BBC Drama Trust Me will return - without Doctor Who’s Jodie Whittaker
The original series star is a little busy playing a different sort of doctor these days…
Around the time Jodie Whittaker was cast as the latest incarnation of time-travelling alien the Doctor in Doctor Who last year, audiences were tickled pink that she’d also be donning the scrubs of another secretive physician, namely fraudulent doctor Cath Hardacre in BBC1 drama Trust Me.
Broadcast just a few weeks after Whittaker was unveiled as the new face of Who, Trust Me was the first port of call for many fans wanting to see the actor in action – but her high-profile new role was already raising questions about the future of the medical series, given her busy new schedule.
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And now, the BBC has revealed that while Trust Me will be back for another four-part series, Whittaker will indeed be hanging up her stethoscope and leaving the drama, with the new instalments instead following a different medical storyline.
The new series will be set on the neurological ward of South Lothian Hospital in Edinburgh, and will follow soldier Captain James “Jamie” McKay (a role currently not cast) as he comes to terms with being the only survivor of a “shock enemy attack” in Syria.
Jamie is recuperating from a spinal injury and his own PTSD when he notices people on the ward dying unexpectedly all around him. So is something terrible happening – or is it all in his head?
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The series will once again be written by former NHS doctor Dan Sefton, who said he was “absolutely thrilled to be working on a new series of Trust Me for the BBC".
“The support the project received from both BBC Drama and BBC Scotland made it a hugely enjoyable process," Sefton added.
“This follow up series will bring the same tension and twists of the original show to a brand new medical arena.”
Piers Wenger, Controller of BBC Drama, said: “The first series of Trust Me broke new ground for medical drama and I’m delighted to be welcoming it back for a second run with a completely fresh cast and a shocking new story, which is set to become as big a talking point as the first."
Trust Me’s second series will be made by Red Production Company for BBC1, and will film in and around Scotland later this year. Casting is set to be announced in the coming months, but we know one thing for sure – a certain Doctor will be leaving the ward behind for some rather more farflung adventures.
Oh, and there'll probably still be lots of weird lens flare.
Doctor Who returns to BBC1 this autumn
