Call the Midwife, Season One Recap and Reaction

I am finally watching this show and I can say that it is just as good as the immensely popular Downton Abbey.
It is 1957, London, the East Side, where the people are poor and the babies are plentiful. Jenny Lee (Jessica Raine) is the new midwife and one who has a secret which I'll get to later. The Nonnatus House is a convent with Anglican nuns and Jenny is surprised to find herself there and it does take some getting used to. The fellow midwives, a mixture of nuns and lay people, are a colorful bunch of characters. Sister Monica Joan (Judy Parfait) is elderly and absent-minded and speaks in metaphors, Sister Evangeline (Pam Ferris) is very strict but means well, Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter) is the kindest and most motherly of the nuns, Sister Bernadette (Laura Main) is the youngest nun and the most under developed, Trixie (Helen George) is the pretty blonde, who is also a major flirt, Cynthia (Bryony Hannah) is very sensitive and another new midwife is Camilla, but called Chummy (Miranda Hart) who comes from a wealthy, but cold family. Chummy has many problems, including not being able to ride a bicycle which is a necessity for these midwives, but she does slowly adjust.
I'll deal with Chummy first. She gets a love interest, a policeman named Peter (Ben Caplan) who is kind and considerate. She is very happy with him but her rich mother, Lady Browne (Cheryl Campbell) is not impressed as she believes that Chummy is not living up to her class and Peter is beneath her so Chummy breaks things off though it deeply depresses her. Fortunately, thanks to her fellow midwives and a case, she apologizes and soon walks down the aisle with him, refusing all help from her mother even saying calmly that a white dress wouldn't be appropriate anymore, barely giving her mother time to blink. The two get married in the finale.
Cynthia and Trixie deal with an interesting case. A woman, Winnie Lawson (Tessa Churchard) becomes pregnant at forty-one and is not pleased. In fact, she was so out of touch with the whole thing, that her pregnancy wasn't even diagnosed until just a month before her due date. Though she isn't pleased, her husband (John Ashton) is thrilled as this will be his first child. The problem is, it isn't his child. Winnie married him because her first husband died and she wanted her children to have a father and though she knew she made the right decision, she still went out and had a one night stand with a black man which is how she got pregnant. Her husband doesn't even care when the baby is born, clearly African, in fact, he is thrilled and doesn't even question anything about it.
Jenny also deals with some interesting cases. In the first episode, she deals with a woman who is pregnant for the twenty third time. Yes, you read that right. They even had two sets of twins, meaning they have twenty-four children already. The poor woman hasn't even had her period in eleven years. (The pill hasn't been introduced yet.)You see, the husband (Tim Faraday) brought his wife, Conchita (Carolina Valdes) over from when he was fighting in Spain in the Civil War. She was just fourteen at the time. Even odder, despite being married from around twenty years, Len (aka Husband) learned no Spanish and Conchita learned no English so oldest daughter Maureen (Hayley Squires) translates. But they look truly in love and devoted to each other. Then Conchita falls down, suffers a concussion and goes into premature labor. At first, Jenny believes the baby boy is stillborn but then he starts to move. But Conchita refuses to let the baby, born roughly ten months early, be taken away from her to go to the hospital (the babies are mostly born at home). But what she does works and the baby gains weight and gets healthy.
Jenny also deals with the young Mary (Amy McAllister), a fifteen year old prostitute who becomes pregnant. She is taken away and put into a Catholic house where her pimp doesn't have access to her anymore. Though Mary is thrilled when baby Kathleen is born, the baby is taken without Mary's consent because she is too young to even give consent, and put up for adoption. Mary is devastated though I doubt few would have suspected what she would have done next. Another mom, after a heart breaking stillbirth, has a healthy baby girl they name Gillian, but this baby is snatched from her carriage by Mary because she just wants a baby to replace the taken Kathleen. Luckily, Jenny is able to talk her into giving up the baby and baby Gillian is reunited with her parents.
Now to Jenny's secret. When she was younger, she fell deeply, hopelessly in love with a married man who refused to leave his wife, leaving Jenny heartbroken. She cannot move on, not even despite the interest of a longtime friend. Finally, in the finale, she decides that she needs to let him go and not cling on to the feeling she had with him.
This show is realistic and the setting is brilliant, truly looking like the 1950s. The acting is also good, from the main cast down to the countless guest stars. The show makes you love and cry, fortunately rarely at the same time. There is really nothing bad I can say about this show, nor complaints that I can make. I cannot wait to watch season two. I wonder what the future holds. Grade: A