Call the Midwife 7.01
Jan. 23rd, 2018 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakNope, am still in ignorance of the Christmas Special, though I did have a chance to watch the first episode of the new season.
I suppose the special might contain the explanation as to where Patsy and Delia are currently? On vacation? Got their own flat, as they've long planned? Pray tell.
Other than that, a neat season's beginning. The record winter of 62/63 is something I know from two angles in terms of my fannish interests; from a tragic one - it was the winter in which Sylvia Plath took her own life - and from an amusing anecdotal one - the Beatles, on the verge of breaking out, did their first national tour, and because it was so cold had to huddle together in, quoth them, "a Beatles sandwich" more often than not. (Once that was over, it was off to warmer climates, the famous Barcelona holidays for John Lennon and Brian Epstein and for the other three island vacationing with Klaus Voorman and Astrid Kirchherr as Klaus was house-sitting for his father. As it turned out, these were the last holidays as anonymous, unrecognized people any of the Beatles would ever have.)
Here, the episode also goes for a mixture of sad and happy, as is the show's habit - most obviously via birth and death in the cases of the week. I don't think it's a coincidence that the old couple are a pair of German-Jewish former immigrants/refugees who came to Britain to save their lives while new regular midwife Lucille Anderson hails from the West Indies, and when Sister Winifried wonders whether or not people will resent a poc as nurse/midwife, Sister Julienne is given the timely observation that without immigrant nurses, the NHS would oollapse. No kidding. (Insert recitation of "Immigrants (we get the job done)" at your leisure here.) Somehow I doubt our showrunner is a Tory. Or a fan of Brexit.
Lucille Anderson arriving late because her train got snowed in and after 14 hours of waiting she took the initiative and walked through said snow tells us something about her determination, as does the fact that she was able to rally and support Trixie through Nadine's delivery despite having had a bladder infection as a result. Moreover, the scene with Sister Monica Joan was a great touch, letting us know Lucille used to be a librarian on Jamaica but also complicating the beginning bonding between her and Sister Monica Joan when Lucille unwittingly touches on Sister Monica Joan's fear of losing her mind when she suggests reordering the books. I'm looking forward to getting to know Lucille this season.
Nadine as a (former) stripper figuring out a way to make a living as a dance teacher and single mother by the end of the episode, and Trixie deciding to let her relationship with Christopher become sexual both can be taken as signals of the changing attitudes of the 1960s. Extramarital sex is starting to be no longer a road straight to either marriage or social ruin. In Trixie's case, she connects her hesitation before taking this particular step also with her history as an alcoholic, concluding that the need for self discipline had in her grown to a point where she cut herself off not just from alcohol but any kind of freedom. I'm not sure that I see a connection there, because Trixie being hesitant as a result of earlier romantic disappointments and the awareness that at least one man in a past (the rich jerk from s2) thought that her flirtatiousness signalled he didn't even have to ask for consent would have been enough of an explanation for me. But okay.
I knew Timothy would be a pop music fan. Am amused that Shelagh objects to the "sloppy" pronounciation of American singers, and am really curious what she'll make of Liverpudlian singing, so I'm renewing my petition for Timothy being a Beatles fan, show. Including moptop hair.
Speaking of, style wise: the 1960s hair style suits Trixie and Nadine.
I suppose the special might contain the explanation as to where Patsy and Delia are currently? On vacation? Got their own flat, as they've long planned? Pray tell.
Other than that, a neat season's beginning. The record winter of 62/63 is something I know from two angles in terms of my fannish interests; from a tragic one - it was the winter in which Sylvia Plath took her own life - and from an amusing anecdotal one - the Beatles, on the verge of breaking out, did their first national tour, and because it was so cold had to huddle together in, quoth them, "a Beatles sandwich" more often than not. (Once that was over, it was off to warmer climates, the famous Barcelona holidays for John Lennon and Brian Epstein and for the other three island vacationing with Klaus Voorman and Astrid Kirchherr as Klaus was house-sitting for his father. As it turned out, these were the last holidays as anonymous, unrecognized people any of the Beatles would ever have.)
Here, the episode also goes for a mixture of sad and happy, as is the show's habit - most obviously via birth and death in the cases of the week. I don't think it's a coincidence that the old couple are a pair of German-Jewish former immigrants/refugees who came to Britain to save their lives while new regular midwife Lucille Anderson hails from the West Indies, and when Sister Winifried wonders whether or not people will resent a poc as nurse/midwife, Sister Julienne is given the timely observation that without immigrant nurses, the NHS would oollapse. No kidding. (Insert recitation of "Immigrants (we get the job done)" at your leisure here.) Somehow I doubt our showrunner is a Tory. Or a fan of Brexit.
Lucille Anderson arriving late because her train got snowed in and after 14 hours of waiting she took the initiative and walked through said snow tells us something about her determination, as does the fact that she was able to rally and support Trixie through Nadine's delivery despite having had a bladder infection as a result. Moreover, the scene with Sister Monica Joan was a great touch, letting us know Lucille used to be a librarian on Jamaica but also complicating the beginning bonding between her and Sister Monica Joan when Lucille unwittingly touches on Sister Monica Joan's fear of losing her mind when she suggests reordering the books. I'm looking forward to getting to know Lucille this season.
Nadine as a (former) stripper figuring out a way to make a living as a dance teacher and single mother by the end of the episode, and Trixie deciding to let her relationship with Christopher become sexual both can be taken as signals of the changing attitudes of the 1960s. Extramarital sex is starting to be no longer a road straight to either marriage or social ruin. In Trixie's case, she connects her hesitation before taking this particular step also with her history as an alcoholic, concluding that the need for self discipline had in her grown to a point where she cut herself off not just from alcohol but any kind of freedom. I'm not sure that I see a connection there, because Trixie being hesitant as a result of earlier romantic disappointments and the awareness that at least one man in a past (the rich jerk from s2) thought that her flirtatiousness signalled he didn't even have to ask for consent would have been enough of an explanation for me. But okay.
I knew Timothy would be a pop music fan. Am amused that Shelagh objects to the "sloppy" pronounciation of American singers, and am really curious what she'll make of Liverpudlian singing, so I'm renewing my petition for Timothy being a Beatles fan, show. Including moptop hair.
Speaking of, style wise: the 1960s hair style suits Trixie and Nadine.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-25 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-29 05:25 am (UTC)They need to give Sister Winifred a bit more of the challenging cases!