Call The Midwife Christmas Special

[PinkFrogss]

Anyone watching? Apologies if I’ve missed the thread.

Sister Evangelina would have just got on with it.

I know they want to show the increase of medicalisation in births (once men got involved) but midwives who had seen thousands of unmedicalised births without the Dr Turners of the time would have just got on with it.

I like nurse Crain but her being in it was totally pointless.

I was watching it with someone who hadn't seen it before who marvelled at the fact Dr Turner appeared to be doing so much.

I thought Shelagh was being a bit over dramatic about the outfit sent for May.

I agree that Trixie, Lady Aylward, would not still be working as a midwife. That's just unrealistic. Matthew is Mr Woodentop and will not be missed.

Nancy I've never warmed to. I don'tknow what it is. There's something too modern about her, or her acting, that jars? The bed sit idea was silly too.

I wouldn't want my partner to film with Helen George. Why does she end up either all the men she works with.

I thought Shelagh was being a bit over dramatic about the outfit sent for May.

AND I swear the 'remade' outfit was the exact same size as the original one 😂

I thought Shelagh was being a bit over dramatic about the outfit sent for May.

Have a look at all the 'Christmas is ruined' threads on here. Overdramatic doesn't neccesarily mean unrealistic.

Was I the only person who was surprised Dr Turner did nothing about the car crash?

I think Dr Turner is a classic example of why you shouldn't work with your spouse.

They should introduce another doctor,so there are two of them, maybe a woman who TImmy fancies and then marries and its still the Turner family.

Get Nancy to fuck.

I dislike Nancy and I can’t put my finger on why.

It's actually pissing off that they have taken a story about how women looked after other women and put a man in the centre of it all. It's nothing to do with the increase in the medicalisation of birth.It's about someone wanting to give her husband an acting job.

Yes Dr Turner is like Miss Rabbit in Peppa Pig, popping up all over the place although generally limited to the medical side! Laura Main was great as sister Bernadette but she’s become like a parody as Mrs Turner.
I really liked the Mr Sharma storyline & the two mums.
I think my favourite ever character was Chummy & I was watching some Miranda the other day & thinking how much I like & miss Miranda Hart. I’m not sure what it is about Nancy but I find her hard to warm to.

Tbh what made the show a must watch in the first place was the fascinating stories first told by Jennifer Worth in her book and some fantastic quality production by the BBC. The original characters were interesting because they were real 3 dimensional people. The writers have lost their way.

So this programme we now see is basically not the actuall CtM at all? 😥

They should introduce another doctor,so there are two of them, maybe a woman who TImmy fancies and then marries and its still the Turner family.

I actually think that would be worse, love the idea of a female doctor, but with the shows writing she’ll be turned into a simpering doctor turner fan and he’ll just have another woman to mansplain too.

No they ran out of the original stories quite a while ago! Have you read the books? I highly recommend them.

Yes the original stories were fascinating. I agree that the writers have lost their way a bit & it’s become the Dr Turner show.

The original ones using the stories from the books were great I think because of the fact that the midwives and nuns were almost incidental figures moving in and out of people's lives and it was the stories of the people of poplar that we were told.

Now the people are incidental and the focus is on the characters which is the wolf way round because they end up having to make stuff happen to them to make them interesting. Trixie is in great danger of becoming an Eastenders character, doomed to live in perpetual misery (failed engagement, dumped by dentist, alcoholic, now married but we know he is leaving...) And likes others I expect all of Colette's nosebleeds are leading somewhere so again we will have character with unhappy past, permitted a glimpse of happiness and then tragedy again.

Feels like every year something dramatic needs to happen to a very small pool of people which just isn't realistic. When the tragedy happened amongst the wider population it worked.

Wilf gave my Mum Jennifer Worth's last novel for Christmas Here...

It was a bit uneven. The Sister Monica Joan story was rubbish. I love the CTM nativity plays but they should have just done their nativity as normal. There was no need for this, "It will be my last ever Christmas", nonsense. At first I thought that Sister MJ was suffering from depression and I thought it would be a storyline about depression. But no. Or at least, depression isn't magically cured by a nativity play.

The airman character living in the slum made for an interesting storyline. And the consultant (multiple birth storyline) was played to perfection (didn't catch the actor's name). He was so smug and patronising that he outdid the Turners.

I'll watch the new series when it kicks off but I was thinking back to the earlier episodes with Jenny and Chummy and Trixie and it was much more entertaining back then. I've said already that Trixie has become very dull and wooden. Although given her battle with alcoholism., I guess it's unfair to expect her character to be the life and soul of the party.

I think I missed Phyllis and Millicent. They're the two best characters atm and they were conspicuous by their absence.

Yes you're right. In the first couple of series, it was Jenny telling the stories of the people she had met through her work. There was a little bit of personal information about the midwives and nuns but not much. The people's stories were the centre of it all and they resonated because they were true, not made up to tick a box or push an agenda.

I've not seen that one Elderflower, thank you for that.

@Elderflower14 thank you for that link, I was unaware of this book and have just treated myself to a copy.

Totally agree with the assessment that it used to be about the patients/people, with the nuns and midwives lives secondary - now it's the main cast getting all the storylines and the people are add-ons.

And it's all the worse for it.

Jennifer's daughter found the manuscript during lockdown. They didn't know it existed till then.
I can remember the story of Fred and the toffee apples and feathers!! 🤣 🤣 🤣
here. hlh.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/ENQ/WPAC/BIBENQ?SETLVL=&BRN=3261520