'Call The Midwife' Season 11 to Premiere on PBS In March
Call The Midwife will begin its second decade on the air in 2022, with Season 11 arriving the first Sunday in January. But there's been a bit of a mystery about when it would arrive stateside. With the filming shutdowns and lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, the show's tenth season was delayed in its arrival from overseas, premiering six months later than usual on the first Sunday in October. With the show barely off the air by the end of the year, it was an open question whether PBS would return it to its usual March berth or try and put some space between seasons.
The good news for fans of the midwives and nuns from Nonnatus House is that there will be no delay in bringing the babies back to where they belong. Season 11 is confirmed to be returning to American shores in March 2022, kicking off a stellar lineup of major debuts for spring that will include the return of Sanditon for its highly anticipated second season and the debut of the U.K. remake of Walter's Choice drama Before We Die. That means fans of the show will get a double dose of babies and health issues as the show rounds into the all important era of the late 1960s.
The series will premiere in the U.K. on Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022, on BBC One. Meanwhile, PBS has confirmed the show's return to its usual spot after pledge month at the end of March.
NEWS!! @BBC announces that our new Series 11 of #CallTheMidwife will begin on Sunday January 2nd on @BBCOne!! Only eight days to wait after our Christmas Special xxx pic.twitter.com/aJTQKxxd8Y
— Call the Midwife (@CallTheMidwife1) December 9, 2021
Here's the season synopsis:
Following an eventful Christmas special, the multi-award-winning series continues with an episode set in Easter 1967. Celebrations are underway for a colorful Easter Bonnet parade outside Nonnatus House. Sister Monica Joan and Reggie are excited about the Eurovision song contest and Nancy, having just passed her midwifery examinations, is about to don her red cardigan for the first time.
Like Season 10, which covered 1966, the year England won the World Cup, Season 11 is also going to be set in a banner year. When most people think of 1967, they picture the swinging 60s -- The Beatles, James Bond, the Rolling Stones, and the counter culture movement -- but there was also massive social change in the U.K. during this same time period. Homosexuality was legalized, for example, as was abortion. The U.K. applied to join the European Economic Community, the forerunner to the European Union. The BBC started broadcasting in color, and Eurovision turned ten.
But perhaps the biggest story for Call The Midwife this season: St Christopher's Hospice, the world's first purpose-built secular hospice, which specialized in palliative care of the terminally ill, was established in South London, only a few miles from where Nonnatus House is located, by the famous social work and nurse Cicely Saunders with the support of Dame Albertine Winner, who was given the title as part of her work in launching St Christopher's. Though the synopsis does not mention it, it seems very unlikely the show would skip this momentous moment in medicine.
Call The Midwife Season 11 is set to premiere on a weekly release scheduled beginning March 20, 2022, at 8 p.m. ET on most PBS stations. As always, check your local listings.
