Breathless

British drama continues to mine the successful vein of TV shows that are set in the recent past with this 1960s medical melodrama featuring characters involved in various affairs and compromising situations. Jack Davenport is Otto Powell, the suave top doctor at a London hospital who performs a secret, illegal abortion in the first episode. He's a married man but is immediately smitten with a new young nurse, Angela (Catherine Steadman), whose sister Jean (Zoe Boyle) leaves nursing for what turns out to be a miserable marriage to philandering physician Richard Truscott (Oliver Chris). There's a little bit of Mad Men in the show's take on gender roles—both in the professional world and in personal relationships—but the comparison only reveals the shortcomings of Breathless, which is ultimately a soap opera dressed in handsome period detail. There are troubled marriages, affairs, terrible secrets, a sinister police inspector (Iain Glen of Game of Thrones) engaged in blackmail, and by the end of the run even a murder. Unfortunately, it's also confusing, overly complicated, and far less provocative than the subject matter suggests. The six-part series played in 2014 in three 90-minute segments on Masterpiece Mystery! in the U.S., even though it's no mystery and the crime drama aspect is minimal. Although the final piece ends with the promise of new tales, the show was canceled, leaving storylines hanging. Optional. (S. Axmaker)