Against this backdrop comes Pulse, a pilot for a planned BBC3 series that takes the hospital setting of shows like Casualty and uses it as a springboard for a visceral, blood-soaked and sometimes blackly comic horror-drama. In fact, Pulse is quite possibly the most gory television show in BBC history. Director James Hawes seldom pulls his punches, with every throbbing vein, pulsating internal organ and gout of arterial spray depicted in hideous detail. Pulse is a show with a single-minded determination to unsettle and disturb, with a graphic surgery scene setting the tone for an hour of visceral and often wince-inducing moments of medical horror. Surgeon ex-boyfriend Nick (played by Stephen Campbell Moore), an accident-prone surgeon whose murky role in the drama is only partly elaborated, provides an assured counterpoint to Hannah’s wide-eyed innocence, but the real villain of the piece is the hospital itself, a bleak, echoing, chipboard cavern of a place whose bleached anonymity will immediately be familiar to anyone who’s ever spent time in a UK medical ward. As a pilot, Pulse is written, directed and acted with genuine surety, and concludes on a note that will leave you begging the BBC to commission a full series. After a string of one-note and often ill-advised comedy pilots on BBC3, it’s refreshing to see the Auntie putting its faith in a comparatively fresh new premise. Pulse will be screening on June 3rd on BBC3. Find more information on the show’s Facebook page here.
