Call the Midwife
Jun. 7th, 2013 08:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerSo I am behind on reviewing things, guys. I started watching Call the Midwife back in May when I went to visit Rachel in Chicago, and I have not posted about it yet. It is a British costume drama that focuses on midwives in London’s East End in the 1950s, and it starts out good and swiftly becomes amazing with the addition of Chummy in episode two.
Chummy is my favorite. Chummy is this terribly awkward, tall, upper-class girl with a plummy accent, who has become a nurse and is forever accidentally riding her bicycle into bobbies and saying things like “When Mummy had the Viceroy over for tea...”
(I am secretly convinced that Chummy had Mary Poppins as a nanny in her youth. For no reason other than because that would just be awesome. Ridiculous headcanon FTW?)
But is also, despite her jitters, terribly good at her job! And gives women in labor confidence in her, and in their own ability to pull through! And despite her anxieties, manages to pull herself together to be really honest about her feelings when she needs to be.
Though Chummy is my favorite (and I am INFINITELY SAD that she is apparently not on the show in season 2!), all the midwives are delightful. Romantic Cynthia; vivacious Trixie; and Jenny, our window onto Nonnatus House and the East End, where she has moved to escape a love affair that could never be (and we never do meet or learn much of anything about her paramour, probably because if she got over him and learned to love again, she might marry someone else and then the show would be over.)
The saddest story, for me, was the one about Mary, who came over from Ireland and got sucked into a brothel, although really most of the episodes have their “oh dear” moments. In the first episode, for instance, the nurse Jenny tends Conchita, who has already had twenty-some children, because she’s been bearing them one after another ever since she returned to England with her new British husband after the Spanish Civil War...
...even though she speaks no English and he speaks no Spanish, a situation which endures to this day. They adore each other nonetheless, but...
Jenny, standing in for the viewers, is like O.O. The nuns are like "We're here to nurse people, not to judge," and one of the things that makes the show interesting is that it leaves it open whether we the viewers should always agree with that. Like, surely the fact that Conchita and her husband can't speak to each other is just a little creepy? Even though they do love each other?
There’s a theme throughout the show about love: about whether love can conquer all, about being brave enough to love and be in love, and holding out for real love - and what real love means. Many of the episodes tread heavy ground, but the theme buoys the show so that it’s sad but not depressing. The characters can’t always help, but they want to, and it’s lovely to watch.
Chummy is my favorite. Chummy is this terribly awkward, tall, upper-class girl with a plummy accent, who has become a nurse and is forever accidentally riding her bicycle into bobbies and saying things like “When Mummy had the Viceroy over for tea...”
(I am secretly convinced that Chummy had Mary Poppins as a nanny in her youth. For no reason other than because that would just be awesome. Ridiculous headcanon FTW?)
But is also, despite her jitters, terribly good at her job! And gives women in labor confidence in her, and in their own ability to pull through! And despite her anxieties, manages to pull herself together to be really honest about her feelings when she needs to be.
Though Chummy is my favorite (and I am INFINITELY SAD that she is apparently not on the show in season 2!), all the midwives are delightful. Romantic Cynthia; vivacious Trixie; and Jenny, our window onto Nonnatus House and the East End, where she has moved to escape a love affair that could never be (and we never do meet or learn much of anything about her paramour, probably because if she got over him and learned to love again, she might marry someone else and then the show would be over.)
The saddest story, for me, was the one about Mary, who came over from Ireland and got sucked into a brothel, although really most of the episodes have their “oh dear” moments. In the first episode, for instance, the nurse Jenny tends Conchita, who has already had twenty-some children, because she’s been bearing them one after another ever since she returned to England with her new British husband after the Spanish Civil War...
...even though she speaks no English and he speaks no Spanish, a situation which endures to this day. They adore each other nonetheless, but...
Jenny, standing in for the viewers, is like O.O. The nuns are like "We're here to nurse people, not to judge," and one of the things that makes the show interesting is that it leaves it open whether we the viewers should always agree with that. Like, surely the fact that Conchita and her husband can't speak to each other is just a little creepy? Even though they do love each other?
There’s a theme throughout the show about love: about whether love can conquer all, about being brave enough to love and be in love, and holding out for real love - and what real love means. Many of the episodes tread heavy ground, but the theme buoys the show so that it’s sad but not depressing. The characters can’t always help, but they want to, and it’s lovely to watch.
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no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 05:09 pm (UTC)She is for a little bit, and then again at the end.
Another thing I liked about this show was that it avoided the typical, IDK... pettiness that often comes from stories just about women? Like, you never have the nuns and the nurses ~clashing over things, or the different nurses having typical weekly plots like "someone is reading my mail!" "someone has been through my things!" "she's being ~mean to me!" etc, which seems to be kind of a staple in workplace period stories (Bomb Girls, The Paradise, Mr. Selfridge).
no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 10:19 pm (UTC)I did find it amusing when they were all trying to listen in on Jenny's telephone calls, and she starts making up a totally scandalous conversation.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-08 10:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-08 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-08 02:59 pm (UTC)But now that I know it has a fandom, if one of surpassing tinyness, I will keep a running list of fic possibilities as I watch season 2.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-08 05:29 pm (UTC)