SERIES 8, EPISODE 4
Please feel free to comment on my review.
Once again, I saw Series 8, Episode 4 of ‘Call the Midwife’ on BBC iPlayer in 2019. I found it a pretty emotional, bittersweet episode where two subplots were running simultaneously with each other. 😐
The first subplot involves the ‘Call the Midwife’ team trying to unite a mother and a daughter who are both pregnant and pretty estranged from each other. It’s interesting how they united the two. 🙂
The second subplot is where one of Helen George as Trixie’s friends, Molly Chesworth as Jeannie Tennant, is devastated to learn that she’s pregnant and due for a third child. She does not want this.
Jeannie seeks for an abortion in the episode, since she can’t cope with handling three babies and more with her husband in her routine life. It’s pretty saddening how this certain subplot turns out. 😦
Before I talk about the two subplots each in turn, I must say that the highlight of this episode happens to be when the ‘Call the Midwife’ team are watching an episode of ‘Doctor Who’ on the TV.
The episode was ‘Part Two’ of ‘The Aztecs’. This means this ‘Call the Midwife’ episode would have taken place at around 30 May 1964 when ‘The Aztecs’ was being transmitted on BBC TV at that time.
I was so thrilled to see the scene of the ‘Call the Midwife’ team watching an episode of ‘Doctor Who’ on TV shown at that time. Even Judy Parfitt as Sister Monica Joan seems to be the fan of the show. 🙂
I liked it when he explained to the other characters what ‘The Aztecs’ story was about. It made my heart skip a beat. It was a moment I was not expecting to see in the episode and it was well-worth it.
Back to the subplot of the estranged mother and her daughter, Niky Wardley guest stars as the mother Enid Wilson. Hannah Hutch plays her daughter, Cilla Singh. I found this subplot compelling. 🙂
Niky Wardley is known to ‘Doctor Who’ fans for playing Tamsin Drew in the Big Finish audios with Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor. She also featured in ‘The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot’ with Peter Davison.
I didn’t realise it was Niky Wardley playing the estranged mother character when I watched her in the episode. I imagine she was made up to look older compared to how she usually looks in real life.
In the subplot, Enid’s daughter Cilla happens to be married to Omar Malik as Pardeep Singh, a Sikh man. Enid disapproves of Cilla married to Pardeep, which doesn’t make things easier between them.
The ‘Call the Midwife’ team do their best to see that the mother and the daughter put aside and reconcile their differences. This is especially during challenging times as they are about to give birth.
The subplot where Jeannie Tennant decides to go through with an illegal abortion of her third baby was very upsetting to watch. This is especially when Jeannie has an abortion at an unknown clinic. 😐
She gets a nasty infection and eventually dies in the process. Even Stephen McGann’s character of Dr. Turner isn’t able to save her. This was saddening to watch, especially when revisiting it on DVD. 😦
I don’t like abortion stories featuring pregnant women, especially when they go wrong. This was gut-wrenching to watch, especially when it ends on an unhappy note. Trixie is very upset about this too.
Trixie expresses how upset she is during a questioning by Trevor Cooper as Sergeant Woolf. She shares how she failed Jeannie during the time Jeannie expressed how she didn’t want her third child.
Moving away from the upsetting stuff, Linda Bassett as Nurse Crane has a ‘date’ with Sergeant Woolf in the episode. They attend a photography exhibition. It doesn’t quite go according to plan here. 😀
I like how Jenny Agutter as Sister Julienne attempted to connect with Ella Bruccoleri as Sister Frances in the episode. This is especially when Sister Julienne knew so little about Sister Frances as a person.
I find ‘Call the Midwife’ to be a very emotional, character-driven drama TV series that raises interesting questions and highlights how midwifery was handled during difficult times in the 1950s and 1960s. 🙂
The episodes being churned out from each season are thought-provoking and compelling. At this stage, how will the abortion storyline develop? Will the perpetrator be found and caught in Series 8?
‘Series 8, Episode 4’ rating – 8/10
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