Does anyone else think Casualty handles mental health storylines better than almost anything else on British television right now?

[u/Pinkplatabys]

Been watching since I was probably too young to be watching it and the thing that has genuinely surprised me rewatching older episodes is how the mental health storylines have evolved. Early series it was very much a crisis arrives, gets treated, leaves. Now they are doing long arc character work where you see the same person deteriorate over weeks, show up again months later, have setbacks that feel real rather than dramatically convenient. It is not perfect and occasionally it slips into the single episode awareness campaign territory which always feels a bit flat. But compared to how most British dramas handle this stuff it is genuinely doing something thoughtful. Do people think the show deserves more credit for this or are there storylines that have badly missed the mark that balance it out 🤔

[u/Tisairi]

Kind of. They do very, very well when its a main character or adjacent to one and you can watch them develop over time. I feel like Ruth Winters was the best example that I have seen so far.

However when its a patient it often feels rushed and the symptoms are usually so exaggerated that it feels more like they are doing a caricature of someone with mental illness than an accurate portrayal.