Is this TV show accurate
Hi guys, welcome back, I hope you enjoyed last week’s blog and learned something new about the television industry.
Have you ever been watching your favorite medical show or true crime show and wondered how accurate this is; Are there any mistakes or inconsistencies with the story?
This week we will be discussing the accuracy of several medical shows and true crime shows.
GREY’S ANATOMY
It’s the most popular and longest-running medical show of all time, but how accurate is it?
According to Dr. Kailey Remien and Gail Saltz, the show itself is quite accurate. Dr. Remien claims, however, that the show fails to provide much detail about the specific cases, never explaining what the diagnosis is or why they are going to the OR.
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Dr. Saltz agrees, stating that most current cases are based on real procedures. However, some aspects have been dramatized for television, which sometimes makes those aspects of the cases inaccurate. To help with the accuracy of the show, executive producers and real-life doctors Zoanne Clark and Fred Einesman consult for the show. Clarke has been with the show since the beginning, writing many episodes, while Einesman joined the show in its 11th season.
When speaking to E-news, Einesman states, “We try to keep the medicine as close to real as possible,” stating that the show works with multiple different specialties and must rely on a variety of experts to make sure they’re getting things right.
And of course, I can’t forget about BokHee, the real-life scrub nurse on Grey’s Anatomy, who first worked in neurosurgery and cardiothoracic surgery even as she worked on the hit show.
ER
Before there was Grey’s Anatomy, there was ER.
ER first came out in the 1990s and was created by famed author and filmmaker, Michael Crichton. He originally wrote the script of ER based on his experience and extensive medical training at Harvard University.
The whole idea of the show, according to executive producer Christopher Chulack, was to show the pace of working in an actual ER and studying the lives of the people who work there.
Some main cast members have said,” we were careful not to sugarcoat the material or cast our doctors as larger than life.”
Therefore, ER remains among the most medically accurate dramas even after 20 years of its original run, with its accurate depiction of the working environment of an ER as well as the terminology used by doctors.
THE GOOD DOCTOR
The Good Doctor first premiered in 2017 and remains fairly accurate compared to other medical shows out there with its uses of medical jargon, diagnoses, and treatments.
Its secret weapon, medical consultant Oren Gottfried, helps the actors make sure the ABC hit remains as accurate as possible
Gottfried, who is a professor at Duke University teaching neurosurgery, weighs in both in the writer’s room and when creating storylines. He also helps advise other medical shows, such as Royal Pains and Chicago Med.
He states that “some cases on the show may seem outlandish, but the fact is they are medically true.”
CRIMINAL MINDS
If they're going to base characters off famous behavioral analyst, John Douglas, you would think the show would remain accurate to what the job is all about.
Yes, there is a unit in the FBI called the Behavioral Analysis Unit, or BAU, but the job title is called a Behavioral Analyst, not a Criminal Profiler.
Although the show depicts the BAU entering active crime scenes and saving victims, this is far from the case. Most of the behavioral analysts' work involves paperwork. They assist field investigators by analyzing criminal behavior.
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MINDHUNTER
Mindhunter, a Netflix original, is based on the true story of the two men who pioneered profiling of serial killers. However, the lead character, Holden, and his partner do not exist, but the story itself is very much true, and the series does a decent job of depicting this.
The characters, agent Holden and his partner, are based on the real-life criminal profilers John Douglas and Robert Ressler. These two men profiled serial killers like Charles Manson, Ed Kemper, and more after joining the FBI in the 1970s.
As the Netflix original depicts Holden and his partner going across the country to have interviews with killers, the real-life profilers did the very same, redefining murder investigations and gathering information through interviews with notorious serial killers.
Additionally, as shown in the show, the real-life work of Douglas and Ressler was not taken seriously at first, but this changed once they started working with a psychiatric nurse to compile information from the interviews they conducted.
In the same way that season 2 depicts, the significance of Douglas and Ressler's work became clear to the FBI and created the standard for criminal profiling that is used today.
This week, we examined, we will examine impact that streaming on accuracy in TV shows. Next week we are examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the television industry.
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