Call the Midwife tonight

[IShouldBeSoLurky]

God. Wasn't it awful? How on earth the BBC can screen something so sad and visceral and fucking RECENT and still have some little twat making it their policy that abortion is "contentious"... Words fail me. Poor Valerie and poor Valerie's nan.

I think the BBC have back tracked from their position that abortion is contentious, they got a lot of stick for it
I think it's an excellent series, feminism by stealth and will stand us in good stead next time they come for our reproductive rights

The BBC are an absolute disgrace.

The BBC have backed down pretty sharpish and will now be providing the information.
I don't watch every episode of Call The Midwife - it sometimes gets a bit too much like a public information film - but I feel like cheering every time I do watch it. As several reviewers have said, the show puts women (and children, too, I might add) firmly at the centre. Yes, it really is 'feminism by stealth'!

I love how call the midwife doesn't shy away from biological reality too, plus the focus on women and children of course.

It turned into a remarkable episode, just as we in our house were remarking that it was a bit of a 'bitty' (bitty as in lots of bits, rather than the adult breastfeeder on Little Britain) one - and then it all pulled together brilliantly AND completed the story arc they began in the Xmas episode and earlier in this series, about illegal/backstreet abortion.

That it turned out to be who it was (avoiding spoilers for those yet to see it) doing the abortions was a masterstroke.

That was such a powerful episode, I mean all of the episodes are, but that one was utterly incredible.

That it turned out to be who it was (avoiding spoilers for those yet to see it) doing the abortions was a masterstroke

Wasn't it just! She's marvellous in that kind of role and my reaction was that I should have known there was a reason for her to be playing the role.

I grew up when Abortion was illegal and I can recall my mum and a few of our neighbours rallying around when one of the neighbours became pregnant weeks after having a baby. They had her sitting in a bath drinking gin and whilst i can see how it was never going to work they were at least trying to help another woman out of a difficult situation.

I think the thing that struck me the mostm was that the abortionist genuinely believed she was helping women as much as Val does, and did it for the women, rather than for money etc.

Very thought provoking that.

It was fantastic wasn't it? Fabulously written and acted: the confrontation between the two was superbly handled I thought.

I know I'm beating a well worn drum but I do marvel that Call the Midwife is so often dismissed as 'cosy' Sunday night viewing. Feminism by stealth is exactly right: it's quietly, powerfully, truthfully subversive.

Female director, all women writers. It shows.

steppe Absolutely, it showed how complex the situation was without any access to safe abortion.

It was awesome. And awful.
When they went into that room, I very nearly vomited from the shock of it and the turn of the story.
but it made so much sense after the conversation at the table about the women's clinic.

Yes, that cosy label is intensely irritating. It's as if people see that it's going to be about mothers and babies and just assume it's going to be all pink and pastel blue and fluffy. Nobody who has been at the sharp end of labour could think that way, surely!

If Call The Midwife has a weakness, it's the way the "issue of the week" gets wrapped up and dealt with over the course of the episode and then not much mentioned again. We've had episodes about incest, thalidomide, venereal diseases, intersex conditions, and rape, and I've sometimes felt it was all a bit too neat by the end - although they don't shy away from showing the reality of such things. But I'm really glad that they're giving abortion a proper, thoughtful examination and that they've used a new regular character who they've made us care about over the last few weeks. It was a real masterstroke when we found out what had been going on, and it's obviously not going to be presented as a blackand white issue. Great to see this on the BBC in a prime time slot.

If Call The Midwife has a weakness, it's the way the "issue of the week" gets wrapped up and dealt with over the course of the episode and then not much mentioned again.

I don't disagree precisely, but that's a general constraint of episodic television isn't it? Production always has to balance continuity with accessibility for the viewer. Thalidomide they really did give time and space to (in more than one series I think) and handled it very sensitively. Contraception and family planning has also been an ongoing theme. I think they do pretty well really within the confines of the medium.

To be fair, the thalidomide storyline went on over a couple of weeks and I agree that they can't spend a whole series on a single issue. I do think that, as the details of the midwives' personal lives are carried over from series to series, they could do more of that with other storylines, as they have indeed done with this one. I raised it more as a point of comparison to explain why I thought it was so effective!

I've just watched it on iplayer - it is fantastic feminism by stealth. Not just the abortion story arc, but women's education, women's place in the world, women within the family, marriage at a time when only marriage was a ticket to respectability, women being with each other, women arguing, not in the cliched "they're being bitches to each other" but about real stuff that matters, where you can see where both characters are coming from and why they feel so passionately the way they do. Yes, it tugs the heart strings and quite blatantly so, and it's written to do so, but it's also very cleverly written and well acted.

It also seems to me to be getting better and better, as the writers push themselves and get braver. When I first watched it (having read the book) it was a bit of cozy fluff. Now it feels like The Handmaid's Tail in terms of impact.

Tale ffs

IShould I think it's more powerful than Handmaid's Tale purely because no one can dismiss it as pure fantasy. These things really happened.

We watched it last night wasn't it powerful Ann mitchell is a superb actress she was totally believable but she gran just didn't want to see the consequences it was heartbreaking Poor Val .

I don't even think it is stealth feminisim the nurses especially Trixie have always been women health first.

I love call the midwife, I've watched it ever since it started. The stories now are having more impact on me because it's coming up to the year I was born & I'm interested to see the issues that women like my mum faced & I can talk to my mum about them, it's like a living history lesson. The abortion thread that has been running through this series has been well thought out & well told, a friend of my dad who I had grown up calling Uncle had a sister who I knew had died young but until a few years ago I didn't know how she had died, my dad told me she died after having an abortion, this would have been around 1953, this really brought home to me how lucky we are to have access to contraception & safe abortion.

My criticism of CTM is that often the scripts are a bit clunky, especially with over-use of conversational exposition - e.g. Dr Turner 'explaining to Shelagh how and why the measles vaccine is so important, blah blah - as if she didn't already know. There are better ways of doing it and I think sometimes the writers go for the easiest option.

Also, they should have ditched Redgrave's Patience Strong-style voice-overs as soon as the character she's meant to be left the programme, which was years ago.

Dr turners scens have always been a bit in your face since the original stories finished he never used to be so preachy.