Warning - there are some minor spoilers as I can't discuss the series without giving examples which necessarily must refer to the story.
The very bad: Anachronisms and outright falsehoods about medical treatment.
The anachronism: ECT wasn't performed until 1938. Okay, forgivable, but:
The series seems to have done 'research' for ECT based on "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Yet ECT is still used today, albeit with anaesthesia and muscle relaxants. It is a relatively safe and often beneficial last-resort treatment for severe depression, among other forms of mental illness.
The hero might have pointed out pain or the risk of broken bones, not just lectured his prof about cruelty. The intent was not to be cruel and there WERE conditions that responded to treatment.
In other words, if the standards of the public and this series towards ECT were applied toward surgery. nobody would have surgery today solely because in the past, surgery was done without anaesthesia (and also muscle relaxants.)
The quite bad:
The ending. Oh, dear. The villain was almost camp in his clunky dialogue, written with a great deal of condescension towards the audience (we need not just hints or allusions, a virtual two by four has to be applied to our heads.)
The characters: doctor character and his med school prof - oh please, the latter is absurdly stupid and backward, and his student, Liebermann, so insufferably smug and perfect and superior, I am almost starting to side with the prof.
Liebermann copping a stare at a patient when she is being undressed by nurses wasn't a foreshadow of a love story, it was creepy and made him unlikable.
The good.
Okay, so why the six. Because there is enough to make me want to see a second episode, it's a great premise, Vienna is an atmospheric city, and the period is an interesting time to examine. But yours truly has a short fuse and it is lit.
The very bad: Anachronisms and outright falsehoods about medical treatment.
The anachronism: ECT wasn't performed until 1938. Okay, forgivable, but:
The series seems to have done 'research' for ECT based on "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Yet ECT is still used today, albeit with anaesthesia and muscle relaxants. It is a relatively safe and often beneficial last-resort treatment for severe depression, among other forms of mental illness.
The hero might have pointed out pain or the risk of broken bones, not just lectured his prof about cruelty. The intent was not to be cruel and there WERE conditions that responded to treatment.
In other words, if the standards of the public and this series towards ECT were applied toward surgery. nobody would have surgery today solely because in the past, surgery was done without anaesthesia (and also muscle relaxants.)
The quite bad:
The ending. Oh, dear. The villain was almost camp in his clunky dialogue, written with a great deal of condescension towards the audience (we need not just hints or allusions, a virtual two by four has to be applied to our heads.)
The characters: doctor character and his med school prof - oh please, the latter is absurdly stupid and backward, and his student, Liebermann, so insufferably smug and perfect and superior, I am almost starting to side with the prof.
Liebermann copping a stare at a patient when she is being undressed by nurses wasn't a foreshadow of a love story, it was creepy and made him unlikable.
The good.
Okay, so why the six. Because there is enough to make me want to see a second episode, it's a great premise, Vienna is an atmospheric city, and the period is an interesting time to examine. But yours truly has a short fuse and it is lit.