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Reviews
Jun 1, 2019 18:39:46 GMT
via mobile
Post by roverpup on Jun 1, 2019 18:39:46 GMT
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to start watching Call the Midwife on Netflix. A friend of mine loves the show and kept telling me to watch it, so I had watched a couple of random episodes on tv and thought it was ok. But watching it from the start, and in order, was a lot batter and made more sense. Hey! We just started watching Call the Midwife too! It's not ground shaking but it is entertaining enough. I recognised the lead actress (in the first 3 seasons) from seeing her in Patrick Melrose! And I love the character of Chummy played by the Miranda Hart, also known to me as the woman who BC spoke to in Smaug's voice on Graham Norton's couch! 😁
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Post by mllemass on Jun 1, 2019 19:40:29 GMT
I miss those early characters on Call the Midwife! At least they didn’t kill off everyone who wanted to leave the show. They’re still around somewhere, just not on the show, so I’m always hopeful that they’ll return one day.
The show is especially interesting to me because my sister and I were born at home, in Italy, with the help of a midwife. There was no hospital in that town at the time (there is now), so this is how everyone was born, and parents just hoped that there were no complications. The last time I was in Italy, my cousin took me back to the town and pointed out the apartment building and the 3rd floor apartment where I was born. I took a picture of the window and balcony!
Call the Midwife eventually gets to the years my sister and I were born, so I can’t help but picture my parents as those characters on the show - my father nervous and pacing and smoking, my grandmother trying to be helpful but actually being annoying, my mother screaming in pain while also screaming at my grandmother to stop telling her what to do. Ha! An older cousin of mine tells the story that when I was born, my father wasn’t even there. They had to send someone to find him and give him the news that he had a second daughter. According to my cousin, my father was not pleased. They’ve had several storylines on CTM where the expectant father blames the new mother for not giving him a son, or the new mother is terrified to tell her husband that the baby is a girl. I hope they have an episode soon where the men find out that the father’s contribution determines the sex of the baby!
Another recurring storyline on CTM involves Thalidomide, a drug prescribed to pregnant women to help with morning sickness. The babies were born with severe deformities. I went through high school with two boys, twins, who were Thalidomide Babies. Their deformities were different, but affected their limbs. By the time I knew them, the boys were quite strong and were able to lift themselves up to regular school chairs (even a tall stool in Art class), even with missing arms. One of the twins used a crutch.
Over the years, our local paper has done stories on these Thalidomide kids - who are no longer kids. The articles always feature the two boys I knew back in school. Their mother has been a vocal activist and one of the reasons that the Canadian government provides the victims with a benefit as compensation. This particular mother still has the container of the pills she had been prescribed while she was pregnant. She only took 1/2 of one pill, but that small dosage was enough to cause such horrible deformities in her sons. Can you imagine that there was once a time when they didn’t test the safety of drugs on unborn children? And they didn’t know that smoking and drinking affected the babies? In fact, in one episode the midwife suggested that a nervous mother-to-be have a cigarette to help her relax!
Recently, the Thalidomide activists have gone back to the government to ask for more. The victims are ageing (as we all are) and are no longer strong enough to get by as they did in their younger years. They will now need extra support (money) and I hope they get it. By the way, those twin boys continued on to college/university and had jobs doing something with computers.
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Post by sgev1977 on Jun 1, 2019 19:50:58 GMT
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Post by sgev1977 on Jun 1, 2019 21:30:35 GMT
I just watched two episodes and it's not bad but it's also very forgettable. I think it's designed for fans that already love those characters and nothing more. Someone as Terry Gilliam would had make something visually more interesting. It's just a very conventional British TV film. The main music theme is really good, tho.
Probably I will go to the last episode later to watch BC's part.
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Post by mllemass on Jun 1, 2019 22:43:58 GMT
Because I have absolutely no willpower, I’ve been searching for a reason to subscribe to Amazon Prime besides watching Good Omens. I’ve even asked my sister if there’s anything she wants to order that she needs right away and for free shipping. She’s thinking about it!
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Post by MagdaFR on Jun 1, 2019 22:57:17 GMT
I watched all 6 episodes. I liked the first two even with their unnecessary explanations of things that were happening clearly on screen. I didn't like the third episode with all the flashbacks to Aziraphale and Crowley's interactions which break the story being told and take almost halph of the episode. I didn't like much Tennant and he looked a good part of the series visually very bad, imo. I don't know why they have to picture demons that way. I liked Sheen. The antichrist's upbringing wasn't really shown. If I remember correctly he had somehow changed the town and surroundings to fit his wishes, a bit is talked about the weather but it was more than that. What happened with the parents? The father looked particularly weird. The 4 bikers didn't look scary, they were like charicatures but not funny. BC's scene was so minimal and rushed!
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Post by MagdaFR on Jun 1, 2019 23:06:50 GMT
Because I have absolutely no willpower, I’ve been searching for a reason to subscribe to Amazon Prime besides watching Good Omens. I’ve even asked my sister if there’s anything she wants to order that she needs right away and for free shipping. She’s thinking about it! Did you already use the free trial?
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Post by mllemass on Jun 1, 2019 23:09:53 GMT
No, not yet! I’m waiting for a better reason to get the free trial.
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Post by queenzod on Jun 1, 2019 23:25:04 GMT
Over the years, our local paper has done stories on these Thalidomide kids - who are no longer kids. The articles always feature the two boys I knew back in school. Their mother has been a vocal activist and one of the reasons that the Canadian government provides the victims with a benefit as compensation. This particular mother still has the container of the pills she had been prescribed while she was pregnant. She only took 1/2 of one pill, but that small dosage was enough to cause such horrible deformities in her sons. Can you imagine that there was once a time when they didn’t test the safety of drugs on unborn children? And they didn’t know that smoking and drinking affected the babies? In fact, in one episode the midwife suggested that a nervous mother-to-be have a cigarette to help her relax! Recently, the Thalidomide activists have gone back to the government to ask for more. The victims are ageing (as we all are) and are no longer strong enough to get by as they did in their younger years. They will now need extra support (money) and I hope they get it. By the way, those twin boys continued on to college/university and had jobs doing something with computers. I’m a DES baby. In the 1950s, doctors used to prescribe DES (diethylstilbestrol) to mothers who were at risk of miscarriage. It’s basically massive doses of estrogen. When us girls started hitting puberty, we began to develop horrendous cases of cervical and uterine cancer. There are hundreds of thousands of us (if not millions), much worse numbers than the thalidomide babies. Many had hysterectomies, lots died. Even the male babies had fertility issues when they matured. I was pretty lucky, but didn’t escape altogether. I have/had abnormal tissue all over my vagina and cervix and a bunch of deformities “down there.” Also, I found out I would never likely have children. I went thru 3 years of experimental surgeries on my private parts, beginning when I was 15. Cryosurgery to burn off the abnormal tissue, which was horribly painful and didn’t work, but they kept at it anyway. I was traumatized and unwilling to continue, but b/c I was a minor I had no say. Completely unnecessary medical experimentation, but my parents thought it was better than an outright hysterectomy at such a young age. Fucked me up something terrible. No therapy, no talking about it in the family. My mother became enormously depressed and my father felt guilty as hell, especially since he was a pharmaceutical chemist. I wasn’t allowed to use the pill or an IUD, and couldn’t be fitted for for a diaphragm due to the deformities, so that caused a few issues when I became sexually active. Needless to say, I ended up with lifelong ptsd, and I’ve had trust issues with drugs and doctors ever since. I have lots of the same symptoms as rape victims, even though my assault was done by doctors in the name of science. It’s been...interesting, to say the least. I’ve come to terms with a lot of it, although much of the behavioral patterning remains. Sorry if this was too much to share, but the misuse of pharmaceuticals and the general stupidity of the medical community is one of my hot buttons.
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Post by sgev1977 on Jun 2, 2019 1:55:57 GMT
I watched all 6 episodes. I liked the first two even with their unnecessary explanations of things that were happening clearly on screen. I didn't like the third episode with all the flashbacks to Aziraphale and Crowley's interactions which break the story being told and take almost halph of the episode. I didn't like much Tennant and he looked a good part of the series visually very bad, imo. I don't know why they have to picture demons that way. I liked Sheen. I don't like Neil Gaiman writing but he has a huge imagination. I would wait for something visually interesting to rival that imagination. I think that's why something like Coraline worked so well. The demons were the picturesque characters (angels were just people looking very clean in formal clothes) but yes, their designs were bad. Here it seems they were influenced by Terry Gilliam in the intro but it stopped there. The rest is too BBC kind of conventional. And yes, the BC scene is extremely brief! He clearly was just doing a favor. Probably is less than a cameo! Nice that he has a big credit and was used as a big promotion tool by Gaiman and company! I guess! Also, most of the human characters were boring. The child actors were bad, especially the main one. Very inexpensive! I don't know, probably it didn't help they all were playing extremely simple cartoons.
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