Call the Midwife season 10?

[SantaClawsServiette]

I'm rather behind I know, but I've been up for some generally positive tv lately so I've been getting caught up on the ;ast few seasons of CTW. I started with season 8 where I had left off and now I'm on season 10.

I am finding it more and more difficult to see the show as a fairly realistic, if overall positive, depiction of the time. I always felt in the early seasons that they were very even handed and the characters seemed to have a realistic variety of views, but were still sympathetic to the viewers. After the show diverged more from the books it was obvious that they were choosing themes with the benefit of hindsight, but it still seemed realistic.

Has anyone else felt this about the show - I just feel like the writers or producers or someone is inserting a very 2021 perspective onto these people living in the 1960s. Both in terms of making all regular characters have a narrow range of fairly modern views, and only allowing unsympathetic ones to have other views.

I don't really expect CTM to have a cast that's all against each other or anything like that, but I just keep thinking "this is supposed to be pre 1970?

Even their stuff in season 9, about vaccination, (which I know was pre-covid) seemed more heavy handed than I expected. So maybe it is just a writing problem?

I have been watching the repeats some afternoons and whist its very twee i like it. Did find it odd that when trixie was battling her drinking she sat unscrewing the top off what looked like a bottle of wine, surely screw to wine wasn't a thing back then?

The early ones based on the book were excellent. Once the BBC were left to write it themselves - well in all the interviews they were fretting constantly about it not being edgy and diverse and woke enough, and they've crowbarred the wokeness into every episode. Its like having someone from Jackanory in the 70s saying loudly and clearly " Nice people think this.... only naughty nasty people think that... you're not nasty and naughty are you?". Also clear in how all the midwives have been diversified as far as possible to make up for how in the books and actual history of the place it was a certain class of woman who was able to train as a midwife and do the job until they married. The diversity was naturally there in Sister Evangelina who grew up in grinding poverty and did amazingly brave work through WW1, and Sister Monica Joan who managed to escape her father (with the help of Florence Nightingale) and go and work in the East End with total acceptance of the awful things she saw. Far worse than what Jenny saw when she came decades later. The actresses playing Lucille and Valerie were sweet, and Phyllis Crane is the best of the current lot of them, but the story was already there: it doesn't have to be made 21st century diversity ticklist.

And while I'm ranting, it drives me mad how Sister Monica Joan is painted as lacking any nursing knowledge at all, the woman was delivering babies in the East End before most of them were born. While she might be talking at you about star signs, ancient Greeks and stuffing down cake, I cannot imagine that if presented with the business end of a woman in labour she wouldn't know exactly what to do and could do it in her sleep.

Dr Turner and Sheilagh's acting is painful. Yes.

I do however enjoy Sister Julienne's increasing habit of listening to the crisis of the week ("sister the docks are burning down! diptheria has broken out!") with deep compassion, then smiling sweetly and saying she wishes them the very best of luck with that, she's going on the grand silence now and will see them in the morning.

And while I'm ranting, it drives me mad how Sister Monica Joan is painted as lacking any nursing knowledge at all, the woman was delivering babies in the East End before most of them were born. While she might be talking at you about star signs, ancient Greeks and stuffing down cake, I cannot imagine that if presented with the business end of a woman in labour she wouldn't know exactly what to do and could do it in her sleep.

Yes. I wondered why, when that woman turned up when no one else was around, she didn't just deliver it herself.

I found the social distancing super awkward last season and I assume that will still be in place? Particularly Cecil and whatever his girlfrieds name is, dancing awkwardly nowhere near each other and standing on opposite sides of the room to announce their engagement.

Also the doctor being far too 21st century PC, things like telling a gay man "there's nothing wrong with you" etc when it had only just been decriminalised.

@DockOTheBay

I found the social distancing super awkward last season and I assume that will still be in place? Particularly Cecil and whatever his girlfrieds name is, dancing awkwardly nowhere near each other and standing on opposite sides of the room to announce their engagement.

Also the doctor being far too 21st century PC, things like telling a gay man "there's nothing wrong with you" etc when it had only just been decriminalised.

Yes, this last bit was kind of what sent me over the edge. It wasn't that he was sympathetic to him, it was the language of "being yourself" and the assertions that conversion therapy didn't work because it couldn't change who you really are that just seemed completely anachronistic.

@Artichokeleaves - yes, I think you are spot on. And that is what is a little offensive, the idea that the story itself is not good enough because it doesn't check the right boxes for 2021. The first seasons had an incredible authenticity about them which came from the clear sense of the place and people. Whereas now, even many characters who are quite appealing in many ways seem tokenistic.

There don't seem to be any other threads about last night's episode but in keeping with the rest of this thread I couldn't help feeling it was totally unrealistic.

I was born in the 60s. Nobody listened to children and corporal punishment was legal both at home and in school. No child would have dobbed in their mother and if they had, I doubt anyone would have cared. 21st century viewpoints do not gell with 1967.

Even my teen is now saying why don't they just call the show Call Dr Turner. He's gone from a bit part to the lead.

@OberthursGrizzledSkipper

There don't seem to be any other threads about last night's episode but in keeping with the rest of this thread I couldn't help feeling it was totally unrealistic.

I was born in the 60s. Nobody listened to children and corporal punishment was legal both at home and in school. No child would have dobbed in their mother and if they had, I doubt anyone would have cared. 21st century viewpoints do not gell with 1967.

Even my teen is now saying why don't they just call the show Call Dr Turner. He's gone from a bit part to the lead.

I am enjoying this season but I have to agree with you. I find it very unrealistic that all the main characters seem to have extremely modern views (e.g. pro-choice, none of them are racist, not much sexism). I think it's a bit cowardly of the BBC not to show some of the actual discussions and conversations that would have been going on at the time (particularly when the main characters include religious nuns!).