The first season of Critical Condition has arrived in the US, available to audiences on Amazon Prime and Roku. It’s wonderful to see the positive response from American viewers as encapsulated in the recent New York Times review below:
” [Critical Condition] is the British version of this kind of nonfiction storytelling: fast-paced, riveting, grounded. It shows what for many patients and their families is the worst day of their lives but for health care workers is just an ordinary day — one of hundreds of times they’ve delivered terrible news, saved a life or caught a mistake. So far, only one four-episode season of the show is streaming here (on Roku and Amazon Prime Video), and it’s fantastic.
The show is filmed at Royal Stoke University Hospital, in Staffordshire, England, and it follows cases that start in the emergency room. One of our anchors is Dr. Chris Pickering, sort of our Mark Green if this were “ER.” The moment a patient’s pulse returns thanks to CPR, everything changes, he says: “No longer are you dealing with a dead patient you’re trying to bring back to life. You’re dealing with a live patient you’re trying to stop dying.” It’s the kind of line most doctor shows would kill to have, one of many on the show that leaps out for its poetry and practicality. I was crying by the first-act break and spent the next four hours rapt.”