Doctors (2000 TV series)

Doctors is a British medical soap opera, first broadcast on BBC One on 26 March 2000. Filmed in Birmingham and set in the fictional West Midlands town of Letherbridge, the soap follows the lives of the staff of both an NHS doctor's surgery and a university campus surgery, as well as the lives of their families and friends. Initially, only 41 episodes of the programme were ordered, but due to the positive reception, the BBC ordered it as a continuing soap opera. Doctors was filmed at the Pebble Mill Studios until 2004; production then relocated to the BBC Drama Village, where it will film until 2024. Episodes are filmed three months prior to transmission. The soap is typically broadcast on weekdays at 1:45 pm on BBC One, as well as having classic episodes broadcast on Drama. It takes three annual transmission breaks across the year: at Easter, during the summer and at Christmas.

Since its inception, Doctors has consistently won the share of viewers in its daytime time slot, and as of 2023, it averages at 1.6 million live viewers. The programme has been nominated for and won numerous awards, with critics praising it for tackling issues that are considered to be controversial and taboo. The longest serving cast member is Adrian Lewis Morgan, who has portrayed Jimmi Clay since 2005. Alongside its regular cast, Doctors features numerous guest characters who typically appear in an episode as part of a self-contained "story of the day". Series producer Peter Eryl Lloyd estimated that at least 800 guest stars are contracted on the soap per year. Due to the large number of actors who have made a guest appearance, Doctors has gained a reputation for becoming "a British actor's rite of passage". In October 2023, the BBC announced that Doctors had been cancelled due to financing issues and that the final episode would air in December 2024.