Overview

This article looks at viewers’ responses to the romance between two older women on the BBC medical drama Holby City. In the context of a continuing lack of representation of (older) women-loving women, viewers of all ages describe a transformative experience, with an emphasis on positive mental health outcomes – yet older women also orient to something implicitly problematic about this being the case. This is premised, I suggest, in the foregrounding of youth and adolescence in academic and public discussions of the role of the media in sexual self-realisation. The research demonstrates the need for qualitative case studies capturing LGBTQ portrayals, taking account of the experiences of older viewers, and of network television even in a fragmented and queer(er) digital market.