All Creatures Great and Small (2020) s04e03 – Right Hand Man

Right Hand Man reintroduces the idea of a triumvirate to the veterinary practice. Nicholas Ralph has put in for a student to be placed with them, Samuel West’s nasty attitude be damned. We meet James Anthony-Rose before Ralph and West, as Anthony-Rose discovers all the street signs have been taken down in the village (to prevent the Bosch from finding their way), and he has an amusing lost montage.

He arrives just in time to help Ralph with Patricia Hodge’s latest dog problem. Not little Tricki Woo (played by Derek again, but also Dora, which makes me worry about Derek’s health), but rather a bulldog she’s taken in while his owner’s off at war. Anthony-Rose puts his foot in it, and we’re off to the races.

The episode’s got a lot going on. Having decided to have a baby, Ralph and wife Rachel Shenton are trying to find some time to work on making one. Ralph’s going to be busy with Hodge’s bulldog, while West’s got a horse with an allergy problem. Anthony-Rose offers his advice in both, with part of the gag being how unhelpful his (purely academic) advice can be. Then there’s the Anthony-Rose training subplot, which West unexpectedly takes point on, giving Ralph pause. Ralph’s various pauses stress out Shenton even more. She has a good scene with Hodge about being… well, okay, about being wives, but even as it bellyflops on Bechdel, it’s a good scene. There’s some very solid character development for Hodge in the scene, too.

Meanwhile, Anna Madeley’s very gentle romance with Will Thorp continues.

Speaking of very gentle, the war makes its presence (and its impending effects) known, with West getting into it with the local trainees about how they’re disrespecting the Yorkshire ways. It’ll figure into the main plot a couple ways, but also how—Shenton reminds everyone—the war’s still coming, and they might lose Ralph at any minute. Something Ralph’s not thinking about, which the show’s also been avoiding the last couple episodes.

And even though the show’s finally acknowledged the war’s not done with it, it’s still unclear if “Creatures” will be able to incorporate the foreboding or just use it in one-offs.

Anyway. There are some great veterinary scenes, good or better moments for pretty much everyone, and Anthony-Rose certainly seems like a fine addition to the regular cast. For how long? Well, I suppose I could Google, but I shan't.

All Creatures Great and Small (2020) s03e07 – Merry Bloody Christmas

Pun fully intended, Callum Woodhouse continues to show why he’s “All Creatures”’s trickiest casting but also its most successful. This Christmas special is set, appropriately, at Christmas, only war’s on, and no one’s feeling like celebrating this year. Especially not with Nicholas Ralph chomping at the bit for his chance to go—after the proper season’s finale where he and Woodhouse signed up, which was basically the season arc… it turns out they might not get shipped out anyway. They’re exempt because they’re vets or whatever.

There’s no annual Christmas party in the offing, not until Anna Madeley discovers her love interest, Will Thorp, is moving away. She invites him over and then has to put together a party, so it doesn’t look like she just invited him over.

The special filters much of the household goings-on through guest star Ella Bernstein. She’s playing a refugee from… somewhere, presumably in England, though maybe not. She’s Jewish, adorable, precocious, and fascinated by Christmas. She also basically fills the function of Ralph for the special. Ralph and Rachel Shenton are entirely support here.

The veterinary case this episode—outside Bernstein getting to meet Mrs. P. (I’m entirely on board with Patricia Hodge now, even if last we saw the manor, she was getting it ready for the war effort, and now it’s empty) and Tricki Woo (played, as ever, by Derek), who have a kitten problem only a little kid can help with—is about Samuel West and the racehorse he nursed back to health in the regular season. It was a great episode for West. This episode sort of hopes everyone forgets how emotional he got because he quickly finds himself letting old war buddy Michael Maloney bribe him into ignoring some medical conditions.

West’s change in behavior doesn’t go unnoticed, not when Woodhouse comes out to the stables to help out and discovers something suspect.

It’s a very emotion-filled episode for West, Woodhouse, and Madeley, as they once again have to contend with their abnormal but normal, actually, family structure, with great acting from all three. Woodhouse gets to be the stand-out; well, and Madeley, but not in the family arc, though she seems to have a realization about doing emotional labor for the boys).

Besides West’s slightly rushed character arc and a couple of places they obviously cut out another scene for time, it’s a stellar episode.

All Creatures Great and Small (2020) s03e06 – For Whom the Bell Tolls

In the way it has come for so many British television shows, movies, radio plays, and so on, war has come to “All Creatures Great and Small,” specifically the beginning of World War II. Or at least the King’s Speech beginning of World War II. The family gathers around the radio and everyone gets their demo reel clip. It’s exceptionally well-done. This episode is director Stewart Svaasand’s first “Creatures,” and it’s setting a high bar.

While everyone’s been worrying about the European conflict since the end of last season—with Nicholas Ralph moping about not getting to sign up for a few episodes, forced deferred because he’s a vet—it becomes real for everyone here. Great scenes for Samuel West and Anna Madeley, who get this quietly devastating arc about an abandoned dog. Someone drops him off at the vet’s, presumably on his way to enlist, and, while West is sympathetic as all hell, he doesn’t want people overloading them with abandoned pets.

Then Ralph and Rachel Shenton have a one-two gut-punch arc with the war coming, but also Shenton’s cattle coming in positive for tuberculosis. Not great, considering Shenton’s dad, Tony Pitts, was the one who vouched for the testing in the first place (and doesn’t have savings to get through a quarantine). Imogen Clawson’s around too, but entirely support for Pitts’s arc. Some excellent moments for Shenton throughout, especially an unexpectedly dramatic paperwork subplot.

Callum Woodhouse has the two fun arcs, obviously with significant caveats. He goes to dinner at girlfriend Sophie Khan Levy’s house and finds her father, Kris’s Dosanjh, not the villainous vet he’s been led to believe. Charming family dinner scene, setting Woodhouse up for his big reaction to the war arc. But first, he’s got to visit Patricia Hodge, who’s getting her house ready for the county to utilize in wartime. Adorable cameo from Tricki Woo (wonderfully essayed, as ever, by Derek), but he’s not the focus.

Adrian Rawlins (Ralph’s hard-nosed TB testing supervisor) and Will Thorp (Madeley’s not-romantic but romantic male friend) have great scenes.

It’s all very British and very good–script credit to Jamie Crichton.