No Angels

I've tried to watch this series on a number of occasions, but it just grates horribly. The problem isn't the cartoony portrayal of the girls' working lives - that could be quite funny if it was done well. The real hole in the programme is where its heart should be.

These are not only nurses who care nothing for their patients, but "friends" who care nothing for each other. Their interactions are shallow, unpleasant and also pretty unrealistic. As one newspaper reviewer has said, it seems to have been written by someone who not only doesn't understand how women interact, but doesn't understand how human beings relate to each other. And even the most superficial show needs believable characters who the viewer can relate to.

Having watched the first episode expecting something fresh and original, I can hopefully do some good for the world and advise others to avoid this trash. Not only does it offend with it's "expose" on the nursing profession, it also manages to offer up a bunch of female characters with not one personality between them. Watching a four-headed monster-ladette show off with it's "we're so funny, we're so clever, look at us, aren't we naughty" fake empowerment of women...

I can only think that the creators of this show we're aiming for a "Sex In The City" type show. Instead, they have set television standards back by about twenty years. Not only did it fail to distinguish it's female leads from each other, there was hardly any story, anything interesting going on, nor were the characters appealing in any way. You can watch any Ibiza documentary if you want to see drunk women hitting on drunk men - Channel 4 what were you thinking? And I've not even gone into how awful the acting is...

'No Angels' is what passes for cutting edge modern TV drama - if you have little sense of taste. A supposedly hard-hitting portrait of the lives of young nurses, it achieves a portrayal that is never more than shallow, with lashings of sex compensating for the innate thinness of the drama. A heavy soundtrack of irrelevant (female) soul music makes a desperate claim to the attention of young hip (but brain-dead) women who would seem to be the target audience. Even the jokes about the sheer horror of life on the ward, and the black humour which enables the staff to cope, are neither funny nor truly sickening, just tasteless in a schoolboy-funny sort of way.

I recently re-watched Dennis Potter's classic 'The Singing Detective'. One of Potter's deliberate aims was to parody the hospital soap - but he also exceeded it, producing a vision that was true, grotesque, sexy (at least where Joanne Whalley was involved) and hilarious. Of course that work was a masterpiece on many levels. But 'No Angels', with its simple formula, aims low and misses. Sadly dull.

Its not set in London (or Manchester). Its based on the premise that nurses and doctors are not god like creatures. Lots of sex and very un PC. I mean nurses smoking cigarettes drinking to excess and having casual sex! Florence Nightingale this isn't.

If you have a traditional in your view of hospitals as genteel places, where silent beautiful nurses glide from bed to bed caring for ill grateful patents with a stoic handsome Dr on call 24 hours a day, then you will hate this. The nurses have lives outside the hospital! The patents are sick with visible illnesses! The staff are under resourced and under pressure! It deals with death, sex, incompetence and relationships. Its is enjoyable and well worth a look and because it isn't prime time it doesn't have the "pre watershed" censor that Casualty/Holby City do so it can be that bit more realistic.

These are real characters and after two series the actresses have got them to a T. They are incredibly real and you can see what motivates them to continue in a massively rewarding and then unrewarding vocation.

Apparently all the scenes are based on real life incidents. Obviously compressed into hour long episodes but never the less they are in the main realistic. Third series? A new main character perhaps but it would be very welcome.

I think this is a great series. It is about nurses but is not realistic yet it is still very good. The characters each have interesting and humours qualities and the situations they get up to are rude, funny and highly entertaining. i would not recommend it to serious nurses or children but it its entertaining for older viewers. The language and sex is fairy bad but no all programs should be bad language and sex free because it would be boring. So i think No Angels is very good.The music to it is great too, it is mainly women's soul music such as Diana Ross and Areatha Franklin.Hopefull they will make a few more series because it will be interesting to see how it develop's