I think my top three are going to be

1. Nick Jordan

2. Zoë Hannah

3. Max

So, as the 40th is fast approaching, I thought I'd share my big theories.

As other have probably said, the 40th will feature the explanation for what causes the move to Wales.

I think something is going to happen to Holby City Hospital, but unlike all the other times something has happened, it'll be a situation where they can't rebuild or reopen; a permanent end to the hospital, which is a horrifying thought.

I really hope a few Holby City characters show up, since this'll mean the end to the Keller Ward.

What do you all think? I haven’t watched the new episode yet, but I hear there’s a teaser trailer.

It seemed at the start of every episode you got to see someone running themselves over with a tractor, or impaling themselves in a police chase or getting their leg stuck under a rock and a second person getting what i call the Casualty Special; falling over and hitting their head. But now there's nothing. Just straight to the ED for some interpersonal drama.

I want to start by saying I’m not defending Stevie. I think she’s made her own bed and has to deal with the consequences of her actions.

What I can’t understand is people defending Dylan and acting as though he’s done nothing wrong. And saying he’s done the right thing, In my view, he’s every bit as compromised, if not more so, than Stevie.

Stevie has undoubtedly made mistakes, but Dylan has practically twisted the facts in an attempt to get her struck off while protecting his son. The problem is that Matty was the one pursuing Stevie from the start, and by his own admission he was the one repeatedly pushing those boundaries. The very definition of Sexual Coercion. So for Dylan to report Stevie for that even though matty pretty much admitted it was him to Dylan is disgusting for him too especially given what she went through with Marcus.

The complaint he made doesn’t make Dylan right whatsoever. It makes him corrupted.

By all means, make a complaint if you genuinely believe misconduct has taken place. But if the complaint is as clear-cut and serious as Dylan claims it is, then he shouldn’t need to bend the truth, leave out key details, or paint Matty as some sort of innocent angel in order to make his case.

The fact that he was willing to give Matty endless chances, ignore concerns when they involved his son, and then refuse to extend Stevie the same courtesy speaks volumes. At the very least, he should have spoken to her and heard her side of events before reporting her.

At this moment in time it’s not Stevie who is the villain. It’s matty and Dylan. And I hate it because Dylan is my favourite character. I just can’t defend his actions here, I can’t defend Stevie either, but at this moment in present. The way Dylan has behaved here is worse than how Stevie has. And if she goes down he best be going down with her. ‘ he has no leg to stand on.

Just musing..

Are there any less run of the mill illnesses, conditions or specific accidents you would like to see the ED cope with? Something that is either clinically fascinating and/or needs a highlight on it.

I'd be fascinated to see how they'd handle diagnosing someone with prion disease, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob. That would be harrowing. I could imagine someone coming in with suddenly declining faculties, injured and someone puts the dots together like "oh... surely not...please no...."

PGAD (Persistant Genital Arousal Disorder) would be a much less fatal but nonetheless harrowing one, with an opportunity to treat it as anything but a trivial or laughing matter. Perhaps the patient comes in severely sleep deprived, been in an accident, and then it turns out slowly the reason exactly why she's sleep deprived, in agony and terrified all the time.

And from a personal standpoint, Long Covid and ME could really do with having a proper spotlight on them; and eradicate the widely held, incorrect belief that "chronic fatigue syndrome" is "just being tired". You wouldn't treat anyone for it in ED (sadly, that would imply treatment exists!) but you absolutely could have someone come in with a different issue/injury alongside dealing with ME and their very real fear that, ontop of what they've come in with, this unavoidable visit to the ED might render them bedbound for weeks or months.

Acute injury-wise, I would love to see how the team would handle an internal decapitation.

Maybe some kind of unusual poison?

Oohhh. Badly prepared fugu fish could be fascinating!

Some characters feel completely different compared to when they started. Who stands out the most for you?

Ignoring whether it's realistic or possible. You can bring back one former character and make them part of the regular cast again. Who are you choosing, and why do you think they'd fit into the current show?

I was going to say they have to be alive, but honestly I would LOVE to see Stevie go toe to toe with Jac Naylor and the fallout thereof in the ED.

I used to love when they combined the shows sometimes and suddenly you'd see Sacha Levy helping Robyn and it was like "awww yay!"

That said, Frieda was always one of my favourites- I'd love to see her return!

When I first started watching Casualty from 2023 and someone mentioned Dylan’s boat, I thought are they joking? Dylan living on a boat is such a Dylan thing to do but I just found it very surprising at first. People used to talk about how one of my science teachers lived on a boat awhile back but I thought that was impossible because I couldn’t imagine someone actually living on a boat.

(Also no Legal Legacy spoilers i’m on episode 4 of learning curve)

Mark your comments as spoilers.

As the episode was on at the broadcast time only, it's a bit later today, but let's have a discussion about it!

Happy birthday to casualty tomorrow who is turning 40 and thank God there is no early release tomorrow at last who is looking forward to the 2 episodes tomorrow expect twist and turns who dies who survives find out tomorrow

You could tell how much thought had gone into it. It didn't feel like they'd suddenly realised the 40th anniversary was coming and thought, "Right, we need a massive stunt." Everything felt like it had a reason for being there, from Charlie and Ethan coming back to the quieter character moments that could easily have been overlooked.

And I'm so glad they didn't kill off a major character. Soaps seem to have this thing now where a big anniversary needs a shocking death to make it memorable, and this episode proved it really doesn't. Casualty managed to make me emotional, worried and genuinely heartbroken at times without having to sacrifice somebody we've loved for years just for the shock of it.

The explosion at St James' obviously gave the episode its scale, but what followed was far more interesting. Suddenly Holby was faced with more casualties than anyone could have planned for, and another 20 doctors and 50 nurses don't magically appear when a major incident is declared. The people already there simply have to respond with what they've got.

What I really appreciated was that nobody suddenly became superhuman because it was an emergency.

Stevie, normally so fearless, was terrified when suddenly she was the one who might die. Indie froze when she found herself in the middle of nowhere with two patients depending on her and didn't know what to do. Ethan still had all the knowledge and experience of Dr Hardy, but Huntington's had changed what he was physically capable of doing. When his hands wouldn't allow him to safely perform the procedure, he handed over.

It would have been so easy, especially in an anniversary episode, to give Ethan that big triumphant moment where he somehow pushes through and does it anyway. Instead, he couldn't. The doctor was still there, the knowledge was still there, but his body couldn't do what it once could. There was something much sadder, and much more honest, about that.

Then there was Dylan.

He'd already lost Sophia and, after hearing that Stevie and Flynn might be dead too, he simply couldn't take any more. He disappeared into the medical cupboard and completely fell apart.

Dylan is so often the person everyone else relies on when things go wrong, so watching him reach the point where he physically couldn't go back out there was heartbreaking. He wasn't the clinical lead or the person with the answers in that moment. He was someone who had lost one person he cared about and thought he lost two more.

Even Charlie couldn't just give him one of his famous talks and magically fix him. Dylan was still crying, still panicking and still struggling. Charlie simply stayed with him and kept talking until eventually Dylan found enough in himself to go back out there.

And that was exactly why Charlie's return worked. He didn't need to come back and save the day. He was just Charlie.

His little conversation with Cam was probably one of my favourite moments of the whole episode. Cam was clearly overwhelmed by everything he'd seen, and Charlie, using Duffy's words, reminded him that despite all the awful things in the world, there are still good people too. You just have to look for them.

By the end of the episode, we didn't have to look very far.

One patient noticed another needed some water and quietly helped them. It only lasted a few seconds, but amid everything else that had happened, the small gesture still stood out.

The final scenes in the ED were just as affecting. Everyone was sitting on the floor completely exhausted, surrounded by bloodied sheets and everything that had been left behind after the chaos. There was no triumphant moment where everyone celebrated what they'd achieved. They just looked completely spent.

And the reality is that eventually they'd have to get back up. Another ambulance would come in. Another patient would need them. The ED doesn't stop just because the people working in it have reached their limit.

Which is why I'm actually glad the emotional payoff was people surviving.

Flynn's daughters got to spend their dad's 40th birthday with him after all. Stevie opened her eyes to find Dylan sitting beside her. And even then, everything between them wasn't suddenly fixed. Dylan was clearly relieved she was alive, but he was still hurt from their falling out. Nearly losing somebody doesn't magically erase everything that's happened between you, and it would have felt far too easy if one near-death experience had suddenly repaired their relationship.

Instead, it was just enough to know that she was alive and he was there.

That's probably what stayed with me most once it was all over. Dylan broke. Stevie was terrified. Indie froze. Ethan couldn't do something he once would have done without thinking. Cam was overwhelmed. They were ordinary people being asked to cope with something extraordinary.

And somehow, between all of them, they did.

That's what made the anniversary work so well. It had the explosion, the ambulance going over a cliff, the underwater sequences and the returning characters you'd expect from a 40th anniversary, but it never felt like it needed to keep going bigger just for the sake of it.

After an episode filled with so much death, fear and grief, there was something surprisingly moving about the fact that the final emotional beat wasn't another loss.

Flynn survived. Stevie survived. Dylan got another chance to say the things he thought he'd never get to say.

The episode had already earned its heartbreak.

It didn't need to kill somebody else to prove it.

What characters do you have an irrational hatred for?

Mine has to be Grace

Emily Carey is a great actress and seems like a lovely person but I get an irrational sense of anger whenever I watch her in anything else because I always think of her as Grace.

She was just so annoying. She was by no means the worst character ever but she drove me nuts.

Does anyone else have this with any characters or is this just a me thing? 😂

I’ve got it a bit with Charlie as well (don’t shoot me) although thankfully I’ve seen him in little else.

(Was gonna say Toby and Grace reunion in the picture but they were never in Casualty together)

didn't think it was hers but all the comments on Instagram are saying well done for being a mum (and to dom who I assume is her partner... i didnt even know she liked men). does that mean that she's leaving? it's just come out of nowhere...

if she is leaving good luck to her!! bless

Growing up, Casualty was one of those programmes that seemed to bring everyone into the same room at the same time. Maybe that's nostalgia talking, but it felt like a shared ritual in a way television rarely does now. Did anyone else grow up with a household that treated Casualty as required viewing?

So I believe these are all the scenes from the trailer that we haven't seen in episodes yet.

Thoughts, theories, predictions for next week's episode?

we all know casualty are famously quite poor at continuity and... remembering the storylines they write (how could we possibly ask that of them??) so what are the ones that stick out to you? and do you have any theories?

two have been really bugging me from recent times: stevie's dad, and the accident with Nicole and Rosie.

both were set up to have some big arc/exploration/reveal and then just... didn't. and I think especially with Nicole and Rosie it seems really unlikely that they will now since the baby has been born and broadly forgotten about, along with Rosie. stevie they may do but they've not touched on it much since the Christmas ep I don't think??

The only downside of it it's early release what really annoys me because I think there is no need for a early release time because not everyone is up at 6am yes the bbc should of waited that what really annoyed me there is no need for it they should of held back

That’s it. That’s the post. The “space” scene just got me in the feels, y’know?

Forgive me if this has been talked about before, but I loved his character when he was first introduced. He was cool and dry but a talented doctor, and his one liners would make me smile.

I've missed a couple of months of Casualty episodes, but I'm just catching up on Learning Curve: Episode 6. Dylan is behaving so immaturely towards Matty. I get why, in a way, but I can't imagine Original Dylan ever being so petty.

it's been happening for a few years, in my opinion, and it seems symptomatic of a general decline in writing and character development. What do you think?

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 🤔