If you think you know this story... think again...
An absolute privilege to be part of the team behind this film.
Under Suspicion: Kate McCann
Wednesday 20th May - 9pm on @channel5_tv
🧵Today is the last day of filming @BBCDoctors A show that has run for 24 years, employed thousands of people, produced more than 4,500 episodes, will call ‘cut’ for the final time. As a writer on the show for the past 19 years I’m personally impacted along with hundreds 1/
Classic TV shows that didn’t find their feet or reach their fullest potential until season 2 or beyond off the top of my head…
Breaking Bad
The West Wing (the Mandy situation… 😵💫)
Seinfeld
Curb Your Enthusiasm
The Wire (controversial opinion, I know)
Mad Men
Others?????
24 years
4555 episodes
425 writers
148 script editors
46 producers
9309 actors
175 directors
59 cinematographers
42 editors
Hundreds and hundreds of crew, costume, make up, casting, drivers etc etc…
Never doubt that TV drama can change lives. It changed mine. End of an era.
Here’s the crisis in UK tv production in a nutshell - a massively successful, politically influential drama makes a loss of £1M because it won’t sell internationally… 🤦♂️🤷♂️
It’s long past time we rethink how we make TV at every level before high end drama is all that’s left…
by the disastrous decision to axe it. So, on this day when the show ceases production (though it will remain on screen until November) here is a🧵 into why I believe it matters that it’s been cancelled, who is ultimately responsible, and what comes next…
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From its very inception, Doctors was a show that offered two crucial things that help to sustain a thriving industry: OPPORTUNITY and EXPERIENCE. 200+ episodes every year where new and seasoned creatives got the opportunity to work, learn, fail, experiment and play. 4/
Public viewing habits are changing, the streamers are taking ever bigger slices of the pie, but we all know that the reason the BBC is under so much pressure is because of the relentless, ideologically driven campaign of destruction by the incumbent Conservative government. 24/
Doctors filmed 200+ episodes every year, each one starring the regular cast plus up to 3 guest actors, each one written by a writer , each one made by a full production crew. Each one produced, shot, and edited in Birmingham. In one fell swoop, from today, all of that is gone.3/
if it provides a public service, then the Conservative government have systematically undermined it, defunded it, abused it, attacked it, accused it of bias or being ‘woke’, broken it into little pieces, sold it off to the lowest bidder – usually one of their mates... 27/
Over 600 guest actors every year likewise got the chance to work, be seen, renew their faith in their abilities, and keep going. A writing team of up to 60 writers crafted original, bonkers, moving, real (and often surreal!) stories based around the lives of our regulars. 5/
The TV industry is contracting. Production across the board is way down. BECTU recently surveyed its members and found 68% of them are currently out of work. Doctors was a much-needed ‘finger in the dam’ of this terrible situation. And now it’s gone with nothing to replace it. 8/
For the past 14 years, the Tories have waged all out war on the BBC, backed by their willing army of ‘bias accusers’, all desperate to close down this most diverse, progressive, complex, flawed yet still brilliant publicly funded service…
'To be continued...' 25/
They see the arts as a pastime of dilettantes and layabouts. That somehow everyone engaged in the arts is not a ‘hard working member of society’, is an ‘enemy of the people’ and should be stamped out. 31/