the new Doctor is also having issues at home. He gets called home for an important conversation with his daughter who says (Can you guess?), “I’m not non-binary, Dad. I’m a man, and I always have been.”, with a look of absolute despondency on the Doctor’s face questioning what’s happened to his life. –

Of course, the Doctor is forced to attend mandatory LGBT awareness training due to his obvious bigotry, which of course the BBC forces you, the viewer, to sit through as well. After the instructor leaves the room, the good Doctor proceeds to scrunch up his certificate of completion.

The BBC seem to have forgotten why people watch daytime soaps. People like to sit down and relax in front of the TV watching characters and storylines they can relate to. Ultimately, the goal of a soap opera, obviously, is to entertain people. What the BBC have turned this show into is less a piece of entertainment, but rather an HR-esque training video treating the viewers like idiots. You can say people don’t like wokeness, you can say people don’t like progressiveness, but I think ultimately, people don’t like being preached to when they’re trying to relax and watch TV. Alas, the BBC have yet again destroyed a once-classic television show by treating their audience like fools.

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Allégro by Emmit Fenn

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