Is Jed Mercurio's new show worth watching? In short. Yes. Absolutely. Without a doubt.
Mercurio's latest medical drama Breathtaking is one of those squirmy, uncomfortable, unmissable watches that gets right to the core of what it means to be human in its full kaleidoscopic range.
The chilling drama is based on real-life experiences of doctors and nurses on the frontline during the COVID-19 pandemic, the trauma of which is seen through the hopeless eyes of Joanne Froggatt's Abbey Henderson.
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As the senior doctor trying to lead her team with little more than aprons and bin bags on some occasions (in absence of adequate PPE), the weight on Abbey's shoulders is immense.
Mercurio and his creative team, which includes co-writers Prasanna Puwanarajah and Rachel Clarke (who wrote the book the show is based on), seem to have made the creative choice not to spare the viewer: there is no respite from terror, the guilt, the pressure and the despair.
Related: ITV drama Breathtaking provokes strong reaction from viewers
For them it's all about the details – like the deeply embedded line across the bridge of Abbey's nose and around her mouth, indents made from the daily use of masks, whether they be up to regulatory standards or not. It's a permanent, visual reminder of how pressing, physically pressing, this situation quickly became.
If this sounds like a hard watch, that's because it is and purposefully so. There are no light, fluffy moments interspersed to make the viewing go down easy: no romantic B stories for a more palatable experience, just Covid and how the virus and the handling of the pandemic touched countless lives.
Breathtaking is strikingly bleak for the very reason that it's supposed to lock the viewer in, compelling you not to look away.
There's something about the freshness of the pandemic, the presence of which still lingers, that makes Breathtaking all the more relatable and makes it easier to connect with the characters who crop up on our screens, only to die a handful of scenes later.
The powerless doctors and nurses who assume guilt and responsibility for situations they can't control is made even more egregious by the mismatch of what we witness in their hospitals versus the real-life televised clips of politicians – namely Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and Matt Hancock – who painted a different picture.
Abbey and her team are forced into terrible conundrums often because of government guidelines that on the ground did not work.
That's not to say that the show is without moments of beauty. More that even those tender moments are laced with pain and anguish so that you never truly forget what is happening.
One scene in particular springs to mind, involving a violin and a dying patient, but we hesitate to say too much for the sake of spoilers – only to add that there are pure moments of human kindness that soften (but not smooth) the rough edges of Breathtaking.
There is another scene of pure innocence in which children don unicorn costumes. The automatic light of their blissful, hopeful ignorance also dulls but does not eradicate the hardship.
While we struggle to say we enjoyed the physical experience of watching Breathtaking – how do you love something that dredges up the anxiety and pain we all experienced in some way or another? – it is, without a doubt, a brilliant watch.
Breathtaking premieres on Monday, February 19 at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
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TV writer, Digital Spy Janet completed her Masters degree in Magazine Journalism in 2013 and has continued to grow professionally within the industry ever since. For six years she honed her analytical reviewing skills at the Good Housekeeping institute eventually becoming Acting Head of Food testing. She also freelanced in the field of film and TV journalism from 2013-2020, when she interviewed A-List stars such as Samuel L Jackson, Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. In 2021 she joined Digital Spy as TV writer where she gets to delve into more of what she loves, watching copious amounts of telly all in the name of work. Since taking on the role she has conducted red carpet interviews with the cast of Bridgerton, covered the BAFTAs and been interviewed by BBC Radio and London Live. In her spare time she also moonlights as a published author, the book Gothic Angel.
