Call the Midwife 2.

[Toddlerteaplease]

First time I've ever had a thread that filled up!
@PaperwhiteTheGhost Can't believe I forgot AG, it's my most hated hymn ever!

That’s why I like her - she’s the perfect foil for the cloying saccharine-ness of much of CtM

Really? I thought she always brought Cyril down. He's so smiley and cheery, but she was always so uptight and sucked the fun out of everything Even when they first met and he was whisking her off in his sidecar she was all sniffy about it.

In that case they surely have to send Cyril to join her in Jamaica!
It's too heartbreaking for them to be separated, and being so religious they would surely neither countenance a divorce.

Here you all are! I couldn't find you last night and couldn't believe I was the only one watching😮I agree with the general consensus that it was disappointing. Killing off lovely Lizzie as a sideshow was a horrible thing to do. Getting rid of the cloud hanging over the future of Nonnatus House was far too effortless.

And it would have made for much more interesting storylines for the whole series and going forward if they'd paired Matthew up with Nancy instead of Trixie.

@KohlaParasaurus - yup, putting St Matt the Wooden with Nancy would have been a great SL. They had real chemistry together. Something sadly missing with him and Trixie. They just aren’t credible as a couple.

And if she was dumped again, Trixie could have hit the bottle again, but this time wasn’t able to stay sober. So we see a slow decline, her standards slipping as she desperately tries to hide her addiction, but ultimately fails.

It’s about time we had some grittier SLs, like there used to be. Life isn’t all happy endings and one of the great things about CTM used to be that they did hard hitting stories with great effect. Barbara’s death still stands out to me.

and for happier moments - the time Dr T and Sheila first kiss, on a rainy road in the middle of nowhere - that was sooooooo well done.

Nancy/St.Matthew was a missed opportunity, agreed! It's a shame they couldn't have brought the dentist back for Trixie.

If Trixie and St.Matthew are staying in the cast I can see them becoming the new Turners, swooping in to save the day at every turn. I don't know if it simply reflects the time period but I'm getting tired of the married women being a mixture of 'twee respectability' and 'bossily outspoken' that the rest of the main cast have to defer to. Mrs Turner, Mrs Buckle, Lucille etc. I appreciate being married conferred a certain status in society (with men still having a lot of rights compared to women), particularly professional women married to professional men. Maybe that's all it is.

I'd enjoy an injection of younger main cast characters. Storylines involving (dare I say it) Timothy Turner (as if the Turners don't get enough screen time 😱), students, some new young midwives etc. Showing how society was changing. I really enjoyed the episode with the working class lad who got into Durham and the shotgun wedding/unfolding events. The Turners' au pair storyline too.

I was really looking forward to Val's character developing but she left abruptly (it sounded like a pay/terms dispute as she was supposed to be coming back 🤔). The young doctors who stayed at Nonnatus could've been extended too. I don't find Nancy and her daughter's storyline all that engaging (sorry) and they've wasted the interesting nun characters in the last few series.

Hopefully the midwife training facility at Nonnatus will bring some new faces.

I could do with seeing the back of the Turners but given who writes the show that's not going to happen.

I'd like to see Nancy and Cyril get together. There was definitely chemistry between them in a previous episode.

I'm amazed the Turner children didn't get an invite!

Nancy and Matthew would never have worked out. Aside from the class differences, there would have been religious differences. I'm assuming Nancy is a Roman Catholic and I can't see Matthew being anything other than Church of England. That would have been a very big issue in the late '60s/early '70s. I don't think Matthew's mother would be too impressed with her son marrying a working class Irish Catholic girl. And a single mother too.

And if she was dumped again, Trixie could have hit the bottle again, but this time wasn’t able to stay sober. So we see a slow decline, her standards slipping as she desperately tries to hide her addiction, but ultimately fails.
Has she ever been dumped? As I recall she decided she was unsuitable to be a vicars wife and broke off the engagement to Tom and that she ended things with the dentist because she thought it was unfair on his daughter.

Yes, you've just described my parents (apart from the single mother)! Though they did get married but it had to be a quick quiet registry office do.

I think we might see Trixie's brother again, also have a feeling that Lizzie dying was not quite the end of that story line.
Otherwise why shoe-horn that accident in?
And Trixie's brother was just a little too present to be a "one off".

Just catching up. Immediate observations:

• Dr Cringe’s attention seeking vibrato in For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow 😬
• Tiara nonsense ughhhh
• Wonderful Phyllis ‘I did suggest the purchase of a Rolodex’

Think I've just seen Cyril in the new series of Unforgotten!

I had Corinthians at my wedding and love Stop All The Clocks. Yes, I am a basic bitch.

Good lord do Matthew and Trixie like each other at all. God he seems utterly miserable all the time.

Why didn’t they invite the nuns to the health suite? Or do we assume they did invite them and they declined as too much related to the pleasures of the flesh?

There is a new series of Unforgotten?

Yes ITV1 started tonight at 9pm.

How will they write out Lucille I wonder? They wouldn’t divorce or live separately.

The Geoffrey actor was great in “Housewife, 49” with Victoria Wood. I don’t enjoy VW’s comedy but this was a drama and really brilliant. It won a BAFTA I think. I hope he reappears in CtM.

I liked the Yus but I thought that the storyline was unsuited to the episode and came off as a bit crass. The Turners would not have recovered from that distressing incident so quickly, despite being doc/midwife/medical student.

Oh joy! I never watch itv so I had no idea.

I think Cyril was one of the forensic team (in tonight's Unforgotten), he only appeared once, right at the beginning.

I binged watched the whole of call the midwife, rather than watching it for the past 10 years or so. Doing it this way highlights how often Sheila says 'Oh Patrick' in a simpering tone good the early series were compared to the later ones.

I think it's really bad that these stories are based on the memories of Jenny Leigh but the actress cast, buggered off and they basically had to end her storyline really abruptly. It makes no sense that the older Jenny Leigh would be narrating stories that she had no part in!

It's also a real shame that they couldn't get some of the old cast back to attend Trixie's wedding. Don't actors feel any responsibility towards long running shows? It makes no sense that none of the previous midwives were there and contrasts completely with the sort of friendships they we're supposed to have.

Why do cast members just disappear and are never mentioned again?

Also thought this episode was really disappointing. Yy to a pp who asks how come Matthew's mum had to sell the tiara to fund a cruise but Matthew can buy a building outright? They've also not dealt with how strange it must be for Matthew to remarry - seemingly no conflicted feelings or thoughts of his first wife.
They wasted this episode!

She’s a rude bitch! I feel the same about sister Monica Joan