The Christmas special and series two premiere find the newly married Nurse Chummy and PC Noakes enjoying wedded life, but she feels a religious calling to missionary work, and that tests their relationship. Turner (Stephen McGann) tiny, emotionally fragile Bryony Hannah as Nurse Cynthia Miller Cliff Parisi as handyman Fred and Ben Caplan as PC Peter Noakes. Rounding out the cast are Helen George as fun-loving blonde Nurse Trixie Franklin singer Laura Main as Sister Bernadette, who falls in love with widower and single-father Dr.
In addition to Raine's sensitive portrait of Jenny, making the strongest impressions are comedienne Miranda Hart as Nurse Camilla Fortescue-Cholmondeley "Chummy" Browne, a comically towering, awkward young nurse with an upper class background Sister Evangelina (Pam Ferris, Rosemary & Thyme), a short-tempered, no-nonsense nun and midwife particularly annoyed by the eccentric, increasingly senile behavior of elderly Sister Monica Joan (Judy Parfitt, the Nicol Williamson Hamlet, also ER) and Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter, The Railway Children, Walkabout, Logan's Run), the diplomatic, sensitive but rock-solid mother superior. The show is supremely well acted by its mix of young and veteran talent. Narrated by Vanessa Redgrave as the older Jenny (and always quoting directly from Worth's book), the show traces her steady adjustment to life among the poor, usually following her adventures in an "A" story while a secondary "B" subplot follows one of the other nurses or one of the nuns, and sometimes either or both stories parallel their situations with various expectant mothers and their husbands (or their lack thereof). (Many American viewers seem confused as to whether Jenny herself has taken vows, but the show makes perfectly clear several times that no, she has not, nor have several other of the nurses.) Why a supposedly commercial-free public television network would feel compelled to do this is beyond all reason.Īs before, Call the Midwife is set in Poplar, an alarmingly poor section of London's East End, where in the late 1950s midwife nurse Jenny Lee (Jessica Raine) has joined Nonnatus House, an Anglican nunnery based on Worth's real place of employment, Whitechapel's Sisters of St. Interestingly (or, distressingly if one watches PBS these days), the packaging notes "Exclusive 10 Additional Minutes per Episode." I assume this means, as with other British shows, PBS is editing episodes of Call the Midwife, presumably to fit a particular time-slot. Spread across two Blu-ray discs, Call the Midwife Season Two offers excellent audio and 1.78:1 high-def video, along with a good behind-the-scenes featurette. Also included is Call the Midwife's Christmas special, a 75-minute program set between the two seasons and which aired in Britain on December 25, 2012, about a month prior to the new season's premiere.
Created by producer-writer Heidi Thomas, whose short-lived revival of Upstairs, Downstairs had similar qualities, Call the Midwife likewise offers rich characterizations and intriguing, historically interesting stories and situations.Ĭall the Midwife - Season Two expands upon season one, with eight 60-plus-minute episodes compared to six just-under-an-hour shows the previous year. The highly rated, critically lauded series adapted from the same-named (and partly fictionalized) memoirs of Jennifer Worth (nee Lee), Call the Midwife (2012-present) returns for another season of compelling episodes.