Quotes from Jed Mercurio

I believe that attributing flaws to medical characters makes them not just doctors but something more. It makes them people.

The problem with individual opinion is that it doesn't necessary correlate with what the mass audience is thinking.

If you look at American medical fiction written by doctors, like 'The House of God' by Samuel Shem and 'The Blood of Strangers' by Frank Huyler, both have themes of cynicism and dysfunction running through them that you won't find in 'ER.' You find it in 'Scrubs,' but because that's a comedy, it gets away with it.

I'm interested in institutions, particularly in the way institutions close ranks. They have hierarchies and their own ethics.

We're living in interesting times, where people seem to be able to say things which are contrary to what you would call rationalism.

I've never reached the point where I was ready to abandon a series.

I am a social realist writer.

'Line of Duty' is a social realist drama, so it's set in a world that has the recognisable features of the authentic world we see around us.

In 'Bodies,' we had a lot of gore because it was a medical drama. The gore was authentic.

I think you've got to be careful with gore. Different genres need different things.

It was an absolute pleasure working with Stephen Graham. I've admired his work for many years, and what he brings is that real sense of authenticity.

Sci-fi gives you the scope to do grand stories.

'Line Of Duty' is first and foremost a thriller. But I hope it will also be seen as a revisionist commentary on 21st century policing.

I love writing thrillers.

I'm reading 'Ten Storey Love Song' by Richard Milward. I read his first novel, 'Apples,' after hearing a reading of his in the Hague. I really enjoyed it, so I've started this one.

In the modern workplace, sexism has adopted a more subtle persona; therefore, people can be accused of sexism where it's far harder to determine whether they're actually committing sexism or thinking in a sexist way.

Part of me isn't that interested as a person and a viewer in people's personal lives. I'm much more interested in what people do in the workplace and what goals they set themselves. I guess that's why I write a lot of precinct drama.

I write what I call precinct drama, and I tend to write things set in the workplace. Having an institution which gives a workplace its distinctive identity is really important to creating something which feels different.

'Frankenstein' is a timeless classic. As science advances, it becomes more relevant, not less. Its fantasy moves closer to fact, its horrors closer to reality.

I think that the audience is smart enough to know that just because a drama is relating to real-world parallels, it doesn't mean that its story is exactly that story.

In 'Bodies,' we had a lot of gore because other medical dramas at the time had these hospitals where even a drop of blood seemed to be too much, which is clearly not what it's like when you cut someone up.

The world is a horrible place, but no one worries because we have all been pacified by anodyne television in which incorruptible cops solve crimes, crusading lawyers keep the innocent out of prison, and streetwise social workers rescue children from abuse.

The things I discovered when writing 'Line of Duty' were the tools you have available to write a thriller.

'Bodies' remains the drama I'm most proud of.