Is Netflix's Breathless the new Grey’s Anatomy? A detailed review

Netizens have been going gaga over the new Netflix Spanish hospital drama television series Breathless released on the platform on August 30, 2024. Comprising an ensemble cast of talented and truth be told, extremely good-looking characters, the show explores the challenges faced by doctors working around the clock in a government hospital.

Additionally, the show also offers a peak at the personal lives of the said doctors who often get entangled with other resident doctors of the hospital as well as some patients, their relatives, or just anyone within the hospital premises. Evidently, this is not the first time such a storyline has been explored for the audiences.

Similar themes have been examined in several other hospital dramas like New Amsterdam, The Good Doctor, and, of course, Grey's Anatomy, which comes the closest in balancing the medical elements with the dramatic storyline, similar to this show.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers. Please read at your discretion.

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Netflix's Breathless is a slightly dramatic version of Grey's Anatomy

Right from the very start, Breathless on Netflix, offers a plot that is something that has been explored multiple times in television history.

Extremely good-looking doctors with stethoscopes around their necks, attending stress calls at odd hours, diagnosing people with ease, conducting critical operations involving a lot of bloodshed, and having intimate relationships with people within the hospital premises. These are tropes that have been used and often overused in several hospital dramas in the past.

Similar to Breathless, Grey's Anatomy also comprised several good-looking doctors. These doctors worked long hours and did their best to save the lives of people while trying to maintain romantic relationships. Think of Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd, how their dynamic was at the beginning of the show, and how it turned out to be in the end.

Breathless builds on all of Grey's Anatomy's dramatic aspects and takes it several notches higher to deliver a story about doctors which loses its track midway. It introduces something new in the mix, like the aspect of the increasing privatization of government hospitals but fails to carry it forward to establish it as a running and unique theme in the show.

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Netflix's Breathless focuses too much on building up the romantic relationships in the show

Netflix's Breathless dedicates an ample amount of time to establishing the fact that the doctors in the show are not just doctors but also regular people. The show attempts to depict that by showing several doctors being engaged in intimate relationships with people within and outside the hospital. The show almost sensationalizes this aspect and goes overboard with it.

For instance, Patricia Segura, President of the Valencian Community is almost at loggerheads with the hospital and its staff especially Doctor Moa when the show first opens. She is an advocate for the privatization of government hospitals and she ensures that everyone knows that.

However, through an odd turn of events when she lands up in the hospital owing to a breast cancer diagnosis, she changes strides. In the second half of the show, Patricia's previous demeanor is almost unrecognizable as she is heavily infatuated with Doctor Moa, the same person she could not bear the sight of, previously in the show.

The show does not offer any clarification on the strained relationship between the two characters in the show but instead focuses on building their relationship leading to a knowledge gap among audiences.

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All eight episodes of Breathless are currently streaming on Netflix.