Call The Midwife

[Homethroughthepuddles]

Surprised there's no thread on this. Did anyone watch it last night or has the series reached its natural end and is no longer attracting viewers?

I normally like Call the Midwife but found this episode over saccharine and twee

I think the first couple of series were the best, the real grit of the west end and the huge differences between the haves and have nots, I think the timeline is getting too close to our ‘normal’ now so it’s not as shocking or interesting.

Will Miriam Margoyle be in the series, or was she just in it for the Christmas special?

As soon as I clocked the Australian accent I said to DH I bet she was one of those kids shipped to austrialia and abused. I watched a film/documentary on it and it was awfully sad and shocking. I wonder if that will be an underlying theme for the new series?

I do agree that it rather need to end.
It’s getting further away from the original source material and getting closer to a time when nuns and local midwives weren’t delivering babies.

I loved the woman having her baby by the phone box. This is going to sound odd but I felt it showed who women do. One woman in distress having her baby and other women helping her. Something that has happened since the beginning of time and is happening every day still. I can’t have children and I feel more pain at not having given birth, not being part of this chain of women going back to primitive times, more that I feel pain at not having a child.

You're better than me BrieAndChilli, when I clocked the Australia accent I thought it was just the actress doing a poor job of a London accent!!

I really liked it actually although I'd have liked the focus to be more in the Chinese babies, it jumped about a bit. I thought the couple with the older child (Nephew?) with Down's night try to adopt the little girl, I wonder if a few story lines have been set up there?

Just watched it. Very boring this year.

The series that were actually based on the books by Jennifer Worth were brilliant and very original.

Now that the stories are essentially being made up by the script writer it has more or less completely lost the spirit and charm of those early episodes.

It is now so predictable, twee and dull. DD and I predicted in the first 10 minutes, when Dr Big Wavy Hands kneeled down to patronise talk to the orphan, that he'd end up adopting her. And of course Sister Sprout was going to be elected as Mother Superior. What a load of rubbish and what a shame.

I thought it was a bit meh.

I enjoy watching CTM, it's nice cosy viewing, but I do find the attitudes anachronistic which grates sometimes. Like Downtown Abbey the writers whitewash the truth of how people thought in the past eg the midwife saying the Chinese babies should be brought up to know they were Chinese when she learnt they were going to white parents. I think the nuns would have been a lot less tolerant of single mothers than they are shown to be. I can understand why the writers do it though, it would be hard to warm to characters with moral values so removed from those of most people today.

Yes I commented on that but about the Chinese babies. It was a comment that felt out of place for the time.

I didn't bother to watch it when I read Miriam Margoyles was in it. I can't stand the woman. Once a great fan of Call the Midwife I think it's run it's course and is now in danger of overexposure and limp or far fetched story lines.

Oh thanks chester. I missed the bit about the brother having a disability and the Australian programme not wanting him.
I may have had wine.
Was there a series last year? I thought they weren't doing the series any more?

I enjoyed it, but did seem to lack a something. Maybe Fred and wife will adopt another child in new series? Though they are much older but guessing a child with a Disability would have been practically impossible to place so may have been allowed.

Agree could have explained the Chinese programme better we don’t all have a grasp of history from that time. At least the baby in phone box was realistic given hospitals don’t always have room. The actor was also playing police offeicer in the Queen and I. So she done well to get on two programs over Christmas.

I thought it was slow but the ending was moving. However,can someone confirm whether I am correct about something. The custom of side to side air kissing when you meet someone wasn't seen in the UK till the 1980s(first seen on the continent), yet I keep seeing it on historic programmes. OK this Call the midwife was the 70s, but two nuns greeting with the continental face kissing or in this case air kissing. Surely wrong? There were a couple of other anomalies which always detract from the credibility.

I think the first couple of series were the best, the real grit of the west end and the huge differences between the haves and have nots, I think the timeline is getting too close to our ‘normal’ now so it’s not as shocking or interesting.

THIS

I knew the beach was near Chichester!! Dh said I was talking nonsense.

Jayfee - St Paul said that Christians should "greet one another with the kiss of peace", so perhaps it's a standard way for nuns to greet each other

we watched it tonight. found it very sad. the whole doctor and his mrs taking the little girl home annoyed me....what about the little girl with glasses who never got chosen, or the boy with CP who wasn't even on the list,
(and yes where was the beach?~~)

The beach was West Wittering, near Chichester.

thanks, how odd, I have been there and didn't recognise it,
hang on dh did lol.

bet the big house is made up though

At least the baby in phone box was realistic given hospitals don’t always have room. The actor was also playing police offeicer in the Queen and I. So she done well to get on two programs over Christmas

And I’ve just seen the woman who was having the baby in The ABC Murders too.

My df worked in environmental health in London in the 60s. He watched the programme last night and told me Dr Turner felt like a very real character to him and reminded him of the doctors he worked with who had a real commitment to public service . I thought that was very interesting as df is a no nonsense man who I would have thought would find CTM saccharine sweet. He actually said he enjoys it because it reminds him of all the work and progress they made in those days.
Dm was a nurse and because of all the stories I heard from them, I loved CTM from the beginning. It lost a bit of its special message when it ran out of Jennifer Wprth stories. Heidi Thomas should have done a bit more research from those who worked in nursing in those days to 'keep it real'.

Too much of the simpering/mansplaining (depending on which one it was) Turners. I couldn't get Lady Whiteadder out of my head when MM appeared either.

Very very "bitty" and very very just setting up for a new series with a nativity bunged in randomly rather than the usual Christmas specials we normally get.

Livened up by my brother and his girlfriend being there and his girlfriend is doing midwifery training - and the looks of absolute horror on my idiot brother's face when learning about such things as retained placentas and "how the hell can they get that out if the cord snaps... well dear bro - remember those poor cows in James Herriot... they go on a nice fishing expedition up to their elbows"

Trixie has always annoyed the shit out of me - but then lots of the characters in the show do - I just enjoy the social history aspect of it really.