--- title: "Bodies" year: 2004 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/bodies" fi1m_id: "bodies" imdb_id: "tt0398427" tmdb_id: 2371 wikidata_id: "Q4936576" fi1m_score: 84 critics_score: 73 critics_reviews: 4 published: "2026-09-17" updated: "2026-09-20T21:16:51.584732+00:00" region: "PE" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Bodies (2004) Created by Jed Mercurio · 1h 00m · Drama ## Identity Bodies - **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/bodies - **Type:** Series - **Fi1m ID:** bodies - **IMDb ID:** tt0398427 - **TMDB ID:** 2371 - **Wikidata ID:** Q4936576 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398427/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/2371, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4936576 **Fi1m score: 84** · Critics 73 (early) from 4 reviews *In a sentence:* A hospital drama in which asking for the consultant is not necessarily an improvement > A hospital drama worth braving for Patrick Baladi’s frighteningly plausible consultant. Jed Mercurio’s writing sometimes wanders into workplace romance, but its account of medical failure earns the distress it causes. ## Synopsis On an obstetrics and gynaecology ward, medical mistakes become entangled with the relationships between the people responsible for patients’ care. Doctors and nurses negotiate professional loyalties, personal affairs and decisions about how to respond when something goes wrong. Max Beesley plays Rob Lake, Patrick Baladi plays Roger Hurley, and Keith Allen plays Tony Whitman. Created and written by Jed Mercurio, the series follows a workplace where failures of communication and judgement can have consequences beyond the staff involved. The cast also includes Tamzin Malleson as Polly Grey and Neve McIntosh as Donna Rix. ## Review Created and written by Jed Mercurio, *Bodies* makes a hospital ward frightening without needing anyone to behave like a villain. This is an absorbing, often upsetting series, with performances good enough to carry its occasional lapses into soap. The obstetrics and gynaecology setting puts responsibility for other people’s bodies into unusually sharp focus. Mercurio concentrates on the dreadful possibility that the person entrusted with that responsibility may be bad at the job, and that everyone nearby still has a working day to get through. Patrick Baladi’s Roger Hurley is the crucial performance: an incompetent consultant played without a reassuring label telling us to hate him. Baladi makes us look for danger in ordinary professional behaviour, where a more emphatic performance would let us spot it at once. He avoids the familiar hospital tyrant who announces himself with every entrance, and the lack of warning is disturbing. We were horrified by the medical blunders, and Baladi’s matter-of-fact playing made them harder to bear. Mercurio’s writing is sharpest about the difficulty of recognising a problem and then doing something useful about it. Miscommunication and friction between colleagues have consequences here; they cannot be tidied away as background business while the doctors get on with saving lives. That gives the moral dilemmas weight without requiring us to admire everyone caught in them. The series understands how readily a workplace can make a reasonable person concentrate on surviving the shift rather than questioning the way things are done. Max Beesley plays Rob Lake and Keith Allen plays Tony Whitman, in an ensemble whose naturalistic acting gives the ward a convincing sense of people obliged to keep working together. Nobody needs to be likeable for that to hold our attention. The strength of the performances is that the characters’ disagreements feel like problems they must live with, rather than opportunities to deliver a speech. Even the quieter exchanges carry the pressure of having consequences beyond the conversation. Under directors John Strickland, Iain B. MacDonald and Douglas Mackinnon, the series is most effective when it lets unease develop slowly. The pace gives us time to consider the harm that poor communication can do, without an emergency supplying all the tension. The graphic medicine is difficult to watch, but it would be easier to shrug off without those slower stretches. The direction trusts the actors to keep us watching when there is nothing immediately shocking on screen. The weakness is the handling of the affairs between doctors and nurses. They belong in a programme about colleagues whose private and professional lives overlap, but the changes of emphasis can make the storytelling feel untidy. At times, attending to a relationship seems to interrupt a more difficult and more interesting conversation about the work. These detours do not always repay the attention they demand, particularly when the malpractice already gives the characters so much to contend with. Hospital dramas often offer competence as a consolation: the day may be awful, but somebody knows what to do. *Bodies* asks us to sit with the possibility that professional standing is no guarantee of that competence. Allow for the wandering relationship plots, and we recommend it for the performances and the seriousness with which it treats preventable harm. Perhaps not on the evening before a hospital appointment. *Fi1m score 84, published 17 September 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Bodies worth watching?** *Bodies* is worth watching for anyone who can bear an upsetting hospital drama about medical incompetence, and we scored it 84. Patrick Baladi's consultant is the reason to watch: an incompetent doctor played without any signal telling us to hate him. The affairs between doctors and nurses are the weak part, and they sometimes interrupt the more interesting story about the work. **How long is Bodies, and what is it rated?** *Bodies* has episodes of about 1h 00m. It is a drama series. **Where can I watch Bodies in Peru?** *Bodies* is not on any streaming or rental service in Peru at the moment. It is available in 4 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How violent or frightening is Bodies, and is it suitable for children?** *Bodies* carries a UK 18 certificate and is not suitable for children. The medicine is graphic and difficult to watch, and the series dwells on preventable harm to patients on an obstetrics and gynaecology ward. The squeamish, and anyone with a hospital appointment coming up, should think twice. **How does Bodies compare to A Separation?** *Bodies* and [*A Separation*](https://film.one/film/a-separation) both watch decent people become unreliable when responsibility for someone's care goes wrong, but one is a British hospital series and the other an Iranian family drama. *A Separation* is the tighter and fairer of the two; *Bodies* is the more frightening, and its relationship subplots wander. Choose the film for moral argument, the series for professional dread. **What should I watch after Bodies?** After *Bodies*, try [*A Separation*](https://film.one/film/a-separation) (2011, Fi1m 93): A dispute over care reveals how quickly decent people become unreliable witnesses. Then [*This Is Going to Hurt*](https://film.one/tv/this-is-going-to-hurt) (2022, Fi1m 84): Obstetrics, exhaustion and bad decisions, with more jokes but no easy reassurance. ### Reviews we read (4) - **The Guardian** (70/100, inferred): The critic calls Bodies a compulsively gory and plausible medical drama about malpractice on an obs-gyn ward, with strong performances especially from Patrick Baladi as the incompetent consultant. It is described as brilliantly dark and one of the best unfunny series yet from BBC3, though it may leave viewers yearning for lighter fare. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2004/nov/14/features.review57) - **The Times** (70/100, inferred): The review highlights Bodies as a bleakly watchable drama about a malpractice-prone obstetrics and gynaecology ward, mixing acronyms, human error, moral dilemmas and doctor-nurse affairs in a more potent blend than typical hospital shows, with an authentic bleak undertone from former doctor Jed Mercurio. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/your-life-in-their-very-slippery-hands-vp2ctcrlbkp) - **Variety**, Brian Lowry (70/100, inferred): The series is slow-moving yet absorbing, soapy and occasionally disjointed, but delivers through uneasy moments of quiet tension and natural performances that capture the consequences of miscommunications and office politics in a hospital setting. [Read](https://variety.com/2005/scene/markets-festivals/bodies-1200521505/) - **Den of Geek**, Louisa Mellor (85/100, inferred): The critic calls the 2004 series an excellent, unflinching medical drama and real horror that stands out for its graphic surgical scenes and honest portrayal of hospital staff as flawed professionals dealing with malpractice, incompetence, and institutional pressures rather than saintly figures. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/bodies-excellent-medical-drama-not-for-the-faint-hearted/) ## Details - **Created by:** Jed Mercurio - **Creator:** Jed Mercurio - **Director:** John Strickland, Iain B. MacDonald, Douglas Mackinnon - **Writer:** Jed Mercurio - **Producer:** Mark Redhead - **Cast:** Max Beesley as Rob Lake; Patrick Baladi as Roger Hurley; Keith Allen as Tony Whitman; Tamzin Malleson as Polly Grey; Simon Lowe as Tim Sibley; Susan Lynch as Maria Orton; Vicky Hall as Chrissy Farrell; Preeya Kalidas as Maya Dutta - **Runtime:** 1h 00m - **Release (Peru):** 23 May 2004 - **Genres:** Drama ## Where to watch in Peru Not streaming, renting or buying in Peru at the last check. Also available in: AU, GB, IE, NZ. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Cardiac Arrest* (1994): Another hospital workplace where professional survival competes with the business of treating patients. - *The Death of Mr Lazarescu* (2005): One patient’s care exposes the exhaustion and indifference of an entire system. - *The Hospital* (1971): Hospital dysfunction turns savage and absurd, with little comfort from the people in charge. - *A Separation* (2011), Fi1m 93: A dispute over care reveals how quickly decent people become unreliable witnesses. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/a-separation.md) - *This Is Going to Hurt* (2022), Fi1m 84: Obstetrics, exhaustion and bad decisions, with more jokes but no easy reassurance. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/this-is-going-to-hurt.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/bodies