Call the Midwife 4.04
Feb. 11th, 2015 07:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which Nurse Barbara is a champion, Sister Winifred figures out a practical way to help prostitutes and Trixie has an existential crisis.
To start with the storyline I'm torn about, on the one hand, I can see what they did with Trixie, because the show has been careful to show her with a cocktail in her hand in her off hours at an increasing rate without making it too obvious, because people drinking even in this day and age doesn't signify the way it would if, say, she'd be using a narcotic. (The famous Demon in a Bottle storyline did something similar with Tony Stark; you keep seeing him with a drink his hand during the early part of the story when not dealing with villain X and Y and it doesn't register as unusual to the hypothetical first time unspoiled reader, and then it becomes clear that this isn't a story about Tony versus villain X, it's Tony has to face the fact he's become an alcoholic and, because this is still a comic book, tries to kick the habit at the very end of the arc.) And given that alcoholism is a genuine problem in medical professions, sooner or later it was to be expected one character would confront it. The show also plays fair by letting Trixie realise through the shock experience of having slept through being needed professionally because of being drunk, but not ending the episode on an easy note of "okay, now I know I have a problem; no more drinks for me, that's it, then". Where I'm torn is by the choice of connecting this with Trixie feeling insecure re: the wife-of-a-curate aspect of her future marriage to Tom and ending the engagement. I feel it should have been just one or just the other. Then again: I also thought the show played fair by making both Trixie and Tom understandable in their reaction to the bishop's Newcastle news; Trixie after years of serving in Poplar not wanting to raise a family in a slum environment is understandable, so is Tom wanting to work where he's needed most, which definitely is more in a slum than in an easier parish. Then again, on the one hand I do want them back together but on the other I also don't want Trixie to be the one to give up all she wants, which is another reason why coupling this with a storyline where Trixie realises her drinking has crossed the line to being a problematic habit makes me uneasy. Hm, I just don't know.
Otoh: Sister Monica Joan being given the opportunity by fate to help a woman in distress and doing so in a way that also provides Shelagh, who has been resenting Nurse Crane's dismissal of her as a laywoman, with the opportunity to work as a midwife agan and deliver a baby was great to see. (While Shelagh at the end still denies being frustrated by having to do office work, I'm pretty sure this is all building up to her eventual return to midwifery; as Patrick Turner himself says, she's just so good at it.)
The Sister Winifred & Brigid the prostitute storyline played out nicely unconventional, avoiding both the "Winifred makes Brigid see the light and saves her from prostitution" cliché and the "all is terrible, Brigid ends dooooomed" cliché. Oh, and also the "prostitution is just everyone having a good time and a nun is too bigotted to see it" cliché. Instead, Winifred by and large manages to remain focused both on her patient's welfare and on an actual practical way to prevent the then current rate of spred veneral diseases, and campaigning for condom use certainly is far more sensible than anything else Winifred could do. Also in a good nod to medical progress the show points out that Syphilis is treatable if recognised early and the 1960s weren't the 1900s in this regard anymore. (While Dora is a graphic example of what happens if Syphilis is not treated at all.)
Barbara is so far the least characterised among the new midwives; her managing a marathon of three deliveries in a row because Trixie is out cold wasn't a big character revelation, but it establishes her as the stoic, brave and competent type.
Trailer for next week: shows Cynthia coming home as a new nun, which I'm looking forward to.
To start with the storyline I'm torn about, on the one hand, I can see what they did with Trixie, because the show has been careful to show her with a cocktail in her hand in her off hours at an increasing rate without making it too obvious, because people drinking even in this day and age doesn't signify the way it would if, say, she'd be using a narcotic. (The famous Demon in a Bottle storyline did something similar with Tony Stark; you keep seeing him with a drink his hand during the early part of the story when not dealing with villain X and Y and it doesn't register as unusual to the hypothetical first time unspoiled reader, and then it becomes clear that this isn't a story about Tony versus villain X, it's Tony has to face the fact he's become an alcoholic and, because this is still a comic book, tries to kick the habit at the very end of the arc.) And given that alcoholism is a genuine problem in medical professions, sooner or later it was to be expected one character would confront it. The show also plays fair by letting Trixie realise through the shock experience of having slept through being needed professionally because of being drunk, but not ending the episode on an easy note of "okay, now I know I have a problem; no more drinks for me, that's it, then". Where I'm torn is by the choice of connecting this with Trixie feeling insecure re: the wife-of-a-curate aspect of her future marriage to Tom and ending the engagement. I feel it should have been just one or just the other. Then again: I also thought the show played fair by making both Trixie and Tom understandable in their reaction to the bishop's Newcastle news; Trixie after years of serving in Poplar not wanting to raise a family in a slum environment is understandable, so is Tom wanting to work where he's needed most, which definitely is more in a slum than in an easier parish. Then again, on the one hand I do want them back together but on the other I also don't want Trixie to be the one to give up all she wants, which is another reason why coupling this with a storyline where Trixie realises her drinking has crossed the line to being a problematic habit makes me uneasy. Hm, I just don't know.
Otoh: Sister Monica Joan being given the opportunity by fate to help a woman in distress and doing so in a way that also provides Shelagh, who has been resenting Nurse Crane's dismissal of her as a laywoman, with the opportunity to work as a midwife agan and deliver a baby was great to see. (While Shelagh at the end still denies being frustrated by having to do office work, I'm pretty sure this is all building up to her eventual return to midwifery; as Patrick Turner himself says, she's just so good at it.)
The Sister Winifred & Brigid the prostitute storyline played out nicely unconventional, avoiding both the "Winifred makes Brigid see the light and saves her from prostitution" cliché and the "all is terrible, Brigid ends dooooomed" cliché. Oh, and also the "prostitution is just everyone having a good time and a nun is too bigotted to see it" cliché. Instead, Winifred by and large manages to remain focused both on her patient's welfare and on an actual practical way to prevent the then current rate of spred veneral diseases, and campaigning for condom use certainly is far more sensible than anything else Winifred could do. Also in a good nod to medical progress the show points out that Syphilis is treatable if recognised early and the 1960s weren't the 1900s in this regard anymore. (While Dora is a graphic example of what happens if Syphilis is not treated at all.)
Barbara is so far the least characterised among the new midwives; her managing a marathon of three deliveries in a row because Trixie is out cold wasn't a big character revelation, but it establishes her as the stoic, brave and competent type.
Trailer for next week: shows Cynthia coming home as a new nun, which I'm looking forward to.
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Date: 2015-02-12 01:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-12 09:40 am (UTC)