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While BBC thriller The Rapture asks viewers to suspend their disbelief – one character claims to experience visions of the future – other aspects of the series are grounded in reality and tackle more serious themes.
Ruth Madeley, who viewers may recognise from Doctor Who and its spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea, plays forensic psychologist Dr Gabs Fox, who is assigned to the case of a 17-year-old girl who has been institutionalised after allegedly murdering her mother.
It made sense, then, for Madeley to meet with a forensic psychologist who had worked with children in psychiatric hospitals. Coincidentally also named Ruth, she was able to answer the many questions Madeley had.
"She was incredibly generous with her time and her knowledge, so that was hugely helpful," she told Radio Times.
"Even the tiniest things, like her positioning in a room [with patients], and how she would approach more confrontational patients. There were so many conversations I had with her so that I could have a really clear knowledge of what that experience and that world is like – even in scenes that I wasn't in. I wanted to know what they would look like with other members of staff and other patients within the facility.
"So I took the part really, really seriously because you want it to be as authentic as possible."
While some of what Madeley learned during those conversations could be considered shocking, she admitted she "wasn't shocked, which is really sad".
"But if anything, I not only found it really helpful, but really fascinating. And I was just really, really humbled by the work that psychologists do."
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India Amarteifio, who plays Bethany Krall – the teenager being assessed by Gabs, who claims to be able to predict the future – also spoke to Madeley to find out about "what it's like to be a patient in a hospital like that".
She continued: "I had to learn about different restraints and codes of conduct. If I was to act out, what would happen to me. So I always had that in the back of my mind when I was making certain decisions. Like I couldn't be too sharp, I couldn't make too many sudden movements in inappropriate settings because it would have meant that I would have been restrained."
Amarteifio also researched the types of medication given to patients in psychiatric hospitals for a range of conditions, including sleep and mood disorders.
"And I went through with our director's assistant and plotted where Bethany would have taken certain medications and how that would have affected her in that day. So is she feeling more lethargic? Is she feeling super excited? And then creating a map of that and being able to consistently follow that."
That was all done in service of making sure her performance was as authentic as possible.
"I wanted to do people who have experienced being in a psychiatric hospital, who are in them and their families, justice," she added.
"It'd be quite easy to sit there and make a stereotyped, caricatured, prejudiced version of someone who's experiencing these issues... so I really wanted to be cautious and take my time."
Ruth Madeley and .India Amarteifio. BBC
The Rapture is a five-part psychological thriller starring Madeley as forensic psychologist Dr Gabs Fox, who is assigned to the case of 17-year-old Bethany Krall, an inmate at Oxsmith psychiatric hospital.
Bethany was sectioned two years ago for brutally murdering her own mother – a crime she insists she didn't commit.
The tragedy, shocking in itself, also attracted widespread attention because Bethany is the daughter of a spiritual leader with millions of followers.
But could Gabs be the key to unlocking the truth?
"Bethany seems to know private details about Gabs's life and insists she can see visions of the future, which she communicates through disturbing sketches of disasters: storms, fires and floods," according to the synopsis for The Rapture, based on Liz Jensen's 2009 bestselling novel, which tackles themes including climate anxiety and greenwashing.
"Bethany's nurse Rafiq insists her predictions always come true, but Gabs is sceptical, determined to find a clinical explanation."
The Rapture airs on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
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