Every season, GBH Drama prepares to bring you coverage of the latest and greatest in British dramas. This month, we get the long awaited third season of MASTERPIECE’s remake of the classic series All Creatures Great and Small. Featuring eccentric characters, adorable animals, and the vast, rolling hills of Yorkshire, this series does not disappoint. GBH Drama contributor Amanda-Rae Prescott is here to recap the magic as it happens.
This week on All Creatures Great & Small, it’s time for James and Helen to adjust to married life. Married life for the Herriots means a lot of juggling responsibilities. James is not only a vet full-time, but he is also now Siegfried’s business partner. Helen still visits Jenny and her dad to assist with farm chores while also helping James with his new responsibilities. Let’s discuss how these developments also affect everyone else in Skeldale House.
Cozy Firetrap
The episode begins with James rushing back to the bedsit after a late-in-the-night call from a farmer. Helen is waiting for him with kisses and burned eggs. James tries to be a good husband by not criticizing Helen’s cooking. Let’s face it though: this bedsit is janky as hell and the Herriots deserve better. This situation is also awkward for Mrs. Hall as she usually cooks breakfast for everyone. Mrs. Hall has to adjust to Helen taking on some of the tasks a wife normally does. Later on, the stove in the bedsit gives up on working. Will Helen continue the struggle cooking life?
Questionable Accounting
Siegfried made a big show of making James partner at the end of the last episode but now he has to make good on that offer. This is of course a challenge for him, because he is a stubborn control freak. James looks at his first paycheck post-partnership and he realizes Siegfried has paid him less money than he was making before because of business expenses. Tristan, of course, runs away the second he realizes his nepo baby status is called out. Siegfried dumps a pile of receipts and papers on the table and asks James to tally up profits and losses from the past year. James is a man of many talents, but pre-Excel accounting is not one of them.
The next morning Siefgried asks for a progress report. James admits he struggled and asked Helen to help. Helen says she managed the farm accounts at home. She whips Siegfried’s disorganization into shape and even finds some uncashed checks, but Siegfried is mad that James involved her in the practices’ affairs. Will they hire a real number cruncher?
Invisible Poison
In between the accounting, James is called out to Kate Billings’ farm. Kate’s sister Annie got married the year before and left her with all of the responsibilities. Two of her calves have abdominal pain but James cannot easily feel or spot the cause. Initially, Kate is distrustful of James because this is the first time Siegried has not attended to her herd. James prescribes a general medicine for the pain and collects samples for testing. One calf ends up dying before James can report back that the calves didn’t ingest lead. James is now at a loss to explain what’s going on with the poor calves.
Siegfried goes to the farm to give a second opinion and two more calves were lost in the meantime. At first he thinks he can spot something James missed but then Siegfried rules out the most obvious causes of their symptoms. Something is causing these calves to die but they can’t identify what it is. Will Kate lose the whole herd?
One Hundred And One Dalmatians
Tristan has been left in charge of the surgery during these farm calls. We have to acknowledge that he is actually attempting to work and be a responsible human being. His assistance with the small animal cases may not entirely justify being paid more than James, but it’s a start. He ends up taking a frantic call for help about a sick dog in the village. There’s just one big problem with the situation, and it’s not the diagnosis.
Daisy the dalmatian is likely an ancestor to the most famous British dalmatians ever, Pongo and Perdi of One Hundred And One Dalmatians. Her owner, however, is Florence Pandhi, George Pandhi’s daughter. Tristan is more awkward than he usually is around single women, so it’s clear their paths crossed before. Daisy had been drooling and vomiting but Tristan can only rule out epilepsy after seeing Daisy acting normally and not seeing anything immediately wrong with her. He attempts a graceful exit from her house. We all know that Tristan is distracted by her beauty and ends up asking James for advice on how to proceed.
Later on, Tristan is back in surgery. Mrs. Hall and Gerald are in the other room laughing after having walked Jess and Rock together. Tristan is concerned that Gerald is going to hurt Mrs. Hall’s feelings but this is interrupted by Florence bringing Daisy in for emergency assistance. This time Daisy is choking and cannot breathe properly. Tristan rushes into action despite not cleaning up the operating table beforehand. He ends up wasting time having to sanitize instruments that should have been clean already while poor Daisy is wheezing. Tristan makes up for the sloppiness by extracting a large pebble from Daisy’s larynx. Florence thanks Tristan for saving the day and also solves a tough crossword for him. Is this the start of an enemies-to-lovers situation?
Unofficial Official Side Project
James figured out from looking at the accounts that the TB testing was earning way more money than the standard case rates. However, Siegfried is completely against TB testing because it will threaten the goodwill of the farmers. James contacts the Ministry of Agriculture (MAG) to get test kits. The package arrives in James’ name and not Siegfrieds' which is the final straw for him. He has a huge outburst about how he never wanted a partner. Helen’s bike prevents a smooth storming off, which is a bummer for Siegfried but works for comedic effect.
Helen and Mrs. Hall realize that the men are idiots and need to come to a compromise in order for the practice to run. The next morning at breakfast James and Siegfried are awkwardly staring at each other until the women suggest they visit Kate Billings’ farm together. Two heads are better than one for solving this complex case.
Back at Kate’s farm, Siegfried and James do a thorough search for possible toxins. Siegfried finds a horn bud (excess horn-producing cells) from a calf dropped into the milk bucket. Kate shows James a bottle of horn bud remover some guy sold to her. It turns out the solution is butter of antimony, which is safe to use externally but poisonous internally. Kate admits she doesn’t know how to read so she didn’t know about the side effects. James convinces Kate to try to reconcile with her sister Annie because the farm needs both of their skill sets to survive. The episode ends with Helen announcing that she’s done with cooking in the bedsit and Siegfried agrees that taking on as much TB testing as possible is a good idea.
Will Tristan get another chance to be less awkward around Florence? Will farmers agree that it’s better to find out about disease before disaster strikes? Can James and Helen save enough money to upgrade the bedsit? Find out next week on All Creatures Great & Small!
