Call the midwife part 2

[TwinklyFawn]

I know that my first thread isn't full yet. I just wanted to create the second thread before i forgot.

A prequel would be great, especially as it would ditch the 'old Jenny' voice over at the start and end - or replace it with Sister Julienne perhaps!

Good riddance to the dreadful Timothy.

I love Sister Julienne and could watch her all day.

I love Timothy, I would like him to return with long hair and dreadful 1970s clothes.
I'm concerned that his position as junior partner is vanishing.

Yes, I'd love to see a prequel

I looked him up and recognised him from Last Christmas! I can't remember his character in Grange Hill but it looks like he was only in one episode

I’d love a prequel with Jenny narrating. WW1/1920s. Or the Blitz.

We saw Sr Julienne’s ex boyfriend in an early series. He called her Louise. I’d like that story explored.

I think that if the episodes continue to be as strong as the last two, viewing figures won’t decrease further and some disillusioned viewers who switched off in the last few years might even return.

It was good to see the nuns worshipping in the last episode. Long overdue. I think there’s been too heavy a focus on Trixie and her husband in the last couple of years (no disrespect to Helen and Olly, who are talented). Perhaps a little too much of the Turner and Buckle households too although all those characters add something of course.

It was good to see more of Sr Julienne doing her thing, Jenny Agutter really is such a good actress.

Having suggested Cyril and Lucille would get divorced, I'd come round to the view that they wouldn't. However, as they can't have Cyril (who is a good character) at too much of a loose end and given the friendship with Rosalind I can see why they didn't have him widowed, because there would have to be a possibly lengthy period where he couldn't form a new relationship.

This series has IMO been a vast improvement on the last few, long may it continue. As a carer for a very dependent DH, one of my worst nightmares was explored last night and I'm afraid I may have missed bits because crying. At its best CTM doesn't shy away from the hard things, although they can be leavened with comedy and romance and yes, even the Turners

Six million viewers is still massive numbers in today's TV.

Timmy was popped briefly into an iron lung when he got polio and caused Shelagh and Patrick to postpone their wedding. Then he had a limp for a while.

I really can't see Lucille asking for a divorce as the character she was. It just doesn't ring remotely true, necessary though it is as a plot device for Cyril's storylines.

I'd like to see a Sr Monica Joan prequel. Girl from an aristocratic background with a vocation to be a nun and a nurse in the pre WW1 East End. With the right actress, it could be wonderful IMO. The place was an incredible melting pot as people from all over the UK and the world came through it and I can imagine great storylines, as well as how she adjusted to a regime that would doubtless chafe at times and situations she could probably not have imagined.

I think we should see the rules in some context women enter convents of their own free will. By the time they make a commitment by taking vows they will know if limited contact with their family is too big an issue for them. I was born in 1964 and a friend at school had a cousin who had joined an Anglican order. Telephone calls were restricted but she could write to her family every week and them back to her. Also I grew up in suburbs of a city and not everyone in our cul de sac had a telephone even in the 1970s.

I did think about it when Sr Juliennne commented that delivering the baby in the squat reminded her of the deliveries during the blitz.

I know it's not quite so popular in the UK, and as far as I'm aware Series 15 being made this year and shown next is the last one commissioned so far. But it sells to about 200 countries world wide so I wouldn't totally count out it being commissioned for more series. If it brings money into BBC coffers then??? (If Heidi would want to write more might be the deciding factor).

My mum's brother was in an iron lung after contracting polio and yes he was in it 24/7/365. It was the only thing keeping him alive. He was an adult when he contacted the disease and a heavy smoker. He went into the "lung" in 1968 and died still in it in 1971 aged 45.

I really can't see Lucille asking for a divorce as the character she was. It just doesn't ring remotely true, necessary though it is as a plot device for Cyril's storylines.

I always found Lucille quite cold and uptight in her interactions with Cyril, so I can well imagine her putting up a wall and saying she wants a divorce. It's ridiculous the way they've strung it out though, trying to shoehorn him into stories with no actual plot of his own.

I think that if they had killed Lucille off it would have been even more contrived. The actress is clearly never returning so I'm prepared to accept the divorce storyline. If she was so uptight about her marriage vows she would have not gone away in the way she did in the first plwce, she wouldn't have lied about staying on. No get a divorce on whatever grounds were permitted at that time and let Cyril and Rosalind get together.

Don’t know why they just don’t kill off Lucille. Or bring in another actress. Divorce doesn’t ring true for the character or the times tbh.

I think they should have recast her. They don't seem to go in for recasting these days do they? Go to solution in the 80s/90s if your actor left.

I was also a bit sceptical of Mrs Wallace being all "your congregation will support you" to Cyril. Will they? A divorced pastor? In the 70s? Are we sure?

I think the recasting thing doesn't work well in the era of dvd and streaming back episodes. They have done it once to my recollection, the Mother Superior in series 1 was not played by the same actress in the Christmas episode before series 8 but I think that can be forgiven. The Mullockd dear children were also played by different people in the Christmas episode a few years ago too. For regular characters I think it jars too mucj to see a different head.

I think it's jarring initially, but you get used to it. I watch old episodes of Fresh Prince of Bel Air and whichever Aunt Viv is on it's fine, you know they're both her. Although obviously the original is best.

There's an American sitcom where they recast a child relatively recently and it really didn't work.

It's possible I'm just shaped by the fun actor swapping of Neighbours, Home and Away, Roseanne & Fresh Prince! Maybe it wouldn't work as well here. I guess there is the issue that those were either soaps where you'd be watching it daily so it would bed in fast. Or comedies where you can make jokes about it to get the awkwardness out the way. And CtM is a short series.

I'm still sceptical about how accepting the church would be of a divorced pastor. But a nice storyline there if he's not only divorced but also dating a younger nurse.

@DefinitelyMaryBerry I thought the same thing about them supporting him as a divorcee.

Sounds like Lucille will shoulder the blame from afar

@Montuewed I agree. A friend of mine is a nun. When she was in the noviciate, she couldn't phone home, but would write to her family. It was to reduce the distraction while she was discerning her vocation. She is fully professed and sees her family regularly. This was only a few years ago.

I think the story would have been more believable if Cyril had received a message from home saying Lucille had been killed in an accident.

He could have been supported in Poplar while he played the grieving widower. Then moved on to a new relationship after a while.