All Creatures Great And Small (2021) - General Discussion

[Daff]

11 hours ago, Doublemint said:

For those in the USA - ever watch Dr Pol?  Every problem is shown. So are the "restrictions" in Britten severe, or are these writers just wanting to deal with the people? It's supposed to be about vets, and a large part of the books dealt with the animals and their owners, sometimes it was funny, sometimes sad but wide-ranging.  This show takes place in Skeldale House for 90% of the time.

I watched it regularly for years, and still tune in every once in a while to see if I can catch recent shows. But it’s not based on literature, it’s a reality show. I deleted it from my DVR because they began re-hashing every single minute and even though I had it set to record “ only new”, I’d wake up to 25 new recordings 2 days per week and tired of fishing through them all looking for new content. Stopped watching several programs due to this ridiculous practice.

[Orcinus orca]

13 hours ago, Doublemint said:

For those in the USA - ever watch Dr Pol?  Every problem is shown.

Loved Dr. Pol but it went to a pay cable station so I can't see it anymore.  His practice is close to me and I just visited the reindeer farm that Dr. Brenda handles - they love her.  But as was said above, Dr. Pol is not a scripted show and doesn't follow a story.

All of the All Creatures iterations on film have diverged from the books so I tend to look at them as a whole new story just with familiar figures.

[Doublemint]

My mentioning of Dr. Pol was that various procedures were performed on the animals, so what are the "restrictions" everyone says prevent showing more animal stories on All Creatures?   Should probably put in new thread also.

[Orcinus orca]

6 minutes ago, Doublemint said:

My mentioning of Dr. Pol was that various procedures were performed on the animals, so what are the "restrictions" everyone says prevent showing more animal stories on All Creatures?   Should probably put in new thread also.

Perhaps "complications" or "difficulties" would be more appropriate?  Check this out.

[Zella]

I mean, there's a pretty big difference between an actual trained vet being filmed doing procedures they already know how to do and actors who are most decidedly not professional vets either doing procedures, as was done in the original show, which is not fair to the animals or the actors, or the logistics of those actors, who are again not vets, filming fake procedures. 

[Anothermi]

9 hours ago, Orcinus orca said:

Perhaps "complications" or "difficulties" would be more appropriate?  Check this out.

Thanks for the link. It explains what the person hired to work with the animals does There is legislation governing the treatment of animals in films.  It's main focus is the health and safety of the animals as "actors". 

Britain seems to have had laws prohibiting cruelty to animals in film since 1937.  I didn't read all the clauses - which would have been updated as more was learned how various circumstances can effect animals negatively. 

So, the "restrictions" aren't about what people are allowed to see but what needs to be done to enable animals to "act".  A lot of what is "allowed" requires time and patience... and as we all know: Time is Money. Working with animals is costly.

Here is a link to the wikipedia page re: Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act 1937

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinematograph_Films_(Animals)_Act_1937

[Capricasix]

I’ve enjoyed the last two episodes much more than the Miss Harbottle ep. I had to laugh when Paul Copley turned up as a clinic customer - he’s one of those English actors who seems to be in every show! I’ve seen him in Downton Abbey and Coronation Street, and even recently when I was rewatching Cracker (a favourite from the 1990s), he appeared as a pathologist.

I also chuckled at the end when they were having dinner - there was a little plate of pickled eggs at Helen’s place 😄

[AZChristian]

9 hours ago, Capricasix said:

I had to laugh when Paul Copley turned up as a clinic customer - he’s one of those English actors who seems to be in every show! I’ve seen him in Downton Abbey . . . 

When he walked into the scene I said, "Oh no!  Mr. Mason's turtle is sick!"

[DonnaMae]

This was my least favorite of the episodes in Series 4, but, as always, I loved the scenery and the music.  Why didn't we get to see the contents of Mrs. Hall's letter?  I assume it's about the divorce.

[MaryMitch]

42 minutes ago, DonnaMae said:

Why didn't we get to see the contents of Mrs. Hall's letter?  I assume it's about the divorce.

I couldn't read it all, but it looked like it contained ".... does not contest the divorce... " or words to that effect.

[AZChristian]

Posted this picture in another thread.

 

[DonnaMae]

Thank you for the enlargement.  I thought that's probably what it was about.

[Blergh]

I know it's a bit late but I actually somewhat liked this latest episode with James and Siegfried's 'lessons' just making Mr. Carmody a more nervous driver but with the interesting twist of Mrs. Pumphrey having him drive herself, Francois and Trickie in her prized Rolls and having THAT make him a 'careful' instead of a good driver. Oh, and I have to admit that I was somewhat entertained by his driver travelogue as they left Pumphrey Manor and circled around the Dales (and I think it might have also entertained Mrs. Pumphrey and Trickie but I'm not sure about Francois).  Nice way to help him gain confidence and improve his 'pet side' manner! Interesting to see that she's had her  gigantic windows taped in case of air raids. Sadly, tape  usually was unable to keep glass panes from shattering from the blasts. Moreover, often if the homeowner had somehow lucked out via not getting bombed, that tape was often next to impossible to completely tear off after the War was done.

I also thought it was a good diagnosis on Mr. Carmody's part that the newer 'more expensive' shampoo was the cause of Trickie's skin irritation. However, in those weeks and months  of the NAZIs invading the Low Countries and making a beeline to France (like a killer swarm), rations were getting extremely tight in Great Britain with not just the volume but the selections of virtually every commodity imaginable becoming rather scarce [ even just plain human soap wasn't as easy to find as before]. Speaking of invasion, I'm a bit surprised that Francois showed no anxiety (nor did Mrs. Pumphrey acknowledge any) on the fate of any loved ones in France itself!

Yes, nice picnic basket Mrs. Hall fixed for the soon to be parting parents-to-be. However, by this point, foods were also getting somewhat limited and I'm a bit surprised that she wouldn't have had a 'victory garden' as most homemakers with even the tiniest spots of green had to supplement their family's food supply.  IOW, I'd have expected more homegrown treats rather than fancy picnic items.  Yes, Mrs. Hall herself is taking a big leap to help her swain Gerald take care of his sister in her home with her divorce getting closer to being final but I wonder why neither Gerald nor his unseen sister considered the latter moving into his Darrowby house. All I can think of is that the sister might be too physically frail to handle her stuff being moved or even to travel but this wasn't spelled out.

Glad that Helen and James DID finally have a sincere talk about their hopes and fears with him going off to war with her in the family way. Yes, I know he likely wouldn't have enlisted AFTER he found out she was with child. However, as I've said before, in those days with only the spottiest birth control available, unless there was physical distance and/or one or both were known to have been infertile, babies were a matter of course for most newlyweds. Nice touch for him to have made a homemade airplane ('for the baby') which no doubt will give Helen herself solace as she anticipates James's visits, the baby's arrival and James's eventual return. Oddly, though, that neither seemed to consider whether the expectant Helen might have been better off living in her family farm with her father and sister instead of her absent husband's employer's abode in the town.

I'll be interesting how things progress with the baby's arrival [which, if the timeline is close to RL, means that France will have fallen and the Blitz will be on].

 

[Shanna Marie]

Did we get any kind of timestamp on this episode? In the previous one, weren't they talking about the Germans heading to France, and wasn't Tristan in France? Has Dunkirk happened yet? You'd think that would have come up and they'd have mentioned whether or not Tristan made it out. Helen barely knew she was pregnant in the previous episode and she was showing in this one, so some time must have passed, but enough time between the Germans heading to France and Dunkirk? Or was Helen pretty far along before she realized she was pregnant, so she started showing soon afterward? If the baby's due around Christmas, I wouldn't think she'd be that obviously showing by Dunkirk, so that must have happened between episodes. The Battle of Britain should be coming up soon, then. I don't expect this to be a WWII series or turn into World on Fire, but since the war is affecting them, it would be nice to get a little more grounding, like knowing what's up with Tristan when he was in potential danger.

[Daff]

On 2/10/2024 at 2:28 AM, Blergh said:

Sadly, tape  usually was unable to keep glass panes from shattering from the blasts.

Not the purpose of the tape. No matter what, the glass was always going to break, but the tape served to protect the shards from doing so much damage. Theoretically saving someone’s life. Instead of a shard penetrating the jugular, you might survive a mass of taped glass flying in your face.

[reneerose]

Are the new series show runners intending to loosely base the rest of their series through to the end of Herriot's books?  Or would there be a positive/high note stopping point story wise from the books that would be good for the series?