Doctor Foster: Episode One
Recommended as a good source of inspiration for my own hypothetical series, the BBC One drama/thriller series has similarities to my own. With themes of love, family, betrayal, deceit and trust, along with a character going on a journey to discover the truth, I felt that reviewing and analysing the first episode could be very helpful in The Identity's development.
Doctor Foster BBC One Trailer
My Plot Summary
Gemma seems to have it all, a loving husband, a family and a job where she's appreciated and helps people. But once she finds a blonde hair on her husband Simon's scarf, she starts becoming suspicious of him and all the women that he associates with. Beginning to lose her confidence and mental state, she starts to follow him and invade his privacy to find out if he's having an affair.
Themes
Love
Marriage
Family
Suspicion
Betrayal
Deceit
Trust
Abuse
Characters
Doctor Foster (Gemma Foster): Main character. Successful doctor, loved by her colleagues and seemingly by husband, positive person. She slowly starts growing more suspicious and paranoid. Her mannerisms start to change from once holding herself with confidence, to biting her nails and hunching over in worry. As she finds more evidence pointing towards Simon having an affair, she begins to lose herself and her physical and mental state deteriorates.
Simon: Husband. He owns his own property development company and has a son with Gemma. He appears passionate towards his wife when he returns from a weekend away. He initially seems like an ideal husband as he tells his wife how wonderful she is and that he loves her. But he starts to act suspiciously and secretively, making Gemma second guess him.
Becky: Simon's assistant. A blonde haired woman that works closely Simon, making Gemma suspect her.
Anna: Family friend. A blonde woman who is close to the couple. When she touches Simon's arm Gemma worries.
Susan: Patient of Gemma's. She too has blonde hair and during dinner, Simon addresses her as Susie. When they laugh and she touches his shoulder, Gemma becomes distressed.
Carly: Patient of Gemma's. She shows concern for Gemma when she tells her about suspecting her husband of cheating on her, and helps her when Gemma bribes her with prescription pills. Soon Gemma forces Carly's abusive boyfriend to leave her and Carly continues to help her with finding out about her husband's affair.
Jack: A senior doctor who has been suspended by Gemma when becoming unstable.
Visual Style
The visuals of Doctor Foster are key in explaining the story of the series without needing constant dialogue. Along with revealing Gemma's thoughts, feelings and flashbacks, actions noticed by her, her actions symbolising her suspicion growing and mental state deteriorating, and evidence that she finds of her husbands' affair.
For example...
- We often see Gemma's expression change and her eyes focus each time she notices something that concerns her.
- In a montage form, she sees flashbacks of the evidence that she's found so far when following her husband. Including finding pink lip seal, a blonde hair, talking to Becky and Anna, and then remembering making love to him.
- Visuals are heavily used to show evidence (such as hair, his schedule with 'unavailable' marked every day) and Gemma's concern and suspicions when seeing something, causing her to take her next action (such as following him and going to his office).
- We see each individual look and touch between Simon and any woman, Gemma picks up on everything that someone usually wouldn't.
- Gemma appears as if she's losing her grip on her personality and mental state as she stares at Simon's birthday cake in the middle of the night, at him asleep in bed in the dark, and looks through their family photos on a phone, expressionless.
- As her situation becomes worse, she begins to form dark circles under her eyes from not sleeping and worrying.
- Once Gemma finds out that Simon really is having an affair, we see her hands shake as she tries to steady herself. Symbolising her devastation.
- When Gemma finds out that the car seen by Carly when Simon has an affair belongs to Susan, Gemma sees a montage flashback of Susan smiling, touching Simon's shoulder and the pair looking at each other. Feeling as if she should have realised sooner.
- When faced with her husband later, Gemma's grip tightens on a pair of scissors as she looks deep in thought, angry over the revelation of his long lasting affair. Appearing as if she's extremely close to hurting him.
The visual style of the episode is also represented through colour and tone. With noticeable changes throughout the story to match with the mood, situation and atmosphere.
Such as...
- The episode beginning with bright and colourful lighting and tones to match Gemma's upbeat, routine morning.
- The colouring changes dramatically to dark with green and blue tints when Gemma picks her son up from school, a scene which follows her discovery of a blonde hair on her husband's scarf.
- As she becomes more concerned over what she's found, the tone of the scenes begin losing their colour and become cold.
- In a situation that's supposed to feel safe and comforting for Gemma, a dinner party with the couple's friends is dark but warm a yellow.
- But as she continues to feel distressed when she goes to the kitchen, the mood becomes creepy and cold when she stands staring into the fridge with a blue light shining on her.
- When she finally breaks Simon's trust that night by searching through his phone, the room is dark and the only source of light is dim and blue from the phone, shining onto her, signifying her loneliness and how the phone is currently her only source of information.
- The scene is dark and dull, with rain pouring down the windows when Gemma is lied to by Simon about him visiting his ill mother every day. As she sees that he hasn't been checking in at the care home each day, which he would have if he'd been going there. With the lighting at it's darkest, it represents the first time that Gemma realises she can't trust Simon when he lies to her.
Run Time
0-10 minutes: In the first ten minutes of the episode, Gemma makes love to her husband when he returns home from a weekend away. That morning she finds lip seal in his pocket, but she's not suspicious of this. She later says goodbye to her family and goes to work at the doctors surgery. Everything is routine and upbeat. But once she hangs up her husband's borrowed scarf, she finds a blonde hair and appears worried. The tone changes and she seems distressed and distracted. She later bumps into her husband's assistant and connects the possibility of her being blonde with the blonde hair that she found. She starts looking at her husband with worry and suspicion. Forced to brush the issue off, Gemma prepares for a dinner party with her husband at their home.
11-20 minutes: Gemma embarrasses Simon at the dinner party after drinking. But he expresses his love for her to their friends and she becomes emotional and happy over reminiscing. But she starts becoming suspicious again as soon as their friend Anna touches his arm. Gemma starts drinking heavily over dinner and soon tells her Anna that she found the hair, Anna jokes that she's sleeping with him, but Gemma doesn't find it funny. She starts to consider going through his phone, and sees Anna using lip seal, showing that everything seems to be making her paranoid. She plans to go through Simon's phone but sees his wallpaper is set as a picture of their family and walks away. But her paranoia gets the better of her and she returns and goes through it. The next day she confines in her work friend Ros, who tells her that she's not being herself. She begins losing her patience with her regular patients and asks him to leave so that she can leave for the day.
21-30 minutes: She decides to follow her husband once he leaves the office. She sees him buy flowers and becomes worried. Simon drives to a care home for the elderly and she realises that he's visiting his mum. She admits to him that she was worrying and that she followed him, he tells her that he'd been visiting his mum every night. But she sees that he hasn't been checked in every day and grows more concerned. She decides to go to his office and looks through his things, seeing that his work schedule states that he is unavailable from 5.30pm every day, she prints this. She checks a bag and finds two condoms, but it's revealed as his assistants'. She then covers her tracks by telling Becky that she's planning a surprise holiday for her and Simon, allowing her being at his office to be a secret.
31-40 minutes: They couple and their son attend a dinner at a friend's new restaurant, and Simon addresses the friend (Susan) as Susie, who then touches his shoulder. Gemma looks concerned again. She goes outside and bumps into a patient, Carly, and confines in her. Once Simon and Gemma return home they have sex, but after, Gemma can't sleep and searches for ways to tell if a husband is cheating online. She looks at his prepared birthday cake for the next day, and stands over him at the end of the bed as he sleeps, she appears as if she's losing her mind. The next day she makes an unethical decision to bribe Carly with the sleeping pills that she wants for her help in return, by spying on Simon. Carly follows him to a house and tells Gemma. Gemma remains glued to her phone throughout a meeting over a doctor, Jack, who has lost his way and is being suspended.
41-50 minutes: Carly tells Gemma that she can see Simon kissing a woman outside of the house and it hits Gemma that he really is having an affair. Carly takes a picture of the woman's car and number plate. Gemma begins to cry, but Carly tells her that she can find out who it is. She tells Gemma that the car belongs to Susan Parks, Gemma's patient. She gives Carly sleeping pills in return for helping her, and Carly tells her that if she can go straight to sleep when she gets home then her boyfriend will leave her alone. Gemma touches her arm and Carly reacts with a pained expression and sound. She shows Gemma a large bruise and admits that her boyfriend did this to her. Gemma takes the pills away and drives to Carly's flat with her.
Gemma now seems confident and strong again as she walks to to flat number. She walks in and has one of the boyfriend Daniel's cigarettes and tells him that she's seen Carly's arm, then tells him to leave her. She says if he doesn't leave or bothers Carly again, then his employers will receive a copy of his medical records, and if they don't already put him at risk, she will alter them. He tries to grab her and she grabs him arm and holds the cigarette over his wrist as a threat, and then leaves. Carly tells Gemma to check her husband's car boot as he kept going back to it when she was spying on him. Gemma later arrives at Simon's birthday party, gets his keys and searches his boot, finding a hidden overnight bag and second phone. On the phone's wallpaper is Simon with a young woman; Susan's daughter, along with other photos of the pair together that show that they've been seeing each other for a long time.
51-58 minutes: Gemma also then sees that all of her friends, along with Simon's assistant, have been in photos with Simon and the other woman, revealing that they're all in on the fact that he's having an affair. Along with texts from her work friend, warning him that Gemma is following him. Devastated, she takes a breath and hides the evidence that she went through his bag. She takes medical scissors out of her car and puts them in her coat pocket, then calms herself down. She looks at everyone that's betrayed her, contemplating what to do next. Simon burns his hand and Gemma takes off his wedding ring. She tightens her grip on the scissors in her hand, but Simon is called away. Simon blows out his candles and makes a speech, he talks about how much Gemma means to him. But his words bring to light for Gemma that all she's ever been to him is a source of money and help to get his dreams started over time. Gemma's asked to make a speech, she looks at her son, and then the girl that Simon's cheating with, and decides to kiss him passionately. Gemma looks at her husband from a distance with disgust, plotting her next move.
Comparisons, Observations & Inspirations
When considering the similar themes of Doctor Foster and The Identity, I feel that the ways that this series represents the plot through a heavy use of visuals is valuable inspiration exploring my own series' visual style. Inspired by the use of flashbacks, evidence found and the emotional reactions of the characters through actions and detailed shots instead of dialogue, I will be using similar elements in the description of how The Identity's hypothetical visuals would be incorporated in this way.
I also found that the 58 minute-long run time of Doctor Foster allowed for a large amount of the story to be told within the first episode, without revealing the next steps in the plot. Within the first ten minutes the audience is given an insight into the main characters life, finding out her profession, personality traits and daily routine, and quickly witnessing this all change within an instant. I noticed that within each ten minutes of the episode, Gemma's situation changes largely, as she learns new information about her husband, and grows more paranoid and angry towards him.
However each section creates a feeling that it is building towards her finally making a significant discovery, which is brought to light after 40 minutes. This amount of time seemed to allow for in depth representations of each character and their relationships, and for the audience to witness Gemma's character slowly change and deteriorate, alongside her making deductions and suspecting a number of different women. Building up the audiences coinciding suspicions, once Simon's affair is revealed, the episode hits a climactic point nearly 18 minutes before the end. But unexpectedly, the plot twists further, when Gemma discovers that Simon has in fact been sleeping with the young daughter of their friend, and that almost everyone she knows is in on this. Allowing the audience's attention to be held for the next episode, to find out why the characters would keep this from Gemma and what she's going to do for revenge.
I think that the impressive amount of twists within the 58 minutes of the episode is very inspiring for my own work, in making sure that I never let the episodes have a dull moment, and let every scene have a purpose to the overall story. And while each episode tells it's own story, the episodes needs to connect together, and end with a cliffhanger to keep the audience's attention for the upcoming episodes. Reviewing Doctor Foster has been extremely helpful in the planning of my episode synopsis, visuals and run time.
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