Doctors: Computer Control

(Monday 10^th – Friday 14^th February 2020)

Al formulates an app that will predict cancellations, completely ignoring the fact that as an incredible receptionist, Karen can already predict this better than any computer. On the first day of the trial, Karen does indeed predict the cancellations and Al’s app, which double books appointments based on who it thinks will cancel, turns the surgery into absolute chaos. Patients end up waiting an hour and a half for appointments and even walking out. Bear persuades Al to give it up. Karen proudly shows him that at the beginning of the day that she was far more accurate with her predictions that his app could ever have been.

Staff at The Mill have begun to notice the growing attraction between Bear and Ayesha and I am not happy about it! Bear quizzes Karen about Ayesha’s relationship status and arranges to go to a CCG meeting with her followed by lunch. I remain convinced that he is behind Jimmi’s incarceration. The meal doesn’t go well, as just like during a recent meeting. Ignorant Bear spends most of the time on his phone. And I’m pretty sure he mentions something about a ‘lock up’. My suspicion grows. He becomes almost aggressively jealous on ‘Galentine’s Day’ when he mistakenly believes there’s something going on between Ayesha and Valerie. But thankfully, he seem to have blown it without even realising and when he gives Ayesha a Valentine’s Day present; she neither understands why he is bothering or how he can even afford such an expensive gift.

There’s a really sweet episode where Al gives up an afternoon at a comic convention to treat a nun with a UTI and then help another nun with kleptomania. She started stealing dog food when she angry with a supermarket for calling the police on a homeless man needing food for his dog and wouldn’t let her buy it for him. Then she started stealing hundreds of tins, all from the big supermarkets. Al refuses to let her hands the tins back or to turn herself in. It won’t do anyone any good. Instead, they donate the tins to a dog shelter who really need them, helping to absolve herself of her guilt.

In a rather hilarious episode, Karen gets drunk with a rather annoying friend of hers who is bitter and angry and having some sort of midlife crisis. She wants a career change and has dumped her boyfriend and is clearly jealous of Karen’s success. She’s even jealous of her head injury and memory loss! But Karen falling off the swings and generally being very funny is worth it for having to put up with her irritating mate.

Meanwhile, Emma helps Daniel and Zara with Joe’s blaster gun party which is absolute chaos. While Daniel joins in the fun, Zara attempts to control the chaos and Emma gets hilariously drunk. But the next door neighbour thinks that actual guns are being fired and calls the police. The next thing they know, armed police descend on the house, frightening everyone, apart from drunk Emma who finds the whole thing rather exciting. However, Joe and his friends think the police turning up has made it the best party ever!

Rob discovers Joe’s online friend, Pixie…

Rob comes to sort the whole situation out but he makes an even more alarming discovery when he gets chatting to Joe and discovers that he has been talking to a girl called Pixie online. It soon transpires that Pixie is actually Al and he was trying to prove to Daniel and Zara just how unsafe Joe is online. At first, Daniel is absolutely livid but surprisingly, Zara is quite reasonable and asks Al to help them protect Joe online. However, when he connects their phones to his tablet, Joe is able to see the content of their phones as well. Left in Valerie’s care, he casts his tablet to the main screen in the waiting room and accidentally plays one of Daniel’s video diaries to Valerie in the empty waiting room. Zara rushes out and stops it before making Al change the settings to block Joe from seeing their phone content. Later, Zara watches Daniel’s video diaries. Another step towards them getting back together?

Daniel and Zara discover that Al has been talking to their son online…

Emma is surprised when her old flame, Lena asks to book her spare room for the weekend, especially when she books it for Valentine’s Day. Lena has left her husband and has decided that she is much more interested in women and is a lot happier with herself and her life now than she was when they were together. Emma is about to make her move when Lena announces that she is six months (and eight days) into a new relationship. Then she asks if her girlfriend can stay as well, landing Emma with sharing a house with a very happy couple for the weekend! Poor Emma.

Rob and Emma support a grieving mother seek justice for her son, victim of a postcode killing by a gang of thugs. Valerie, meanwhile brings together a couple who have only communicated over playing chess on the Internet.

Doctors is on BBC1, weekdays at 1:45pm

Doctors: Bring Your Own Bun

(Monday 3^rd – Friday 7^th February 2020)

It’s a very issue led week in Doctors this week with some big stand-alone episodes that are all particularly interesting. We have chronic illness, redemption for prisoners, post-partem psychosis. Different characters take centre stage in each episode such as Ayesha, Al, Daniel Ruhma and Rob.

Ayesha begins her Chronic Illness coffee morning (BYOB), which proves to be a big hit. I’m pretty sure a lot of people with chronic conditions who tune into Doctors wish their own surgeries ran like The Mill, myself included! Anyway, there’s drama galore when Ayesha discovers one of the ‘patients’ in the group is actually a fake. He spends his time at various groups, picking up women who are vulnerable and therefore he feels confident in talking to them. Unfortunately, in Ayesha’s group, a couple of his ‘girlfriends’ come face to face and obviously are not very happy when the truth comes out.

Al takes it upon himself to cure Bear of his fear of blood but ends up making him extremely unwell. He earns himself a telling off from Emma as he utterly traumatises Bear. At the end of the working day, he frightens Bear so much that he faints, knocking Al out in the process. But when Bear comes to and finds Al injured, his Manager/rescuer mode takes over, despite the blood and rushes Al to the hospital. He is extremely grateful and of course Al takes credit for the cure!

There’s a moment of jealousy when Daniel spots Zara (who has become extremely patronising every single time she opens her mouth at the moment – have you noticed?) complimenting Sid. However, he takes her to lunch and tells her that he forgives her for everything, he’s learning to forgive himself and he thinks she needs to forgive herself too. She accepts what he says but finds the whole thing awkward and uncomfortable, as do we.

There’s an interesting episode completely set in the prison, although nothing to do with Jimmi. I suppose there are limited scenes they can film with him just sitting there looking miserable. This time, Daniel spends the evening attending a dinner completely run by the prisoners, as they attempt to open a restaurant within the prison. Daniel dines with the grumpiest, least compassionate pastor ever. She has no faith in the redemption of any of the prisoners and is convinced they will fail. She seems to actually want them to fail. Comments from her actually lead to tensions exploding in the kitchen and the chef burns his hand. Daniel helps to sort things out and the chaplain unexpectedly mends her ways, helping the men out while Daniel fixes the chef’s hand.

Rob is on a stakeout for a drug raid and spots a couple of lads from the talk he did recently. He bumps into one of them who turns out to be completely innocent and oblivious to what is going on. Dragging him into the room he is spying from, he manages to keep him safe while he and his team bring the other lad and the other drug dealers down.

Ruhma is under pressure when one of her new Mums becomes convinced that she was given the wrong baby to take home. It’s not completely impossible as she had the same name as the woman in the bed next to her. However, Ruhma investigates and they didn’t give birth at the same time and one had gone before the other had even gone into labour. However, Ashley is convinced, to the point that she tracks the other woman down at her home and attempts to take her baby. Ruhma and the woman’s husband race to the house to stop her and I have to say, the woman whose baby is nearly stolen must be a saint or something. Ruhma explains that Ashley is suffering from postnatal psychosis and it’s causing delusions. She is perfectly within her rights to call the police but she doesn’t. She is so kind to her and so understanding. It’s a genuinely lovely moment.

Meanwhile, Al is horrified when Zara dismisses a school invitation to a course on protecting children online. Zara and Daniel are certain that their parental controls are enough but Al thinks they are being very ignorant. And typically, that night, while Daniel is right there in the house with him, Joe starts talking to a random ‘girl’ online and invites her to his birthday party. He even gives her his address.

Doctors is on BBC1, weekdays at 1:45pm

Doctors: The Spice of Life

(Monday 27^th – Friday 31^st January 2020)

Without consulting Zara or The Mill, Daniel takes up a job as a GP at the prison in a desperate bid to help Jimmi. He is horrified to find his friend spaced out on spice and desperate for anything else to numb the pain. It’s a heartbreaking scene as Jimmi breaks down and begs for help. With Daniel’s support, Jimmi resolves to get clean but it’s a difficult road of temptation, especially sharing a cell with the vile Bowser. Al is furious when he finds out about Daniel’s new role, purely out of jealous that Daniel is the central figure in helping Jimmi when he is his best friend. I mean, he doesn’t even ask after him! Surely it’s not about who does what as long as someone does something?

Ayesha has a plan for her dissertation that will bring together patients suffering with chronic conditions. Zara rejects it at first, of course but eventually comes round to the idea and all it really makes me think is that I wish my own surgery were even a quarter as good as The Mill!

Sid accuses Bear of not giving the MSU the same commitment that Becky did and invites him to see exactly the kind of work that goes into it. When Bear accidentally walks in on a treatment, he faints at the procedure. Denying that he has a blood phobia, he becomes entangled in a lie about being diabetic. It all tumbles out later with Emma when he faints at the sight of another patient’s blood and he gets a serious telling off for lying about having a very serious medical condition. His week gets worse when he and a girl in a café accidentally pick up each other’s phones, leading her and her boyfriend to refuse to give his back. When he tries to force their hand, he nearly gets arrested. He ends up supporting the girl who is in an abusive relationship. But I still don’t buy it. There is something dodgy about this guy…

Karen is shocked to find herself supporting a woman who has escaped a terrible marriage and now, feels she is improving her mental health by posting nude pictures online for likes and cash. In a similar story, we meet a mildly famous social media ‘influencer’ who has so much pressure on him to be perfect online that he cannot sleep and is horribly depressed.

Al is disappointed by a surprise University reunion. Sid uncovers a rare condition after a patient hits his head and develops a new skill of playing the piano. But his horrible partner demands that he supress his new skill and not live his dream. Zara backs out of learning BSL but an embarrassing translation moment for Ruhma leads to her being asked out on a date!

Doctors is on BBC1, weekdays at 1:45pm

Doctors: The Search for Truth

(Monday 20^th – Friday 24^th 2020)

Jimmi is struggling in the wake of the death of the inmate he so desperately tried to save last week. He is then told by Al that he is struggling to keep The Icon going. On top of that, he is landed with a new, less friendly cellmate. Not a great start to the week. His problems get worse when Rob comes to visit him, making him even more of a target for his bully cellmate.

Emma and Rob team up to figure out just who might have a grudge against Jimmi and want to set him up. They receive a call from Jimmi himself who tells them more about his childhood and confesses that he assaulted his Dad the last time he saw him. Could that be enough of a motive? They are also intrigued as to whether the mugging last year is connected to this. Well, it did seem a bit random and they didn’t revisit it so quite possibly. But Bear is not yet on the list and I remain convinced that he has something to do with all of this… He’s acting shadier and shadier by the day. However, he has problems of his own when a disgruntled woman causes mayhem in the waiting room!

Jimmi takes matters into his own hands by meeting up with his father who is shocked to find him in prison. He was on holiday at the time of his arrest, which checks out with Rob and denies having anything to do with setting him up. He is deeply unkind to Jimmi and still denies child abuse. Jimmi meanwhile, is struggling with other prisoners needing him to be their Doctor and his vile cellmate harassing him and getting off his face on spice each day. Life behind bars is getting harder as each day passes and he is beginning to lose hope. Feeling like he has no options left, Jimmi turns to spice to get him through. An inmate he refused to help gets badly assaulted, although by this point, I think he has actually stopped caring.

Valerie meets up with Rabbi David to learn more about her ‘Jewish Heritage’ and I am possibly about to eat the words from my previous blog about it being an annoying, daft Valerie storyline as it looks like there a genuine spark between them. And I am all for Valerie finding some love in her life! They even meet up a second time and go for lunch where they continue to bond. But alas, Valerie and I both have our hearts broken when David decides it’s too soon after the breakdown of his marriage to start another relationship and he doesn’t want to hurt her (or me, of course) by making false promises. I really do hope they return to this storyline at some point. There was a genuine connection here.

Ruhma decides to learn BSL after struggling to communicate with a deaf patient in labour the previous week and also being that she too is losing her hearing. After a misunderstanding, Zara decides to join her on the course. This could be a potential disaster or a new friendship. The first lesson doesn’t get off to a great start for their friendship though when the teacher points Ruhma out as a gifted student, putting Zara’s nose right out of joint!

I don’t often report the ‘side stories’ but I liked this one: Rob teams up with a junior police officer who is intent on solving a spate of burglaries on a particular estate. She shows a particular interest in a known criminal who has been recently released from prison and is dating a young, single mother who she is also particularly interested in. Rob digs a little deeper and the police officer admits that the young woman, Paige is actually her daughter, who she gave up when she was a baby. She eventually admits it to Paige herself and the pair begin to bond.

Doctors is on BBC1, weekdays at 1:45pm