'Call the Midwife' Gets Triple Commission with a Movie, a Prequel Series & Season 16

The spinoff rumors for Call the Midwife have been getting louder in the last few months, as the series, currently airing Season 14 and commissioned for Season 15, shows no signs of wavering in its popularity. Series creator Helen Thomas recently acknowledged them, stating that developing a spinoff worthy of the franchise properly would require delaying work on the new season, as she is only one human being and cannot do both simultaneously. It turns out that the delay will not be happening... at least not for Season 15, which has begun production with a promise from the BBC and PBS that the Christmas special will be right on time for December 2025. 

However, Season 15 arriving precisely when it's supposed to is only one reason to celebrate. Even though production on the next season is underway, the BBC has also greenlit a Call the Midwife prequel spinoff, set in 1940s London and covering the years around World War II. The series is expected to bring aboard a whole new cast, though some of the younger ones will be playing familiar faces who eventually end up in Poplar. Thomas and her team will begin working on building that series out after Season 15 wraps. 

But that's not all! The BBC also commissioned a Call the Midwife feature film via the BBC Film arm. This movie will be completely separate from the prequel, set in the present day (so ~1972) and will take some of our longtime favorites out of the U.K. for a spell. The BBC will announce more in due course.

As part of the announcement, Thomas stated: 

“The opening of new doors at Nonnatus House feels profoundly emotional, and yet just right. I have never run out of stories for our midwives, and I never will. But having wept, laughed, and raged my way from 1957 to 1971, I found myself yearning to delve into the deeper past. The Blitz years in the East End were extraordinary - filled with loss, togetherness, courage, and joy. The bombs fell, the babies kept on coming, and the Sisters kept on going. 

There will be so much in the prequel for our wonderful, loyal fans, including the appearance of some familiar (if much younger!) faces. As the classic Call the Midwife series moves further into the 1970s, it also seems the perfect time for our much-loved regulars to take a short break from Poplar and test themselves in an unfamiliar landscape. The rise in hospital births, and changes in the NHS, have clipped their wings, and this is their chance to take flight and work out what really matters. Whilst the location of the film remains top-secret, I can say it is going to look absolutely fantastic on the big screen!”

On top of all of that, the BBC also dropped that Call the Midwife will return for Season 16; however, no timeline was given for when viewers can expect that. With the prequel series and the film both expected out sometime in late 2026, chances are the series will pull a Doctor Who and go on hiatus for a season. Whether or not the series will also follow the Doctor Who habit of releasing Christmas specials even if there's no season to tide viewers over remains to be seen.

Speaking of the Christmas special, the two-part format worked so well that the series will stick to it for Season 15. December 2025 will get two installments of the events in and around Nonnatus House and overseas in Hong Kong, where a group of our favorite midwives will head for a mercy mission during the holidays.

“Call the Midwife has been a jewel in the BBC’s crown for well over a decade, and this feels like the perfect time to further expand on the glorious, perfectly realised world," Lindsay Salt, Director of BBC Drama, said in the press release, "for the show’s millions of passionate and dedicated viewers. Whether you’ve been watching from the very start or joined us for one of the more recent series, this is an incredibly exciting time to be a Call the Midwife fan.”

Here's the Season 15 synopsis:

When senior members of the Nonnatus House staff head to Hong Kong on a mercy mission, the younger midwives are left to cope alone. As the Christmas action shifts between the sun-drenched Far East and a snowy East End, Sister Julienne suddenly finds herself excited about the Order’s future. After years of battling change, she decides to embrace it, work with it, and see what love can do. This change of energy reverberates throughout Season 15. The new series kicks off in 1971 with several ladies embracing Women’s Lib and burning their bras outside Nonnatus House. As the year unfolds, we see the team handle cases including premature birth, placenta previa, kidney cancer, tuberculosis, and slavery.

Regular cast returning for Season 15 includes Judy Parfitt (Sister Monica Joan), Jenny Agutter (Sister Julienne), Laura Main (Shelagh Turner), Helen George (Trixie Aylward), Cliff Parisi (Fred Buckle), Stephen McGann (Dr Turner), Linda Bassett (Nurse Crane), Annabelle Apsion (Violet Buckle), Georgie Glen (Miss Higgins), Zephryn Taitte (Cyril Robinson), Rebecca Gethings (Sister Veronica), Daniel Laurie (Reggie Jackson), Renee Bailey (Joyce Highland), Natalie Quarry (Rosalind Clifford), Molly Vevers (Sister Catherine), Max Macmillan (Timothy Turner), Alice Brown (Angela Turner), April Rae Hoang (May Tang), and Edward Shaw (Teddy Turner).

No cast has been set for the spinoff, and the film has not revealed which current cast members will get an invite to the big screen.

The prequel and the film will be written, created, and produced by the team behind the current hit TV show: showrunner Thomas, plus executive producers Pippa Harris and Ann Tricklebank. The trio will also helm Season 16 together when Call the Midwife returns.

Call the Midwife Season 14 continues Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on most PBS stations, the PBS app, and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel weekly through mid-May. The complete series is available for members to stream on PBS Passport, with all episodes available until the end of the month. As always, check your local listings.

Call the Midwife Season 15 will return with a two-part Christmas special in December 2025, though it remains to be seen if the BBC airs the episodes on consecutive nights like in 2024 or if they'll run back-to-back like PBS did. The rest of Season 15 will arrive on the BBC in early 2026 and follow on most PBS stations in the spring. Season 16 is expected to follow in due course on both networks. 

The new prequel and the film did not announce American distributors; however, PBS is notably not co-producing either of the projects, which suggests that, like Beyond Paradise and Sister Boniface Mysteries, the prequel spinoff has a decent chance of streaming on BritBox instead. We'll report when we find out.