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Series · Acorn TV · 2020

Pass it on

All Creatures Great and Small

81Living historically.

A house, a craft, and a village that still needs both. Put this on with the children.

The review

James Herriot arrives with a diploma and almost no authority, and the Dales do not care about the diploma until the work is done. That is the old test, and this telling of it keeps the test. A housekeeper who runs the house, a brother who has to grow up, a farmer's daughter who will not be managed, and animals that are not props. The hours are gentle. They are not empty.

A sick beast is hard to watch, and that is part of the honesty. Help is not a mood. Help is someone competent who comes when called and stays until the thing is finished. If you want one Acorn evening a family can share, start here. Then go do a piece of work that a living thing is waiting on.

Journal

Keep All Creatures Great and Small in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 81. Yours can differ.

The glance

Piety is the thin one.

Can conscience actually stop someone, or is reverence only in the shot so it can be mocked?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

Little House on the Prairie

91 instead of 81

Little House on the Prairie is still a drama show, and it scores 91 instead of 81. What you gain is piety: Grace at the table, church, and a conscience that can overrule a mood.

The eight

9
Industry
The plot is the job: a calving, a farm call, a night spent because the animal will not wait.
9
Household
Skeldale House is a real household. Marriage is arrived at, not borrowed for a scene.
7
Piety
Reverence shows up as care for a creature and a duty kept. It is not a sermon, and it is not a joke.
7
Courage
He stays when a city practice would have been easier and cleaner.
8
Republic
Darrowby is a small republic of farmers, a housekeeper, and a practice that serves them.
8
Temperance
Appetite is not the teacher. Patience is.
8
Truth
A diagnosis is a fact. Charm does not replace it.
9
Stewardship
What he learns is meant to be handed to the next farmer and the next vet.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · All Creatures Great and Small · 81IMDb tt10590066

Live HistoricSee what matters.

Series · Acorn TV · 2004

Pass it on

Doc Martin

69Worth an evening.

Competence in the service of a town. The manners are bad. The work is not.

The review

Martin Ellingham is almost a warning and almost a model, which is why the show lasts. He can do the one thing the village cannot do for itself, and he is bad at every other human exchange. The standard does not grade bedside charm above a correct diagnosis. It does notice when a man has to be dragged into his own household.

Watch it for the work and for the slow argument that a town is allowed to need you and also to correct you. Skip the half hours that are only a joke about his face. Stay for the ones where he chooses the patient, or the boy, over being left alone.