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Call the midwife starts this Sunday!!! Who's excited?

999 replies

Soubriquet · 16/01/2018 10:30

I certainly am

I don't think it's a good as it was when it first started, and it can be a tad predictable at times but I still love this show

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MissEliza · 05/02/2018 19:29

I love CTM but this ranks as one of the worst episodes for me. Why do they rush through some storylines? How did they go from Christopher's little girl loving Trixie to her wetting herself as she was so traumatised? And why was there no scene explaining why Magda left?

HeyRoly · 05/02/2018 19:31

I think Magda left because her position was untenable for lots of reasons.

morningtoncrescent62 · 05/02/2018 19:47

That was exactly my response, MissEliza. We were just beginning to get some characterisation for Magda, and some backstory, and then suddenly she's nearly killing herself and then gone. Surely it would have made for much better TV if we'd gradually got to know her, and seen the Taylors and the nuns supporting her through her pregnancy.

It also felt like a very depressing episode. I'm all for a bit of a sob-fest, but not end-to-end gloom. Surely the one very sad and shocking story (the family losing their children) was enough for one episode, without lobbing in a young, friendless woman risking her life and then disappearing alone into the city - oh, and Trixie left alone and falling off the wagon for good measure.

morningtoncrescent62 · 05/02/2018 19:54

Oh, and was it just me, or are the nun's habits dark teal instead of black this series? It could simply be that I'm seeing teal everywhere, or it's being reflected or something, but I did spend quite a lot of the episode trying to work it out.

Pebble21uk · 05/02/2018 20:35

I think part of the relentless doom and tragedy is down to the creator being adamant that she is creating 'hard hitting drama' covering issues other dramatists shy away from - from FGM to thalidomide.

Whenever I see Heidi Thomas or any of the actors interviewed they are always at pains to point out how gritty it is and not a nostalgia fest. In fact the CTM official Twitter account and MrMcGann himself were tweeting after Sunday's show how ridiculous it was that the continuity announcer had called CTM 'gentle & nostalgic' in the opening credits announcement (Oh no, I'm not invested at all Grin).

But at the end of the day it's on at 8pm on Sunday night and usually the outcome from every storyline is eventually sugar coated. If people want gritty realism, CTM is not what they are tuning in to!! I watch it for it warmth & nostalgia and period details of course!!

So pleased you've seen the light Sadie / Shelagh but what caused the scales to fall from your eyes??

Pebble21uk · 05/02/2018 20:39

Oh and they have always pushed storylines along at breakneck speed when it's suited them. My favourite vintage lesbians found a flat, cleaned it up, moved in, had an accident, one had terrible amnesia, gave up the flat and moved back to Wales... all in one episode!

AnneEyhtMeyer · 05/02/2018 20:40

Oh SadieformerlyknownasShelagh I am so pleased you have finally seen the light! You were far far too good for him! He needs to go!

Another thing I meant to ask about Sunday's episode - Trixie talked about Social Workers. Did they have Social Workers in 1963? Or is it a time-hop thing like the postcard from Botswana?

MissEliza · 05/02/2018 21:03

The original storylines were able to be hard hitting and warm at the same time because Jennie wrote about real things in a compassionate way even if the outcomes were sometimes tragic. The 'good old days' were sometimes the bad old days and early series didn't pretend otherwise. However recent storylines have had too much of a 21st century storyline.
I also don't like the way the nuns are being pushed to the back. I love Jenny Agutter. She has a very serene quality. I think Sister Monica Joan is my favourite though. She can be a wise old bird when she's lucid. I know the role of the nuns in providing health care would be slipping away as the 60s progressed but why not write that into the storyline? It's as much part of the social history of the country as the rise of the NHS.

BertieBotts · 05/02/2018 21:14

I thought the modern day interpretation was that the little girl was wetting herself due to stress because her mother kept telling her how awful Trixie was, and general uncertainty over whether her dad and Trixie were going to get married and start a new family and abandon her (nobody was really likely to have sat her down and explained things to her, were they?) and the divorce was blamed because it was so unusual and thought of as being so damaging to children? Psychiatry was still quite Freud heavy in the 60s and it seemed like a lot of the time they were just clutching at straws TBH! And Trixie probably believed the divorce was at fault since it was believed to be a thing at the time and she couldn't bear making Alexandra unhappy.

When I was anxious at school aged eight my teacher told my mum it was all her fault because I was from a broken home Confused funny because I remember this teacher being very scary and unpredictable, which was probably what was making me anxious! And that was only in the 90s.

WildWindsBlowing · 05/02/2018 22:19

I also don't like the way the nuns are being pushed to the back.

YY

MarthasHarbour · 05/02/2018 22:48

Sadie I think I spotted you upthread before you outed yourself today. I was all ready to be all smug saying 'she is amongst us, just look for the clues' when you revealed yourself Grin

welshmist · 06/02/2018 12:10

Am missing the nuns story lines to be honest.

WinterHoliday · 06/02/2018 13:11

I wish they would at least mention Cynthia and how she is. I'm sure she would have written to everyone at Nonnatus House.

gabsdot · 06/02/2018 13:43

You must all stop being so mean about lovely Doc Turner. I love him. It's his wife I can't stand. The way she talks is very irritating.

Anyway. About this weeks episode. I thought the nuns were very forgiving about the "abortion on church grounds". I'm Irish and Catholic nuns in 1960's Ireland would NOT in a million years been so forgiving.

ReelingLush18 · 06/02/2018 13:58

I'm pretty sure Magda would have been prosecuted for being caught trying to abort her baby, wouldn't she?

Agree that the nuns aren't getting the rich story-lines they deserve, and they are dwindling in numbers. When CTM first started there were at least five or six nun characters (and fewer lay midwives?).

Totally agree that there is no way the nuns would have been so forgiving of the attempted abortion, or tolerant of the beauty pageant!

It's so strange that in some ways the attention to detail is so good and yet major bloopers are made, such as having the nuns act entirely out of character for the era???

Youcanstayundermyumbrella · 06/02/2018 14:12

I wonder whether, on the abortion issue, nuns might be less appalled than we think. I know a nun, who is from a big family, and she is the only one of her siblings who isn't anti-abortion, because her work with deprived families means she sees the situations where abortion makes a huge difference. Also, these are not Catholic nuns, are they? They're Protestant.

Having said that, this is set in the 60s, so I don't know whether you can start to compare nuns of now and then, and I assume abortion was looked on as a sin by nuns of all churches.

MadameButerfly · 06/02/2018 14:14

I've only just started watching this series and captured about 3 so far. I love it but is it always so sad?

WildWindsBlowing · 06/02/2018 14:15

Totally agree that there is no way the nuns would have been so forgiving of the attempted abortion, or tolerant of the beauty pageant!

Attempted abortions went on often then, so as those nuns were mid-wives in the east end in those days, probably they would have been used to coming across them.

They were Anglican rather than Irish Catholic so they would have been different generally speaking, though who knows if they would have been quite so forgiving.

The writers must have to be careful of people in the present who have had abortions, or attempted them, and who may watch the programme.

In the original book the old nun `sister Monica Joan whose experiences went back to the late 19th C described 'surgical rape' at that time by police doctors capturing young girls to 'examine' them, on the pretext they thought they might be prostitutes with venereal diseases. So the nuns were used to everything,

There was another attempted abortion a long way back in the series too.

Youcanstayundermyumbrella · 06/02/2018 14:26

Josephine Butler was the remarkable woman who campaigned to repeal the Infectious Diseases Act, which is what gave the police the right to grab any woman they wanted and internally examine them. They merely had to 'suspect' them of prostitution, so not only women who were working as prostitutes (bad enough thought that was) but any woman at all could be targeted. Not only that, but the poor women who were found to be infected were imprisoned.

Depressing to think that several states in the US now have mandatory internal scans before abortion, so we are back to forced internal examinations of women.

Youcanstayundermyumbrella · 06/02/2018 14:26

Sorry, Contagious Diseases Act.

BertieBotts · 06/02/2018 15:29

TBH it is one of the things which struck me about the original book. The nuns and experienced midwives were very non judgemental. It made me think about those kinds of attitudes not being modern as such, they've always been there among those who know the reality of people's suffering. Not everyone in the past was awful and devoid of empathy!

Parsleyisntfood · 06/02/2018 15:39

There was the story of the wife who had lots of children and sought an abortion. When she got seriously ill one of the nuns completed the abortion to save her life to the shock of the midwife. I think people at the sharp end often had more practical views. Sister Monica Joan talked about letting babies with (serious condition I can’t remember the name of) die before the mothers saw.
I agree it used to be much more about the reality of the good old days.

SusanWalker · 06/02/2018 15:47

Yes why hasn't Jenny Agutter done any deliveries this series? She is an excellent actress.

I am finding it a bit 1963 meets 2018. I can't believe there is only one racist person in the whole of Poplar, and who is no longer racist. I also can't believe that single mum who bought a dancing school would have masses of pupils when it's much more likely that parents would have not wanted their child to be taught by an unmarried mum. I know we're in the sixties but its early sixties and these prejudices were still around long after.

It's not that I want everyone to be nasty but just that it should be realistic.

SimonBridges · 06/02/2018 16:37

I agree.
It always jars with me in many periods dramas where the leads are not racist etc. Many people were in those days, even up to the 70s we still had the Black and White minstrels and Love Thy Neighbour on TV.

StripySocksAndDocs · 06/02/2018 16:56

My mil was a midwife in the East end in the 60s (biked around undisturbed with drugs in the bag) She watched the early series. A lot rang very true with her (I recall her confirming the method for breech birth). She has also told me about babies being 'left to die'; very sad tales to hear.

She's not spoken about abortion to me. Not from then anyway, when it was illegal.

The lack of racist does seen unrealistic. From what it portrays there was less then than now.