Doctor Foster Series 1 (2015) - Review

Starring: Suranne Jones, Bertie Carvel, Clare-Hope Ashitey & Jodie Corner

Written By: Mike Bartlett

Directed By: Tom Vaughan & Bruce Goodison

Certificate: 15

 

If you're a fan of prime-time TV dramas in the UK, then you'll definitely be aware of all the recognition that has greeted the BBC drama, Doctor Foster. With between seven and ten million viewers tuning in for each individual episode, Doctor Foster has become one of the most-watched new dramas of 2015. From the public, the show has received critical acclaim, winning the award for Best New Drama, and Suranne Jones winning the award for Best Serial Drama Performance, at the 2016 National Television Awards. So, is the show worthy of all the attention and acclaim it has received or is it somewhat overrated?

 

Doctor Foster focuses on the life and marriage of Dr. Gemma Foster, a widely respected family doctor, happily married and living with her husband, Simon, and their son Tom. However, Gemma's happy marriage slowly starts to be poisoned when she find clues that lead her to suspect her husband is having an affair. Desperate to know the truth, Gemma goes to a number of lengths to discover the truth about her husband. As a premise for a drama series, this is a solid, if somewhat unoriginal one.

 

One of the best things about the first episode is that we get to see the gradual transition between a happily married Gemma, and a broken-down and struggling to cope Gemma. Right at the start, we see Gemma's home life, relationships with her husband and young son and more, but once she discovers clues that point towards Simon's affair, such as lip balm and blonde hairs on his scarf, we start to see a physically upset Gemma as the idea of Simon cheating on her becomes more and more likely. This transition is aided by a brilliant combination of direction and music. The direction effectively emphasizes all the clues that point towards Simon's affair, and the soundtrack, while most of the time subtle, manages to escalate at moments of great tension. One unfortunate shame is that we don't have more time to see Gemma's marriage before it starts to get poisoned. If we had had time to see Gemma and Simon happily married for around the first twenty minutes, it probably could have made me feel even more sympathy for her when her relationship starts to fall apart.

 

Throughout the series, one of the constant highlights is Suranne Jones' performance as Gemma. Suranne Jones' spectacular performance helps to really show how the character is both strong, but also vulnerable. If nothing else, Jones' performance was certainly deserving of the National Television Award. Sadly, the actual character that Jones is playing isn't as much of a success. Personally, I found it hard to engage with her character as she frequently jumps from being sympathetic to being downright cruel. One of the most notable features of her character is her work as a doctor. Many times during the course of the series, we get to see this side of Gemma in full force, as she sees and treats several patients. However, towards the end of the series, the more grieving side of Gemma even decides to make the grief she is feeling into a competition with fellow doctor Jack Reynolds. Jack is both out of work, and had lost his partner, so when Gemma says to him “It's worse for me.”, this makes her come across as incredibly nasty. Several characters even tell Gemma that she is “arrogant” and that it's a “relief” when she leaves the room. Is it bad that I kind of agree with them? While this isn't true all the time, it certainly becomes a bigger problem as the series progresses. However, I will say that I'm glad Mike Bartlett made sure that Gemma wasn't an entirely perfect character, and give the series a “Perfect woman vs. Evil man” approach. There are several times when Gemma is shown to have her faults, such as when she also cheats on Simon by having sex with Neil. Not only does this help Gemma feel like more of a real person, but it makes for a much more interesting dynamic between her and Simon.

 

One quite significant problem with Doctor Foster is its portrayal of the central family. I mentioned earlier that we don't quite spend enough time focusing on Gemma's marriage and family before she learns of Simon's affair. To be honest though, the bits that we do see don't feel like anything special. There is a distinct lack of any unique personalities in both Gemma's family, as well as her friends. What do we really know about Simon other than the fact he's having an affair, and is involved in a dodgy building contract? What do we know about Tom other than the fact he's a football fan? This problem is the same for the Parks family and characters such as Anna and Neil – they have little to no personalities, and just feel bland.

 

Some of the messages and morals that Doctor Foster tries to tell its audience, feel like a mixed bag as well. Some messages concerning marriage work very well, as Doctor Foster does a wonderful job at showing just how damaging secrets and mistrust can be. One of the best and most thought-provoking bits of dialogue from the series comes from Gemma:

 

"There's two things. There's the mistake and then there's the lie to cover it up. And the mistake is a lot easier to forgive."

 

However, for great messages and lines of dialogue like this, there are other lines and attitudes that don't site well with me:

 

"It's been proven statistically, men all fancy 22 year-old women."

 

"All boys are their fathers."

 

Not only do I strongly disagree with these kind of messages, I'd go as far as to say that they are downright offensive. As a feminist, I can honestly say that I believe placing stereotypes like this on either gender is just wrong and should never happen. In a context as serious as this, making gender-wide stereotypes such as the ones above is incredibly damaging as lines like this can offend and/or isolate viewers.

 

As you've probably gathered, Doctor Foster is far from perfect and it does have several aspects that feel undercooked or out-of-context. However, many of these negative points get, to some extent, forgiven for everything that goes so well in Episode 5. In the final episode, all the unspoken truths come out in a nail-bitingly tense opening scene around the Parks' dinner table. Performances from every single actor around that dinner table are on form, with special mention definitely going to Suranne Jones. As Gemma finally gets her revenge, you really get a feeling of closure that justice is finally being done. Not to mention, Gemma feels like a complete force of nature, and somebody that you really wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of at that moment. This great opening scene opens the gates for even more wonderful moments throughout the final episode – where we finally get to see Gemma set things right, and in a very satisfying way.

 

So after all that, does Doctor Foster really deserve the widespread acclaim it has received? Not quite. I've probably been harsher than usual here, but I'll openly admit that it is a great, solid series, but its not really the best of 2015 in my opinion. While there are some spectacular performances here, particularly from Suranne Jones, and the series is often the nail-bitingly tense psychological drama you'd expect it to be, it has a fair number of faults as well. The lack of any distinctive characters, as well as some downright offensive stereotyping stop it from matching the quality of other great 2015 TV dramas such as Code of a Killer, An Inspector Calls and Prey. Shortly after this series concluded, the BBC announced that they had re-commissioned Doctor Foster for a second series. While this was undoubtedly done because of very strong viewing figures, I have my doubts if it'll be able to reach the quality of this series, as Gemma's story seems complete now. But that's for another time, and as it stands now, Doctor Foster is a good solid drama series that becomes devastating to watch as you see a happy marriage fatally poisoned.

 

Doctor Foster



7/10