Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
After the excitement of the latest ‘Doctor Who’ episode ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’ on the same Sunday evening, I didn’t think I’d be able to settle down and enjoy watching the latest ‘Call the Midwife’ episode. Thankfully I did see it and I hope to do my best in sharing what I thought of the latest episode.
In the episode, Jenny Agutter as Sister Julienne, in consultation with Stephen McGann as Dr. Turner, agrees to volunteer Nonnatus House to take part in a training initiative to help doctors with an obstetrics diploma. This means four young male doctors will be staying at Nonnatus House for a while.
This apparently is to stop the local council from having Nonnatus House be demolished and to remind them that the midwifery team is essential to the local community. This does make some of the Nonnatus House team a bit uncomfortable having young doctors around, but they’re open to the idea.
The young doctors include Sam Woolf as Dr. Benedict Walters; Lee Armstrong as Dr. Kevin McNulty; Callum Sharp as Dr. Nigel Fielding and Jon Birkbeck as Dr. William Pontin. Dr. Walters and Dr. McNulty have more focus in the episode as opposed to Dr. Fielding and Dr. Birbeck who don’t say any word! 😀
I like the bond formed between McNulty and Jennifer Kirby as Valerie when they work together. Dr. Walters doesn’t seem keen about becoming a physician and following in his father’s footsteps. The four doctors don’t receive approval from Linda Bassett’s Nurse Crane and Leonie Elliot’s Nurse Lucille.
Things don’t help much when the four doctors play cricket in the Nonnatus House and cause a window to be broken I believe. Sister Julienne loses her temper at this point when witnessing this. It seems that this might not be the success as hoped for. But things do work out fine later on during the episode.
Meanwhile, Cliff Parisi as Fred comes across a 60-year old man inside a house on a street that’s marked for demolition. This man happens to be Phil Daniels as George Benson. George has a love for pigeons, including his beloved one named Dot. He doesn’t want to leave his home as it is marked for demolition.
I liked it when Daniel Laurie as Reggie Jackson, Fred and Violet’s ward, forms a bond with George and gets to hold his pigeon with the same care as he does. Reggie, like Fred, is concerned for George’s well-being, especially when he suffers with coughing fits and coughing out blood while in his old house.
It gets revealed by Dr. Turner that George is suffering from a condition concerning the droppings from his pigeons in the house. This means that George has to give his pigeons up. I didn’t know about this condition and it was interesting to discover it in the episode. I liked it when George gave Dot to Reggie.
Overall, this ‘Call the Midwife’ episode was very good. I liked how the four doctors subplot was resolved, especially with Valerie and Dr. McNulty working together to deliver a baby at someone’s flat. The George and his pigeons plot was also sweet, especially once Fred and his ward Reggie get involved.
Stay tuned for my review on Series 9, Episode 5 of ‘Call the Midwife’ on my blog next week.
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now!
Tim. 🙂