Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
He does it to horses to figure out why theyre in pain.
(Herriot is a pen name, by the way.
The vets real name was Alf Wight.)
But the familiarity of the material is part of what makes it so immediately appealing to me.
The cozy, well-known contours of this story are a feature, not a bug.
Nicholas Ralph plays Herriot as he sets out for his very first job as a veterinarian.
The beats of the first few episodes are so instantly predictable.
Horses kick him and he falls backward and gets covered in manure.
He gets scared by a massive bull.
His shoes are wrong.
Theres a scene early in the new series that I remember vividly from the books.
It just wont come.
If he cant, both the cow and the calf will likely die.
The drama ofAll Creatures Great and Smallis life and death, and its also remarkably tiny.
Its one man, maybe one or two anxious farmers, and one very tired cow.
It is one of the gentlest, sweetest depictions of masculinity I ever encountered in my young reading life.
Herriot is not brooding, not wounded, not thorny and dangerous, not distant or unemotional.
Hes practical and patient.
Hes not infallible, and when he does make mistakes, he admits to them without defensiveness or anger.
But thats not the case.
I hesitate to tell you whether Herriot manages to help that first calf.
They will do the very best they can.
