‘All Creatures Great and Small’ is back for season 3
If you’d like to start the year with something positive, “All Creatures Great and Small” is here for you. The 1930s-set “Masterpiece” series returns for its third season Sunday at 9 p.m. on GBH 2.
OK, you have to get past the cloying opening song, which pushes the show’s cosiness to an extreme, a 30-second sugar-headache that just might worm its way into your ear. But once you’re in, you’re in a world where compassion is king, and where kindness is of the highest value. In today’s climate, where goodwill and benevolence are considered weaknesses by too many, “All Creatures” is sweetly aspirational.
This season, veterinarian James Herriot (the wonderfully pale Nicholas Ralph) is married to Helen (Rachel Shenton). There’s joy in the house where they live with the Farnon brothers and their maternal housekeeper, Mrs. Hall, as James and Helen giggle about sneaking in sexual encounters here and there. And there is dread and guilt, too, with World War II lurking in the backdrop of the idyllic area of Yorkshire where they live and work. Both James and Tristan Farnon struggle with the sense that they ought to sign up despite being exempt as veterinarians.
I’m not going to pretend the PBS show isn’t corny. It is, and I love it for that. At a moment when our relationship with the environment is troubled, to put it mildly, it’s pleasing to watch these humanitarian characters helping farmers and their livestock, only trying to heal. It’s also pleasing to spend time in northern England in the late 1930s, a visual treat including hills, dales, farms, and cars with footboards. Based on the popular novels by Alf Wight (a.k.a. James Herriot), the show is nothing less than a TV vaccine against cynicism and despair.