You do have to admire this series for surviving for nine seasons now (2020) - and don't get me wrong, I love the fantastic sets, locations, costumes, and little period details. Not to mention the great topics that each episode brings up, related to midwives working in the 1950s and 1960s in the East End of London. The acting is great, although Sister Julienne and Sister Monica Joan, Trixie the nurse and the doctor are possibly the only original characters. In the beginning, the series tried to make births look realistic, with a bit of blood and babies not being born freshly washed. Those scenes are less realistic these days. But lately two things have bothered me. Firstly, the penchant for happy endings. It doesn't matter if there's a woman considering an abortion or a baby born with a birth defect or a disabled boy sent to an orphanage - everything has to turn out rosy in the end. No one has to live with an incurable disease because there's no cure. If someone suffers racism, there are hordes of people to treat them nicely and to strike back. The writers ignore how in the real world, unpleasant things happened to people and sometimes there isn't a happy ending or cure. The other thing I hate is that treacly, apple pie language. The midwives all talk as though they're reading a very crisp British children's book of the 1960s. They don't swear, they always behave impeccably and never do or say anything sly or dishonest. No one is that perfect. I really hate the continuing Vanessa Redgrave voiceover at the start and the end of each episode, too. But this series has been up and down, so my next review might be a better one.
Review of Call the Midwife
