All Creatures Great and Small - new series Thursday 5 October 2023 C5

[IwantToRetire]

I couldn't see a thread about this, so have started one. Hope it is not a duplicate.

Have found it more and more saccharine but love the scenery.

And love reading comments.

Any one thinking of watching?

https://www.channel5.com/show/all-creatures-great-and-small/season-4/broodiness

Yep my DGrandma had nightmares right up until she died in her 90s about witnessing kittens and puppies being drowned in the water butt during WW2.

I'm sure I saw a trailer for Season 4 on Twitter and there was a flash of Gerald in it! I was kind of hoping he wouldn't make a reappearance.

One thing I did like was the easy, linear narrative which just allowed me to relax into the nostalgia. No working out of complex sub plots (Looking at you Vigil 2), no clever devices... just a pregnancy, a birth, a visiting husband, a dog bite and a Christmas dinner.... beautifully boring!

Yes, there was a dog grave near where I used to live, those put down in the war.

Back to the loveliness of All Creatures....

Does anyone know if another series has been commissioned?

That was Season 4, wasn't it, @Pebble21uk ?

Ah yes, just went back and saw it was a post from Sam West in October! As you were!

Ah! I do hope season 5 is imminent.
I really enjoyed the Christmas special.

Just watched Christmas Special, enjoyed it.

I saved it for Xmas day evening. Perfect viewing. I realise I just don't care if it follows the books or not. It's a gentle, heartwarming nostalgic British piece of drama. Long may it continue!

My mother in law bought cat nets when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, for the pram and the cot!

One of my friends found one of her cats sitting on her baby’s face in the cot.

I dont think cats are setting out to smother babies.

But as anyone who has had a cat knows they are all about their comfort.

What nicer for a cate that a warm cot with a small being breathing out warm air and a soothing heartbeat.

Just to add the episode was just awful, only beaten in terrible plotting and bad lines by the Call the Midwives which really needs to do the decent thing and just stop!

Leaving babies out in the fresh air may have led to cat targeting. We have a visiting cat who snoozes on the shed roof. A nice cosy pram would be very attractive.
(My babies survived despite my cat not being rehomed).

When I was little, sadly it was a fairly common practice to drown a new litter of kittens in a bucket of water shortly after they were born. I can remember my cousin who lived next door but one, coming in our house crying because her dad was drowning their cat's new kittens.

Interesting reading that.
I remember reading Paul O'Grady's autobiography about when he was little and I'm sure it had drowning of kittens in and something else horrible. And he didn't seem that bothered in the book.
(And yet obviously he's this big animal lover)
And the was one of the things I hated about the book

(and this was when he was little)

I have seen it. Very upsetting. I was quite young and didn't really understand.

But suspect it is only quite recently that people who have pets even take them to a vet, let alone took out insurance.

And if you have grown up with drowning kittens as the way to control over population of cats, you would probably accept it. Even if not wanting to do it yourself.

Not sure how recently spaying became common / affordable.

That is in the books.

I wonder if the next series will feature Granville Bennett? He was a kind of supervet like Noel Fitzpatrick, James would take complicated small animal surgical cases to him. They were great friends, but every time they met James ended up drunk.

@KimberleyClark I was corrected above and took my punishment!
We never took our cat to the vets or had immunisations or insurance. My mum and dad did find homes for a litter of kittens though (in the 60s). One went to the butcher and we were terrified that he was going to serve her up next to the rabbits that hung in the shop. He just wanted a pet!

My mum remembers friends of her parents regularly drowning kittens and puppies in the 1950s/60s 😥 really grim but I suppose it was the norm until neutering became more readily available.

When we had cats in the 1970s/80s/90s pet insurance was definitely not a thing but neutering and taking your pet to the vets if they were ill was.

I thought Helen gave the cat away a bit too readily but then she is a farmers daughter so maybe is used to animals coming and going.

Very cute baby and I liked that we only saw up to the midwife arriving rather than it turning into an episode of CTM!

I remember that too. I had a boyfriend whose grandparents had a farm and in years gone by if the farm cats had kittens they were taken to the river and thrown in. Made me sick to my stomach when I heard about it - but I guess it was different (rural) times.

I thought Helen gave the cat away a bit too readily but then she is a farmers daughter so maybe is used to animals coming and going.

She was distraught in the books. Someone else claimed the cat was theirs.

I just watched it a few days late. Helen really gets on my nerves. Quite immature and self centred and seems more like a teenager than a grown up. And doesn't want the cat now she's got a baby!

Enjoyed it though. I think this is the very first TV show I've seen with two characters with the same first name. Quite feasible in real life but writers don't realise this.

In the book the cat was someone else's.

Have they already done that story so just changed it a bit & it didn't really fit?

I took it to mean that she was willing to sacrifice something she loved in order to bring peace and comfort to a family who were going through a difficult time at Christmas- not that she was quick to offload the cat because she’d had a baby. A metaphor for the nativity perhaps?!