Well happy Valentine's Day everybody, and what better way to celebrate the love of another than by settling down to watch Student Nurses: Bedpans and Bandages on ITV at 8.30pm? Nothing sets the mood like watching a nervous medical student stood in front of a camera crew like a rabbit in the headlights trying to explain why poor Mrs Scroggins' piles are weeping. Not a patch on 24 Hours in A&E on Channel 4 though. That has far more blood and guts than this and it's on after the watershed so they can swear and everything.
There'll more than likely be one or two gruesome injuries but the good stuff will no doubt be edited out. Making way for children with plant pots stuck on their heads bringing this about as close to 24 hours in A&E as Fireman Sam was to Towering Inferno.
Bedpans and Bandages follows a group of nurses in training as they go about their work focusing more on the stresses of being a nurse, as if that needed emphasising at all. I don't think there's anyone in the country that considers being a doctor or nurse to be in anyway an easy ride.
Weirdly enough it seems as if ITV are doing battle with ITV2, 3 and 4 in the ratings war, making it more of a ratings civil war. Now there's a show, ITV civil war. Ever wanted to see the cast of Corrie go up against the panel of Celebrity Juice? Well wait no more. I'd pay through the nose to see Ken Barlow and Keith Lemon go toe to toe in a cage match, Deirdre on the sidelines screaming for Ken to use the chair.
Personally I'm hoping this series of Bedpans runs out of steam halfway through, prompting the camera crew to start tripping discharged patients on the way out to make sure they have something else to film. Forget that, with the money ITV are putting behind this eight week waking nightmare they could stage a four lane motorway pile up. Complete with up turned livestock lorry and numerous actors playing the injured, those extras from Casualty must have some time on their hands.
Actually, that's probably a bit out of ITV's league. I'd rather leave it to the pro's from Channel 4.
