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It seems it’s written into the BBC’s statutes that they must have a series about the armed forces airing at all times, as latest war drama Our Girl returns for a third series. It essentially fills in for recently-finished adultery thriller Doctor Foster (which I hear was supposed to be edgy but is one of the most boring suspense efforts the BBC has ever done) in the Tuesday night slot. A twelve-episode order will make it longer than both its previous series put together, to be delivered in three sets of four episodes.
” As if putting up with inhospitable filming locations and gruelling schedules will somehow help them break free of soap opera’s long shadow, first Lacey Turner (Eastenders) and now Keegan (Coronation Street) have taken on the titular role of sole military female in a field practically reeking of testosterone. Turner spent six episodes as medic Molly Dawes before departing in favour of a return to Albert Square’s grey-tinged histrionics, so Keegan has already gone one better simply by sticking around for another series. Unfortunately, persistence can only go so far on-screen, as Keegan fails to illuminate much of this opener’s potential for searing emotion, and whatever the BBC’s penchant for realism, it simply won’t stretch to allowing her foundation game to falter in the midst of a Nepalese earthquake.
New additions to the series include Maisie (Shalom Brune-Franklin), a reckless recruit whose relationship with Georgie is irritatingly thorny, and Milan (Rudi Dharmalingam), because a British female lead can’t even head to a remote medical facility in the Himalayas without happening across a love interest, who here also happens to be an engineer. The way has already been cleared, however, for the reappearance of Luke Pasqualino (probably best known as Skins’ Freddie McClair) as Georgie’s ex-fiancé (no, not the doctor one, the original one). His performance last series was only slightly hindered by the fact that his character is named Elvis and that he ditched Georgie within ten minutes of those seriously inexplicable opening credits. Series two was bookended by weddings that almost happened – Georgie and Jamie (Royce Pierreson) even made it as far as the aisle in the finale – and it remains to be seen if Our Girl’s creators can manage to stretch the plot over twelve whole instalments without resisting the call of that particular plot device. Perhaps in this longer run it will be third (fourth? fifth?) time lucky for a show that wants to be The Hurt Locker but may just end up as a particularly rubble-strewn version of Don’t Tell The Bride.