Another repost from an older blog. Although I seldom check the popularity of a post, ignoring what I think of as the "Facebook" side of Blogger, I recently took a look. Over the years, this post has collected several thousand "hits." Yup, the story about a vet in Yorkshire wins again! Here it is on Votaries--with pictures. My views haven't materially changed since I wrote it although I haven't rewatched the show recently. I do highly recommend it.
4 comments
I included the original comments, which prove a little factoid about the Internet, and one of many reasons it is pointless to rest one's sense of approval on Internet feedback (and why it is also dangerous to post raunchy photos online "just for friends"). I received proportionally one comment per 575 "hits." Considering the number of blogs I've visited myself without leaving a calling card--and that a marketing course I once attended claimed that responses to mailers are typically 1 out of 100--I wouldn't be surprised if less than 2% of traffic was a norm across the board. The Internet is good for many, many things--the process of socialization is not one of them.
The Many Seasons of All Creatures
 |
| Yes, that is also a Dr. Who! |
In his commentary, Peter Davison (Tristan) remarks that this reduction in quality was partly because the writers ran out of story ideas. (James Herriot actually had the same problem with his books). The series' creators had no idea the series would become so popular so instead of stringing out the James-Helen romance and saving some ideas for later, they stuck every incident from the first few books into the first season. Result: they had to invent and reuse a lot of material. Peter Davison makes a wry remark about his character, who is supposed to be a flirt, getting older and older while the "bright, young things" were getting younger and younger. Tristan starts out as an eccentric (a "debauched choirboy") but ends up rather dull. In the 4th season, the writers created Calum Buchanan to supply the eccentricity that Tristan supplied in the first two seasons. Unfortunately, Calum makes Tristan and Siegfried look like old fogies. It's kind of sad, although I suppose it reflects real-life.
 |
| The utterly sexy Robert Hardy |
 |
| Perfectly cast Christopher Timothy |
Christopher Timothy doesn't change at all. He was perfectly cast, and James Herriot himself thought Timothy portrayed his personality the best (out of all the TV shows being made at the time). Timothy manages to capture that laid-back, good-humored, yet somewhat tense personality that made it possible for Herriot to get along with the Farnons but gave him ulcers later in life. (He also had extremely poor money sense.)
The worst thing about the later seasons (although the 4th season isn't so bad) is that the producers decided to overlay every scene with totally sappy music. I can't decide if it is an 80s thing or a director thing. I think it is kind of an 80s-director thing. Scenes which are not played as maudlin come across as maudlin and in some cases, the sappy, trilling music is so loud, it drowns out the rather good dialog. I wish very much that when the company had released the series on DVD, it had fixed the music, but maybe that wasn't possible. (Heaven help us if people actually like it; it's pretty horrible.)
All that said, I still recommend the series: all of it. All the seasons are sweet (with and without the music), fun, very relaxing and you learn an awful lot about vetting in the 1930s to 1950s.
4 Comments:
Andrew
Cheers, Dave
What bothers me most of all is the repeat of old stories with new characters or different animals (the Gypsy Myatt?). I think I've read the books about 20 times over the years and could tell them myself. Even if they used up Alf Wight's stories, they could have either asked for more or created fresh ones. Somehow I missed their time in the RAF and the birth of the kids. Maybe Youtube skipped a bunch?) I'm still on series 4, but I hope we get the trip to Istanbul and Russia.