More Dr Who trivial for you. The geriatric ward in question is the one depicted in the new HBO show "Getting On" which started its six show season last Sunday
The dark comedy is set in an "extended care" ward in a Florida hospital:
A U.S. version of the award-winning BBC Four medical comedy of the same name, HBO’s Getting On stars Laurie Metcalf, Alex Borstein and Niecy Nash. Centering on the put-upon nurses in a women’s geriatric extended-care wing of a down-at-the-heels hospital, it follows the anxious doctors and administrators as they struggle with the darkly comic, brutally honest and quietly compassionate realities of caring for the elderly in an overwhelmed healthcare system. BBC Worldwide Prods is producing.
This is HBO's teaser of for the series:
Details of how this links with Dr Who below the orange squiggle.
The connection with Dr Who is a bit more complex than simply both coming from BBC Worldwide - one sold as a concept, the other the original British series.
The series was created by Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine. They also starred in the BBC version and are executive producers on the HBO version. Jo Brand was a psychiatric nurse. She partly drew on her experience within the National Health Service in the writing. The team also brought into the storylines some of the developments and initiatives the NHS was introducing to improve patient care. One was the idea of the "modern matron", a head of the nursing staff who was often portrayed as rigidly sticking to ideas of hygene and neatness but in modern form is responsible for such things as the cleaning and catering contracts - in effect the day to day oversight of the ward apart from the doctors. In the original Hilary Loftus, played by Ricky Grover, is the male matron.
Hilary is one of three main characters around the central protagonist, Kim Wilde. The "translation" of these four are:
Kim Wilde (Jo Brand) = Nurse Dawn (Alex Borstein)
Her immediate boss Denise "Den" Flixter (Joanna Scanlan) = Nurse Didi (Niecy Nash)
Matron Hilary Loftus (Ricky Grover) = Patsy De La Serda (Mel Rodriguez)
Doctor Pipa Moore (Vicki Pepperdine) = Dr Jenna James (Laurie Metcalfe)
The BBC's first series won high praise and two further series have been shown. In 2010 the three writers won the British "Royal Television Society Award" for "Best Writing in Comedy" and the Writers' Guild award for best comedy for the first series.
The team working on the HBO version seem to have done a good job of translating the show across the Atlantic, in particular its accurate evocation of the sometimes grim, sometimes hilarious work in a geriatric ward and the trials of the nurses with the administration. The HBO comments page on the first episode has reactions ranging from "awful" to:
As a nurse, this is right on. Love the cast. How the nurse manager fights with the MD is so true.... Love Niecy Nash as Didi - she reminds me of nursing staff I have worked with, such a good nurse. Such an authentic representation of nursing and a real hospital setting.
and
As a nurse I really enjoyed this episode.This show is really awesome ,full of comic relief and insight!!Bravo HBO.
The Dr Who connection comes clear when you look at who directed the first two BBC series of the show: Peter Capaldi who becomes the 12th Doctor in the Christmas special.