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And the people watching at home have no problem with these differences from the life they know back in the real world... for the most part. They know there are no chains of Buy More and Work Bench stores, no Oceanic Airways, no WJM-TV. Their maps won't have Fernwood, Hooterville, Hollyoaks, Dante's Cove, Frostbite Falls, or the Isle of Mypos. They know that androids don't really walk among us; we haven't been subjected to countless alien invasions; Valencia, California, didn't go up in a ball of nuclear fire; and there is no secret lunar colony. (Then again, if it's secret, maybe there is one up there!)
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The MS Society called 'The Bill' "grossly irresponsible" for creating this fictional drug because it raised the hopes of those with the disease. But ITV claims that it "told the story responsibly and sensitively".
A spokeswoman for ITV countered that "We researched both the condition and possible treatments - existing and proposed - before and during the writing process. It was certainly not our intention to offend or mislead."
She added that fictional places, names and products were featured in storylines "often for legal reasons".
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So in this case, I guess I can understand why people would have confused the fiction with the reality. If they're stricken with the disease, or they have loved ones afflicted with MS, they'll reach out for any possible hope.
What the writers of 'The Bill' probably should have done would have been to talk about a possible treatment being researched, as I'm sure there must be, rather than state that the drug already exists. Or maybe they should have claimed that the drug puts alien larvae into your bloodstream, a la the "Reset" episode of 'Torchwood'; that would have kept people from calling. Because technically, that one bit o' trivia about Plavitron now makes this soap opera with the trappings of a cop show (Thanks, Rob!) a science fiction show just as much as 'Torchwood' is.
And I'll bet nobody called in looking to get hold of that miracle cure.....
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Toby OB
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