TV Eye: Brains of the operation

Prime TV's Blood and Cuts: A History of Surgery is not for the faint-hearted. Photo / Supplied

Yes, it's interesting in there, inside your skull. It is also a place that is still being explored, and the more the map of the brain is explored, the greater the leaps in medical science.

But, really, who is Blood and Cuts: A History of Surgery (Sundays, Prime) for? The only people who could, coldly, or with any enjoyment, watch a woman have her exposed brain poked at - while she is awake - would surely be those odd but valuable people who already do this for a living.

Blood and Yucks, more like. A pig's brain, "feels like cold tapioca pudding", said the enthusiastic BBC host, Michael Mosley, who is described in the blurb as "charismatic" but that definition might depend on how exciting you find cold tapioca pudding. Let's settle for keen and kindly. He was both keen about and kindly to two unfortunate people whose brains made them interesting. There was the chap who had had electrodes implanted in his brain in an experimental treatment for Parkinson's. And the really unfortunate American who, as a 12-year-old, had been given a lobotomy because his step-mother hated him (that's the short version of his sad story and about what happened).

Lobotomies were all the rage in the States for far too many years. This enthusiasm for cutting the neuro pathways of the frontal lobe was due to a Dr Walter Freeman who started with good intentions: he wanted to clear the real unfortunates from the nut houses.

When he began his life's work, in California in the 1920s, his lobotomies were expensive and time-consuming, until he had his really big idea. This involved sticking an ice pick through an eye and bashing at the pick with a hammer. This was medical innovation all right. "It could be done by anyone, everywhere, in under an hour." Also, "it was quick, it was easy; it was diabolical". An estimated 100,000 Americans were lobotomised. We were shown a picture of the 12-year-old Howard, on the operating table, with the ice pick in his eye. There was no blood, no cold tapioca pudding being poked, but that was the image that was the hardest to look at.

The pioneers of brain surgery, were sometimes very odd indeed. Dr Walter, who set out to save lunatics, may have been a lunatic himself. He faced stiff competition from Jose Delgardo who pulled off an amazing and probably idiotic stunt with a fighting bull. He stuck electrodes in the poor beast's brain, waved a red cape at it, and, by means of a remote control, turned the fighting animal into a confused pussy cat. The ideas of controlling people, or indeed bulls, never really took off although it was initially enthusiastically embraced by some as a means by which gay men might be turned straight and protesters turned peaceful.

Blood and Cuts is a very good programme - or it would be if it was on the radio and you didn't have to look at the pictures.

Shortland Street is back and perhaps the writers have been watching Blood and Cuts because, in a amazing coincidence, there has been a brain op! Scotty, who went mental and tried to kill his betrothed, Tracey, turned out to have a right frontal parasagittal meningioma. Whew, and congratulations to Dr Chris Warner for learning that line so splendidly. Anyway, this is good news because it means Scotty isn't a homicidal maniac after all and won't get the ice pick treatment. This was a relief in another way. You don't get any of that yuck stuff on Shorty (Scotty was in bed with a nice, clean bandage on his head; no blood in sight) unless you count having to watch Dr Chris and Rachel smooching, which, actually, I do.

Things are shaping up fabulously, madly well for this season. Luke has been fed morphine in his Nasal spray by his good mate, Isaac, in a wildly convoluted plot development which is plain bonkers - so much so that all you can do is applaud. Paranoia is as invasive as a hospital superbug. Rena Owen, as Scotty's ex-junkie mum, will hopefully go spectacularly loco again. Jen and Maia will, hopefully, not get in the sack, but probably will. All of which adds up to a fantastic start to a season - you just really wouldn't want to see what's going on inside those writer's heads.

-TimeOut