TV Blog: Pulse

Blog by Chris Lindsay | 14 Jun 2010

Hello faithful viewer.

Sorry for the break in transmission. The TV reviews have got a little backlogged as I've been deep in deadlineland on my own scripts. Recently I have been watching Pulse (BBC Three).

As part of their remit to encourage new drama, BBC Three occasionally runs a series of one-off pilots with the plan to take the most popular ones to a full series. The first up of this year’s offerings is Pulse, a horror set in a training hospital, and focusing on a group of student doctors who get caught up in a grizzly supernatural conspiracy.

Hospital horror is one of the biggest “no-nos” in mainstream TV. It seems Joe and Jenny Public want the telly to sooth and reassure them about going under the knife, so kudos to the commissioners who were willing to take the risk of turning the cosiest environment on the box seriously nasty. Refreshing in its lack of irony – something every horror show has felt obliged to give us since Buffy – the show also marks highly for providing a decent depiction of UK student life, something that is sorely lacking on our screens.

My only real disappointment was that being a pilot, there is no second episode coming, but hopefully public response will be strong enough to see the show go to a full series. While I can't image what shape the show would take week to week, the pieces of the story arc we are given appear to have enough meat (and blood and gore) to keep us on the edge of our seats and wary of a trip to A&E for a good long while.

There are two more pilots being launched in this current series and I'll be covering them over the next few blogs – I promise! If you hurry, Pulse can still be viewed on the iplayer until Tuesday 15 June.