The Archers #109: Pulp Fiction! Hammer Horror (Tracy), Carry On (Brian & Neil), Call the Midwife (Adam, Ian, Lexi) - but no political thrillers, Ambridge remains Brexit-free. Nitpick here!

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed. We don't all agree on all points and most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd like to be Susan's best friend or other unusual views. grin

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3439443-keep-it-to-yourself-the-archers-spoilers-thread-4, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Thanks to Bucking Frolics and LillianGish for the title ideas, which I had to edit down a bit to get under the character limit.

I wonder if Lily will have gone back to Manchester by the time we've filled this thread.

Could Anyone stand in Lexis way if she wanted to take the baby home ? Legally I mean? I suspect not. I’ve never been so angry at TA than listening to Jennifer tonight !

Does Lexi know about Kirsty’s late miscarriage? Bit insensitive if she did ...

Just listened-FFS! Not letting Lexi hold him until after Adam and Ian?! Really? Surely they would want the baby to bf at least initially to get the colostrum? And having Jenny behave that way is out of character and does no favours to the storyline.

Were you to have put them head-to-head, I would have plumped for Helen (random sperm, then raped) mother x2 vs Kirsty (late miscarriage...never really over it ). Opportunity missed to promote doulas.

Lexi should have held the baby straight after the birth. Surely it wasn't in the birth plan that she wouldn't.

I thought that perhaps it was, especially when we heard how reluctant she was . I thought maybe it was a self-protective thing, like "If I don't hold him then I don't have to give him back."

Didn't Jenny originally plan to have Adam adopted?

Though I think he decided she was going to keep him before he was born.

God, that episode went like some MN thread on intrusive MILS at the birth. JD is such a clod.

Jenny might as well have stuck a large label on Lexi saying "Baby thief". Ian and Adam really should have chucked her out ASAP.

I've been quietly fuming about the surrogacy SL because it's been so uncomplicatedly positive so far. It's really not an uncontroversial subject and to make it propaganda has annoyed me. However, Jenny's attempt to erase Lexi from the scene today was very interesting are they deliberately undermining the cheery positive storyline of how wonderful and generous it is of Lexi? So far they've managed to say nothing of the baby who will have no mother, of the anonymous and ignored -- egg donor who is actually the mother, and of the possible health implications for Lexi, and the implications of the pregnancy, and her prolonged absence, for her and her own family back home.

Ah. Cross-dressing doesn't make him trans

Yes it does according to Stonewall. People who formally self defined as transvestite are now in the same bucket as people with gender dysphoria and therefore should be treated the same when they are presenting in that way.

'Gestational carrier' makes the baby sound like a commodity and Lexi a vessel.

That is exactly what the term means and why its so disgusting when applied to women acting as surrogates.

I found the representation of Jenny, mother of four children and step mother to a fifth utterly unrealistic. The only element I found credible was the possible concern (not actually expressed) that Lexi might not want to hand over the baby.

The idea that she would be pissy about a woman in labour wanting Kirsty instead of Ian/Adam or not want a male midwife simply wasn't believable. The LSWs often make use of Jenny as the object of ridicule but its not consistent with her character to do it here.

It's really not an uncontroversial subject and to make it propaganda has annoyed me

I can hardly bear to listen to this storyline - I think the simplistic happy-path presentation with histrionics from Jenny at the birth is quite horrible.

I'm hoping there may be a twist or two to come in this storyline. Hoping because otherwise there may be a parting of the waves for me and The Archers after many years faithful listening with full attendance marks (though maybe not always full attention).

There have been some ridiculous storylines before - and some good ones - and I generally go with the flow. But this one? I don't know - I just get the feeling that we're being manipulated, that there's an agenda.

The simplistic happy-path presentation describes it well. The whole village is delighted? No one questions it? I don't believe it.

Yes, Jenny twittering on about how it was all taking so long, when she has done this herself FOUR TIMES. Nonsense.

I agree about the effective misrepresentation of Jenny. It fits in with observations bout the way the SWs write to plotlines, not character, wrenching them out of all recognition.

I think Roy has questioned the surrogacy but his objections were presented as those of a jealous boyfriend/country bumpkin. No-one has been allowed to voice the very many possible objections to this practice.

And yes, Jenny moaning about the length of the labour was utterly implausible.

This is the first grandchild Jenny's been able to be at the birth for, as Kate was always off at Glastonbury or in South Africa, so I suppose that can explain her excitement, but it doesn't excuse her behaviour, nor really explain it, when she's not usually quite so mad, though she's never treated Lexi reasonably.

Begnning to think Kate had a point.

I don't think Jenny's comfortable with surrogacy, but she can't admit or articulate her misgivings. She would never critisise Adam, therefore she is pinning her unease on Lexi.

Jenny is being horrible and unreasonable but I think it reflects an underlying belief that surrogacy has the potential to go very badly.

And yes, Jenny moaning about the length of the labour was utterly implausible

Likewise her horror at the prospect of having a male midwife. Jenny isn't stupid, she must be well aware that male midwives exist, as of course do male obstetricians, and that there is no reason why they should be less skilled than female ones.

I loathe this SL and last night's episode made me very angry.

The bottom line to me is that the character of Jenny is not well written here. She’s reduced to a caricature of a nightmare interfering MIL.

I agree with PPs Jenny has been reduced to a shadow of her former three dimensions. The current SW just doesn’t seem to know anything about her.

Dreadful episode, dreadful storyline, in all sorts of ways.

'Gestational carrier' makes the baby sound like a commodity and Lexi a vessel. Yup, and as lots of people have already said that's how the SWs have decided Jennifer sees Lexi. And as someone else perceptively said upthread, how telling that we are all now talking about what the SWs want us to think rather than just talking about the characters.

Really good point about the SWs forgetting that Kirsty went through a late miscarriage. Surprising that the actress didn't, but I've long thought the actors just swallow all doubts and get on with saying the lines. They'd not last long in TA otherwise!

Trying for a little suspension of disbelief, it's over a quarter of a century since I was last in a labour ward, but I seem to recall in the immediate aftermath there's quite a lot to be done to check the welfare of both mother and baby - waiting for the placenta to be delivered, Apgar scale, weighing the baby, cleaning the mother up, tidying and cleaning the room etc etc. I don't expect Brett called anyone in until all that was out of the way and during all of that time Lexi was almost certainly holding the baby.

Suspension of disbelief now over: now that I'm thinking back to that immediate post-labour time, the idea that the baby is going to be removed from Lexi is making me really angry and emotional. Poor little scrap.

Didn’t Jenny allude to Kirsty’s miscarriage when she said that being in the delivery room must have been difficult? I thought that was actually handled quite well.