The determined nurses of st angela's hospital are back in the second series of paula milne's ground breaking medical drama. Before other hit hospital dramas such as casualty,  holby city, and call the midwife, there was angels.  angels was a popular bbc prime time medical drama series about student nurses in a london hospital, ran from 1975 to 1983.  created by paula milne, the series charted the personal and professional lives of six student nurses, and tackled controversial issues for the time such as contraception, alcoholism and promiscuity as part of the nurse's daily lives. Gritty and authentic, each actress was required to work in a real hospital ward to gain experience, contributing to the realism of the production. With its winning formula of soap opera like inspection of the personal lives of britain's young nurses, and detailed look into the medical aspects of the drama. The slickly produced angels is now a series that can be regarded as the bridge between the gentle medical series of the 1960s such as emergency ward 10, and the intense shows of today.  after the enormous success of the first series, the student nurses return to face a fresh set of challenges, both in their working hospital and personal lives. The show continues to tackle the real life issues that face the medical profession, and is not afraid to deal with the hard hitting aspects of hospital care or face up to controversial personal issues. It helped launch the careers of numerous british actresses at a time when strong female roles were rare, including fiona fullerton, lesley dunlop and julie dawn cole. Running time 650 minutes region region 2 release date 15 sept. 2014