Critical: Between Life and Death Review 2025 Tv Show Series Cast Crew Online
Netflix may feel like the king of the TV universe, but many of its most popular programmes were created and produced by British broadcasters who took all the initial risks. Top Boy and Black Mirror were Channel 4 shows before the streamer snapped them up. And there may be some people enjoying the Red Riding trilogy without realising that, yep, it’s a Channel 4 programme too.
Critical: Between Life and Death is a new Netflix series about life in London’s four big hospital trauma centres made by the same independent production company that has given us multiple series of 24 Hours in A&E on — it’s them again — Channel 4.
But with 24 Hours now looking a little long in the tooth (it started life in 2011), this new production has snapped at the chance of rivalling the venerable broadcaster for factual entertainment.
Some of the doctors featured on the new show are even 24 Hours veterans and it is, in key respects, a very similar programme, albeit executed with added flair and — let’s be honest — a noticeable amount of extra West Coast wonga that makes for a slicker, faster-paced and irresistible watch.
A dramatic opening episode charting the fallout from a horrific fairground accident when a ride malfunctioned in Brockwell Park, south London, employs the same 24 Hours-style combination of post-event reflections combined with scenes from the heat of the action, as two sets of patients receive urgent care.
They are a grandfather, who appeared to have thrown himself in front of his young charge when a huge speaker was about to land on them, and a couple called Alison and Nick, who experienced horrific facial and head injuries.
Securing access in medical documentaries is crucial. And, while I won’t spoil any outcomes, it is usually a safe bet that those people who give permission for some of the worst moments of their lives to be packaged up into a TV show tend to have pulled through (although it is shocking when they don’t).
These sorts of programmes live or die in the editing suite, and the production team has done a fantastic job, distilling hundreds of hours of footage with breathtaking elan. Little moments, such as when the trauma consultant Lala suggests consulting X to get a better handle on what happened at the fairground when information was sketchy and time was short, beautifully showcased the need for speed in a life-saving fight.
The scenes of medical care were pretty graphic too, with bodily incisions, bloody faces and, in poor Alison’s case, her incoherent moanings as doctors feared the worst. In quieter moments, Lala, a deeply impressive woman of diminutive stature, reflected on the toll of her work, the difficulties of being away from her children as well as the reactions of patients when “the shortest person at the end of the bed is actually the person who is in charge”.
Money has also clearly been spent on the music — the dramatic melodies as doctors frantically get to work, the tinkly piano of the reflective passages. It’s beautifully done, even the many drone shots of the London skyline — a cliché in much factual programming now. Only thing is, you feel it’s been done before.
