The Netflix series is set in a hospital in Valencia. Breathless In “The 4000,” a group of residents fight their way through the public health system to get their licenses, and try to have fun from time to time. Alternatively called Breathe, The eight-parter is a bit like Grey’s Anatomy about elite with a handful 24 hours in the emergency room.
The Spanish soap opera and crime series throws us straight into the operating room. It’s all familiar: pale blue surgical gowns, scalpels, beeping machines, a bit of bare skin under a canopy of surgical drapes. Except that outside in the corridors, a desperate strike is brewing as the clock counts down to midnight.
One of the hot doctors – like eliteAt the Las Encinas private school, everyone at the Joaquín Sorolla Hospital is on edge – they have to decide whether to break the picket line and continue operating or sew up the patient with the tumor still present. It’s a big drama.
Then we jump back two months, when the MGMT needle drops and the natural beauty of Spain reminds us that times were a little better back then. Our lead character Biel (eliteManu Ríos (born April 27) arrives for his shift at the hospital, and people keep commenting on how good-looking he is. As one does.
Within ten minutes of the pilot episode, Biel takes off his shirt to change clothes without explaining how a doctor-in-training had time to build a 12-pack. During his shift, he takes care of a Valencian government official who joins the chorus of characters telling him he’s handsome. After another bout of inappropriate behavior, Biel notices she has a lump in her breast.
If it is not yet clear, Breathless is not very realistic. For one thing, Valencia feels a bit like Desperate Housewives‘s Wisteria Lane, where everyone knows everyone or is connected in one way or another.
The hospital residents have come together in a place where they have jointly adopted the mantra that all work and no play Breathless a boring show. So in addition to the exhausting work in the emergency room, there are shifts with hangovers, beach parties, chemsex and fear of STDs.
If this all sounds more like high school stuff than a frenetic episode of Shades of greyDon’t worry, all of this contributes to the feeling that the emergency room has overworked hospital staff dancing on the edge of a cliff. Over the course of the episodes, some of them fall off.
The sight of a public health system on the brink of collapse is sadly familiar to us, but in this world where actors are as interconnected as stops on a subway map, but there is neither time nor staff to save everyone, the sight is made even more frightening.
Residents keep calling qualified doctors for help, but are told they are too busy to come. When a medical disaster occurs, it is clear how exactly the tragedy occurred – and why this strike is happening months later.
This is not the best incentive to put on a gown yourself, and if you are particularly squeamish, this may not be the right thing for you. Similar to Grey’s maintains the blood supply to the props department, Breathless Cuts from slashed scalps and blades slicing into gaping wounds to gloved hands rummaging around in stunned bodies.
With stakes soaring to life and death, the show is quite exhausting. The Sorolla Hospital is a chaos of human activity, with staff running from room to room. A lot is happening; some of the disparate storylines and characters could have been left out.
It is not entirely clear who Breathless is for. elite‘S The army of young adults will likely be put off by the politics and bloodshed, while die-hard fans of medical crime series will laugh out loud at some of the plot contrivances.
But fans of Grey’s Anyone looking for a refreshing series with a similar soap opera quality will enjoy this melodrama, and with only eight episodes, the barrier to entry is much lower than with the Shonda show, which has now run for 20 seasons.
Breathless can be streamed on Netflix from August 30th.
Deputy TV Editor
Previously TV reporter at The mirrorRebecca now produces expert analyses of the television landscape for Digital Spywhen she is not busy talking on BBC or Times Radio about everything from the last season of Bridgerton or The White Lotus to the chaos that is unfolding in the various Love Island Villas.
When she’s not binge-watching TV, Rebecca can be seen in the wild on the red carpets of the National TV Awards and BAFTAs, or in post-match explainer videos on the reality TV shows we all watch.
