There are many things that the BBC are very good (no scandalous hidden meanings to be read from this, please!) but one of the best, in my opinon, is their TV dramas.
I’ve recently been hooked on their latest, In the Club . Six women with all very different backgrounds become friends at a ‘Parent Craft’ class, and the series explores their pregnancy woes as well as their struggles to conceal their dirty secrets. Each episode focuses on one of the women and the struggles they are facing ultimately leading up to the birth where in most cases, equilibrium is restored. I think one of the things BBC does really well is create an ending where there is still lots left unsaid. In the Club certainly didn’t answer all my questions or fulfil my want for these characters to have a happy ending, because in the circumstances of the storylines, it would just be unrealistic.
However, for what seems like months, there have been snippets of a new drama about the life of a female army solider which I have been really excited to see.
The first episode of Our Girl finally aired on Sunday at 9pm. The first dilemma in our household was that it also clashed with the return of Downton Abbey on ITV. Not really being much of a Downton fan myself, I argued I’d have to watch the earlier series first before I could start getting into this series. Having Our Girl aired at the same time indicates, I think, that there is going to be some stiff competition for viewers on a Sunday night.
Two things that really drew me to this new series was my fascination for the actress Lacey Turner. Being an embarrassingly passionate fan of Eastenders, I’ve been hooked on the characters she portrays ever since the days of the Max Branning scandal. I think she is a fantastic actress who can really play the down-to-earth, working class woman really well.
Secondly, the music used to accompany the advert playing over the last few weeks happens to be one of my favourite songs, Youth – Daughter, so it seemed almost fate that I should watch it. This is not my usual type of music but there’s just something addictive about this song for me.
It took about 20 minutes for me to get really engrossed into what was going on, but after that I was hooked. Molly (Lacey Turner) is posted to Afghanistan shortly after qualifying as an army medic. Whether true to life or not, it shows her struggles to fit into a very male-dominated world, and the discrimination she suffers. Having no personal insight into the army myself, this was something that had never occurred to me and which I took quite hard. It also takes the perspective of a female’s empathic nature which still reigns over even in such a war-broken setting. It is this quality, so often devoid in war settings due to the nature of “the job”, which wins over the fellow male soldiers and the episode ends with the social acceptance of Molly into their squad.
At first, I was disappointed that they had cast Molly as a medic because it stereotypes the female role as that of a nurse or carer. It was perhaps because I have very little knowledge on the subject because Molly risks her life as much as the other male soldiers, accompanying them on the front line and being on hand should one of them need her life-saving skills.
I am not at all to judge on whether the depiction of the army was accurate, but as a drama series I think it does an excellent job of drawing on aspects of human nature and weaving these into the story line. Of course, there’s the to-be-expected love triangle that is beginning to emerge, in true dramatic style.
It wasn’t until after I had finished watching it last Sunday that I realised I had seen the “prequel” to this a year or so ago, a one off special which sees Molly in the training stages of her army career whilst battling an uneasy home life. A definite watch if it can be found anywhere!
Enough of my rambling (as per)! I have a few more posts planned for the next week, all very different from one another again!
Thanks for sticking with it, and reading what always turns out to be much longer than what I’ve planned.
Jasmine x
Journal of a Million Beginnings 