CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Christmas TV: Santa Sister J infected by the spirit of The Traitors? Probably not!
call the midwife
Qualification: ***
Doctor Martin
Rating: *****
Bicycle ban! For the sake of all nuns and nurses, these two-wheeled menaces should be banned from the streets of the East End.
Sister Frances (Ella Bruccoleri) left Call The Midwife (BBC1) in grimly traditional fashion when she fell off her velocipede on a snowy street.
Thankfully, this pedaling angel of mercy wasn’t seriously injured, just a shattered clavicle and fractured humerus, in the show’s unflinching medical terminology.
But it was unpleasant enough to be sent to Chichester – the fate that awaits so many nuns when they leave Nonnatus House. Sister Hilda (Fenella Woolgar) had already gone there, sent unannounced at the beginning of the episode.
Bicycle ban! For the sake of all nuns and nurses, these two-wheeled menaces should be banned from the streets of the East End.
Regular viewers (and that means most of us, because we haven’t had much of a choice this past Christmas) will remember how poor sister Mary Cynthia (Bryony Hannah) was enjoying a sunrise bike ride along the docks when a maniac ran her off. attacked. she.
She was sent to Chichester to recuperate. And, in 2017, nurse Delia (Kate Lamb) was hit by a car while she was riding her bike, making her forget about everything… including her girlfriend, Nurse Patsy.
Nurse Trixie (Helen George) prevented such disasters by making sure she was taken everywhere in her lovelorn suitor’s Jaguar. To cement their affections, the super-rich Matthew (Olly Rix) bought dollhouses for the poorest children in Poplar, before buying Trixie a colossal diamond engagement ring, then throwing it into the Thames, to prove he loved her more. than to money
The Christmas story revolved around a homeless woman trying to have her baby in Fred Buckle’s shed. Fortunately, Nurse Crane (Linda Bassett) and her spinster friend of hers, Miss Higgins (Geordie Glen), discovered her, or we’d all be singing: ‘Away on the plot, with Fred’s wheelbarrow for a bed.’
All of this was no more than we expected, a sort of midwife by numbers, and the community talent show, jokingly called Poplartunity Knocks, brought no surprises either.
The only moment of intrigue came when Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter) seemed about to sabotage Trixie’s romance by hinting to Matthew about dark secrets from the past. The Holy Sister J, infected by the spirit of Los Traidores? Probably not! And, of course, she wasn’t being spiteful, she just wanted Lover Boy to know that his future wife would rather choose her own jewelry.
This was meant to be the climax of Doc Martin’s final series, and Clunes has enriched his performance by allowing the Cornish GP curmudgeon to display a wider range of emotions.
Overall, it wasn’t a memorable edit to a show that’s been running for a decade. But Doc Martin (ITV) has been around much longer, since 2004, and the Christmas special managed to be full of shocks and unexpected twists. The Ghost of Christmas Past visited Dr. Ellingham (Martin Clunes), the apparition of her sour mother, as she was freezing to death after crashing her car in a snow storm. Being completely rational and unsentimental, he refused to believe in his existence. But that didn’t stop him from saying some pretty mean things.
This was meant to be the climax of Doc Martin’s final series, and Clunes has enriched his performance by allowing the Cornish GP curmudgeon to display a wider range of emotions.
He may not understand what he’s feeling, but he knows he’s sorry, and even at the end he was able to tell his wife Louisa that he loved her, with enough conviction that she knew he meant it.
This was billed as the last Doc Martin, but they also said that about the previous episode. The doctor did not die of hypothermia or stray far from Portwenn. He didn’t even back out.
Everything is ready for the return of the program. That is the gift I want next Christmas.