Call the Midwife

[MTR]

Next season will be a short season due to covid. 4-6 eps . Xmas special has been filmed do that's ok at least .

[ajk]

Time for the Christmas special!

As usual WTTW is being dumb about this. Not only are they holding it until 8 p.m. on Christmas night...but they're actually running the 2018 and 2019 specials earlier and more times than the 2020 special. Yes you read that right. So if you see a listing online or in the newspaper, be very careful.

Six airings each of the previous ones (mostly on the 11.2 subchannel), and only two of the 2020 special. The mind boggles. Anyway the other airing of the 2020 special is also on the main WTTW channel on Sunday December 27 at 9 p.m.

The one nice thing they're doing is that between noon and 8 p.m. on Christmas day, they're binge-running all eight of last season's regular episodes on the 11.2 subchannel. Not the best season but still very good.

But if you want to catch the new special, you've got a whopping two shots at it in Chicago. Hopefully the PBS website will stream it because this is nutso.

[ajk]

PBS has it on demand on their website:

www.pbs.org/video/call-the-midwife-season-10-holiday-special-2020/

...and it will be there for the next four weeks so you can catch it at your convenience.

It was mostly a good episode, just not really all that Christmas-y. Felt like a longer version of a regular episode. And we lost another cast member! Nurse Valerie, apparently the actress just up and quit over the summer after four seasons, so they had to explain it away right off the bat. I'm sure they'll replace her well and keep right on going...but wow I sure do not understand why these people keep leaving the series. Like they'll ever be a part of anything as good ever again? Very, very strange.

Speaking of which, did anybody else get the feeling that they're setting nurse Trixie up for her leaving? Like she's hit a crossroads in her life. This one I could understand; the actress is one of the few remaining Season 1 originals left so after ten years...well you could understand maybe wanting a change. But we'll see.

And wow that was quite a teaser from Sister Julienne at the end there. The next season could end up looking very different from what we're used to.