Each week, Netflix releases a list of the Top 10 films and TV shows dominating the platform, and for the week of July 21, the new original docuseries Critical: Between Life and Death made a big impression on viewers, ranking No. 7 in the platform’s most-watched shows. While medical shows — including series like The Pitt, Pulse and ER — have always been popular, Critical is an unscripted documentary that depicts real-life emergencies as they’re happening. What makes it so captivating is the intensity and high stakes of these situations, and there’s no shying away from the blood, open wounds and emotionally distraught patients and their friends and family here.
Interestingly, the show fell out of the Top 10 pretty quickly — after its first week, it dropped. That’s not to say it’s not popular, but my personal theory is that it has proven a little too intense for some people. That was my reaction, anyway. After a couple of episodes, I couldn’t keep pace with all the grim, traumatic events. In fact, I’m shocked I kept watching after the first episode, which featured four people getting thrown from or crushed by a malfunctioning amusement park ride. Being that this is the height of summer and there’s a Six Flags nearby that my kids and I frequent regularly, this is not what I wanted to see, and seeing this real incident unfold may have turned me off of fairs and amusement parks for good.
I can’t be the only person who gets a nagging feeling any time I board any kind of thrill ride that something terrible could happen, that I’m an accomplice to my own Final Destination death scene and here it is, proof that those fears — while obviously not common — can come true.
The episode depicts the hospital call centers that are first notified of the ride collapse, and we witness ambulances, helicopters and emergency responders dispatched to the scene, later returning with their patients, most of whom are unresponsive. As the four patients injured at the funfair (as it’s referred to on the show) are sent to several trauma centers around London, 40 cameras follow them and the health professionals who are helping them.
We’re given a front row seat to all of their treatments as their bodies are cut open, scans are taken and they’re assessed for physical and neurological damage. I’m someone who gets grossed out by Dr. Pimple Popper videos, so there were several moments while watching this show where I had to look away. (Spoiler alert: The patients do get an epilogue of sorts where we learn that all of them not only survived but are back to leading healthy, relatively normal lives.)
The show does address the fact that 50% of calls to the trauma centers in London are because of violence; accidents such as this one are much less common. And yet even with that in mind, I will panic forever at the idea that the giant spinner ride at the fair is going to dislodge and become a flying projectile.
Critical: Between Life and Death is a remarkable show for just how close the filmmakers are allowed to get to such life-threatening action but watching the show made me realize some fears I didn’t even know I had. At least while watching The Pitt, there was a sense of relief that it wasn’t real. Here, there’s no such comfort.
