'Call the Midwife,' Season 2, 7 p.m. Sundays on PBS beginning tonight (March 31)
Three stars (out of four)
It's not all cakes and tea for the midwives and nuns of 1958 London as British hit "Call the Midwife" returns Sunday for a second season.
Men are behaving badly, including one controlling husband who batters his adoring, pregnant wife. Even more horrifying is a Swedish ship's captain whose daughter is giving birth after being brought aboard to service the sailors.
Doing his best is Dr. Turner (Stephen McGann), who is now offering "gas and air" (a.k.a. nitrous oxide) to women in labor. There's even the revolutionary suggestion that they should have their babies in a maternity home rather than their own beds.
Jenny Lee (Jessica Raine) keeps plugging away, delivering babies and trying her best to right wrongs. Our heroine (the series is based on a memoir by the real Jenny) is still solo, but that cute Jimmy (George Rainsford) soon comes back into her life, for better or worse.
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My favorite character, Camilla "Chummy") Fortescue-Cholmondeley-Browne Noakes (Miranda Hart), is happily married to policeman Peter (Ben Caplan), but still finds something missing in her life. And so on.
Season 1 of "Call the Midwife" was a huge hit in Great Britain for the BBC and in the United States for PBS. Season 2, which premiered in the UK in January, was equally popular, and a third season has been ordered.
Sweet and heartwarming (and heart-wrenching), "Call the Midwife" is a lovely look at female friendships. Fans of the first season are sure to be happy with the second, too.
