#roxanna rewatch

[lonelier-version-of-you]

It’s so weird that Holby brought Roxanna back, really. I mean, I’m not criticising it, if anything I think they should have kept her on longer because she could’ve been such an interesting character (and was such an interesting character, in the moments where they actually let her be her own person instead of a vehicle for male characters’ dramas) and Hermione Gulliford is great. (Also, I still feel like Rox and Ange would have been great friends.)

It’s just that, when you think about it, it was an odd choice to bring back a guest character from four years prior like that. Especially since they didn’t even use the Tara connection that much really, except to give things like Ollie taking a bullet for the woman who operated on his wife leading to her death more impact, but then surely “Ollie takes a bullet for a woman he barely knows” would still have impact in a similar way? And Rox obsessing over helping Ollie would still make sense as a way of avoiding her grief and of trying to “make it up to him” if she hadn’t been involved with Tara’s case. (I don’t recall her and Henrik ever talking about Tara in that stint, either, and they didn’t have to per se but it would’ve been nice to have her referenced even briefly, as we know Henrik cared quite deeply for her.)

And she was mainly there for the Gaskell storyline, really, which meant they had to retcon her into being a med school friend of Henrik’s when they barely knew each other in her first stint. (That retcon wasn’t too bad though, it was when they started doing the “She’s actually been the love of Henrik’s life all along!” stuff that it got laughable.)

And it’s just like... I don’t know, at that point they might as well have just created a new character instead of using Roxanna. Did they really want to make a few references to Tara so much they had to use Rox? I’d say “maybe they just really loved and wanted Hermione Gulliford, valid of them honestly” but then if it were that, they wouldn’t have killed her character off for manpain. All that effort they went to to bring her back and retcon in a history with Henrik and John and they just threw her away after a year or so anyway.

At the very least, they shouldn’t have done the “Rox was the real love of Henrik’s life!” nonsense. It did both characters a disservice, and it was ultimately pointless anyway because they eventually gave in and admitted John was the love of Henrik’s life (see: John’s last few episodes). The screentime spent on that could’ve been spent on giving Rox stuff to do that didn’t revolve around men.

[which-hospital]

the Holby rewatch has devolved into a drunk Holby rewatch but am I reading into it too much or did they really foreshadow the stuff with Roxanna and Henrik and John quite a lot in earlier series 20?

[piracytheorist]

I was rewatching Village trailers just because of the very short moments they have of the Villagers being normal like farming (and Roxanna holding Rose? its in the announcement trailer and maybe one of the other ones) and things and it just makes me sad

Yeah, in the whole game you barely interact with any normal humans - which is also fitting considering Ethan is not one either even if he doesn't know that - and the few you happen to meet there die tragically. It's even sadder thinking those people had no escape, having been born and raised as part of Miranda's cult. Their only value to her was to exist as experiments and collateral damages. They never had a chance.

[holbywitty-blog]

Cryptid squad bingo sheet for the next rewatch?

Floral shirt Veeeerrrryyyy Mention of their uni days What else?

[lesdeuxarbres]

Oh Rox!! Ilu, you absolute slob. John being so considerate is so jarring to see after all this time.

[our-city-of-stars]

“the sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

[swithe-ist]

so we still up for rewatch? what do you say to:

UK saturday night, 9-10-ish? = AU sunday morn? 6-7-ish?

[wilkiebarkid]

Oh bless, the look on Fredrik’s face when Hanssen says he’s proud. And then he messes up by forgetting what his dad died of. And then makes it worse by telling him he can’t have the job at the hospital. Yeah sorry son, hope you can fix your messed up life. Bye. 

[inkandamaranth]

The whole duck thing is less heartbreaking if you imagine a world where Henrik sees that video and Rox finds it v sweet that he’s so emotionally invested in a duck video.

[bygone-age]

Gaskell looking after Roxanna and calling Henrik should have been the end of the story and the start of an awesome spin off.

We could have called it "Two lovebirds and John"

[missholbycity]

Ahhhhh I got so wrapped up in the epsiode I forgot to blog

[lonelier-version-of-you]

Alright, it’s time to continue my S15 rewatch with S15E25 “The End of the Beginning” - Roxanna Macmillan’s first appearance! With this (Tara’s last few episodes/Roxanna’s first stint), we are now firmly back to this being a rewatch rather than just a watch. However, it was 2018 when I first saw this and I wouldn’t even have watched the Henrik scenes since, like, 2019, so I don’t remember a lot besides the Tara stuff.

Edit 1: Yeah, it’s hard to forget an episode that begins with Tara smashing up a car. (Also, an older useage of the “start the episode at the middle/end of the story, flashback to several hours earlier for the rest of the episode” technique. Series 19 and series 20 seemed downright obsessed with doing that, lol.)

Edit 2: I love that Jac and Ollie scene. I didn’t have enough context to fully appreciate their dynamic when I first saw this.

Edit 3: I don’t remember who gets the F1 prize. I hope it’s Gemma, I want it to be Gemma. Tara’s withdrawn from running for it :(, according to Ollie, and Arthur’s a bit of a prat at this point. Of course, maybe it’ll be one of the F1s from one of the wards we never see!

Edit 4: The Darwin staff are casually chatting about how they’d like to die... at the time, this was meant to be ironically sad because of Tara. Now it’s also sad and ironic because of Jac. :( (And I’m still annoyed that they put Arthur in Jac’s weird little dream thing in S23E48 when Tara was right there.)

Edit 5: On a happier note, I love Tara’s cardigan.

Edit 6: That Henrik and Chantelle scene was lovely.

Edit 7: Hang on, I do remember this Serena and Adrienne scene! And of course I certainly remember her calling Henrik “the fifth member of ABBA”, which is still hilarious.

Edit 8: I mean, Serena’s not wrong, that was basically emotional blackmail from Henrik there (and he has a history of it!). Though in this case it was to protect Chantelle so like, I can forgive it.

Edit 9: Gemma telling Arthur “talking to people isn’t really your strong point”. She’s right.

Edit 10: Henrik’s had a phone call from Roxanna! (Obviously, it’s about Tara, this was before the “Henrik and Rox have known each other since med school” retcon.) I’ve only just noticed, he’s always, even in this episode, pronounced her name as “Rox-AH-nah”, compared to everyone else saying it “Rox-ANNE-uh”. The “ah” pronounciation is a bit more Swedish-sounding, so I like that Henrik says it that way.

Edit 11: Henrik has written Tara a note with the time for her neurologist appointment to make sure she doesn’t forget. Literally so parental of him. <3

Edit 12: Ollie and Tara arguing. :(

Edit 13: Yikes at this patient being sexist to Serena and Chrissie.

Edit 14: The casting for the sisters on Darwin was so good, they really do look related.

Edit 15: The AAU stuff is reminding me of that Derby Day Casualty episode.

Edit 16: There’s a lot to be said about Oliver Valentine, but he really is a good boyfriend.

Edit 17: ROXANNA!!!!!

Edit 18: Jing Lusi is continuing to be an excellent actress.

Edit 19: Can I just say, I love Roxanna’s look in this era. The glasses, the messy longer hair... it’s great. It’s a shame they didn’t keep the glasses when she returned, to be honest (and is she supposed to have been wearing contacts in both her second stint and the flashback, or were the glasses just a fashion choice? I lean towards fashion choice but also, my own eyesight sucks and I like projecting that onto characters so IDK.). She looks even more like young!Rox from the flashback here.

Edit 20: Chantelle calling Arthur out for how he’s been treating her - yeah, he kind of deserved that (I haven’t forgotten the “you’re just a nurse” thing).

Edit 21: First of all, Tara is breaking my heart. :(

Also, these scenes in Roxanna’s office are so much with the gift of hindsight. Roxanna talking about denial, considering what she was going through (and/or about to go through) with David. Tara expressing to Roxanna and Ollie her fear of waking up with brain damage and not being the same person anymore - four years later, Ollie takes a bullet for Roxanna, and she becomes obsessed with helping him through his brain injury. Just... wow.

Edit 22: “I always support my staff.” Yeaaah, keep telling yourself that, Henrik.

Edit 23: Omg so this is the episode where Arthur has his assessment and ends up diagnosing an actual medical problem in an actor pretending to be a patient. I remember that very clearly, but I didn’t realise it was this episode!

Edit 24: Aaand Tara’s been caught out for treating patients when she wasn’t supposed to be.

Edit 25: Chantelle, my beloved. <3

Edit 26: I didn’t remember Ric pretending to be a patient for the assessments at all, so that gave me a good laugh!

Edit 27: And we’ve finally looped back around to Tara smashing up the car.

Edit 28: Serena’s dropped her complaint! Chantelle’s job is safe! ...But she left the next series anyway.

Edit 29: Gemma praising Tara and saying she should win the prize! Legends supporting legends. (She didn’t know Tara had dropped out.)

Edit 30: The F1 prize went to Arthur. Sigh. Sorry, I love Arthur, I do, and I knew he had it in the bag the moment he diagnosed the actor, but as I say, I wanted it to go to Gemma. Overall, Gemma is the better doctor, and Arthur just got lucky.

Watching this series all the way through is making me realise how great Gemma is, and how much I love her. She’s starting to become one of my favourite characters! I love how she’s not afraid to call people out (like when Michael was being misogynistic to her), and she had a really well-handled trauma storyline after she got held hostage, and in “Not Aaron” she dealt really, really well with the CSA case where the young girl had been taken advantage of. (Admittedly, I feel like whether she handled that well is very much a matter of individual opinion, but I thought her response was lovely and she certainly seemed to be able to comfort the girl. She could easily have come across as victim-blaming, but she didn’t!) I’ve been underrating her for so long.

Edit 31: Chantelle: “It must be nice knowing stuff!” Best autistic character. She’s just like me.

Edit 32: That scene of everyone reading Tara’s email. :(

[holbywitty-blog]

Roxanna Rewatch

How about tomorrow at around 7pm? It’s series 20, episode 5 - One Day At A Time. The start of the disastrous trial...

@lesdeuxarbres @foxyroxysstuff @bygone-age @wilkiebarkid @simlead @lonelier-version-of-you

[lesdeuxarbres]

Why do other doctors, constantly question Roxanna decisions? None of the others in Neuro either present or in the past seem to have their professional judgement questioned as much as her.

In the end, it was John they really needed to question.

[swithe-ist]

who’s up for another Rox Rewatch next weekend? we’re up to Precipice, right?

[wilkiebarkid]

From the brief scene we got with the whole squad you could see there was so much history between them all. John looks so happy to see David and all the rest of them and they are all laughing and joking. It would have been amazing to have some more of that. Or at least had Roxanna talking to Henrik and John about David’s illness. There were so many untold stories about them. I’m so glad fan fic exists.