The game of Cluedo involves six protagonists, nine rooms and six murder weapons. This means there are two gross-three dozen character-weapon-room permutations, which makes for a potentially interestingly varied game.
Casualty is a semi-unintentionally comedic medical drama which, at its best, involves random patients of the week being maimed in entertaining ways before admission to an A&E department in Bristol, whoops, er, Holby.
Now imagine combining the two. Create a TV medical soap as follows. There are six characters and nine settings, and six possible ways in which medical emergencies can be incurred, all of which are survivable but involve a high degree of peril. Each of these are chosen carefully so they can occur in each of the nine settings to each of the six characters. Each medical emergency has interesting consequences.
In each episode, a pseudorandom number generator allocates each character to one of the settings and one of the medical emergencies. This enables considerable investment in the sets and simulations of the nature of the incidents concerned as they can be endlessly reused. As each mishap has consequences, interest can be maintained by increasing disability per patient, but in interestingly varied ways according to the order in which they are injured. Only six actors need to be employed to play the patients. Since the same sets are constantly re-used, a stock of footage can be built up to reduce time and money spent in producing the thing. Then there are actors playing the medical staff.
Most of the script can easily be written by a computer program which generates relevant text strings which would occur in each circumstance. A casually-employed part time writer can be sent the script each week to clean it up, remove discrepancies and write bits which the program fails to anticipate.
The result is a varied medical serial where initially healthy patients get increasingly and entertainingly injured as the season grinds on, until at some point they are all dead and have to be replaced. However, it would make sense to wait until _all_ of them are dead so as to start afresh every few months. The problems they encounter are varied and the consequences change according to the medical history of each patient, so there is a sort of butterfly effect in each subplot.-- nineteenthly, Aug 08 2011 To emphasise the notion of Caualty's silliness; my friend was in an episode a few years back, playing a young lad who liked to surf cars. For a dare, they call out an ambulance, and while the paramedics are distracted, he climbs on to the roof. They drive off, he surfs the ambulance, the ambulance breaks, he jumps a shark, breaks his leg, but thankfully there's an ambulance on hand to take him to the hospital.
They're really running out of injuries now...-- theleopard, Aug 08 2011 Yes, they should start inventing new diseases and injuries. Maybe they could turn it into Sector General. Tail fractures for all.-- nineteenthly, Aug 08 2011 Every episode should have Dustin Hoffman being flown in to save the day – even when the drama is essentially emotional and not some mutated pandemic virus strain.-- theleopard, Aug 08 2011 Yes, he could be some kind of reset button super-doctor with miraculous healing powers, but i think he should arrive at the end of each series.-- nineteenthly, Aug 08 2011 "Doctor, can you save him ?"
"I'm sorry nurse, there's nothing I can do. I've just checked his notes, and he's been written out of the script after this scene".-- 8th of 7, Aug 08 2011 Creepy. (+)
On my To-post list I recently wrote Clue House/House Clue. Over here the game is just called clue, and the unreal medical series is based around Dr. House M.D. diagnostician extraordinaire. Rather than the game translating to film I had thought to make an episode version of the game.
I speculate that Professor Plumb,contracted Kuru in, the Congo from... cannibalism.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 08 2011 This is why medical school takes so bloody long. They sit around and review every episode of Casualty to find the cures and/or solutions of each and every disease / ailment / trauma that has ever existed.-- RayfordSteele, Aug 08 2011 // the consequences change according to the medical history of each patient //
"I think the symptoms may be due to a Deep Vein Thrombosis in her leg"
"Unlikely, since she had them both amputated above the knee in that bizarre unexplained accident at her flower-arranging class last year."-- 8th of 7, Aug 08 2011 I'm now trying to think of a way in which a DVT could cause symptoms after amputation. A botched amputation could lead to septicaemia i suppose. Or maybe DIC, crush syndrome or something? Hmm.
[Fries], do that too!-- nineteenthly, Aug 08 2011 Phantom symptoms, like phantom pain.-- blissmiss, Aug 08 2011 Yes, it can and does happen, even in organs you've never had.-- nineteenthly, Aug 08 2011 "Doctor, Doctor, I've got a pain in my Hammond ..."-- 8th of 7, Aug 08 2011 My dorsal fin itches.-- RayfordSteele, Aug 08 2011 A bun each for [19thly]'s original, and [2_fries] variant. [2f] you'll have to post that, to collect the [+]-- mouseposture, Aug 09 2011 random, halfbakery