Masterpiece Studio Crosses 500,000 Listens!

Some big, big news for me: my podcast, MASTERPIECE STUDIO, the official companion podcast for PBS' Masterpiece, crossed the 500,000 listen mark on Monday after just a few weeks of launching! We're already well on our way to hitting the 1 million threshold (soon!), but I had to share this piece of good news.

Thanks to everyone who has listened to the podcast and tweeted/interacted with us over these last few weeks! And if you haven't had the chance to check it out, you can listen to MASTERPIECE STUDIO on iTunes, Stitcher, PBS.org, and also right here on this very website. Be sure to subscribe!

What I'm Watching: "Call the Midwife"

Well, this week's episode of BBC One's Call The Midwife — which returns to PBS in March, I believe — wrecked me completely. The always amazing Liz White (Life on Mars' Annie) was absolutely incredible as Rhoda. (White is, it should be noted, also great in an upcoming episode of Season 2 of Grantchester as well, where she plays a very different sort of wife and mother.)

If you're not watching Call the Midwife, you're missing out on one of television's great dramas — and perhaps the best emotional catharsis you'll experience all week. Call the Midwife makes you CRY HARD, even when it's in happy mode: I can't manage to get through an episode without at least tearing up, if not sobbing outright. It is an innately beautiful drama about birth and death and everything in between.

And, in an era in which female reproductive rights are being fought tooth and nail, it depicts the rigors and marvels of childbirth and the socialized medicine of Britain's National Health Service. It's also just a cracking drama that features a plethora of well-crafted female characters of all ages.

Further reading:
BuzzFeed: "7 Reasons Call The Midwife Is One Of The Best Shows On Television"
The Daily Beast: "Call the Midwife: Miranda Hart’s Chummy Browne Steals the Show"