In January I praised the new BBC version of All Creatures Great And Small. I was premature. It is good, but not as good as I thought based on the first show in the new series and it does not match the original.
The new series is very well acted but as it progressed it became increasingly soap-opera like and much too didactic.
The other thing that changed my opinion is Mrs THC and I rewatched much of the original series over the past few weeks. Robert Hardy cannot be surpassed as Siegfried Farnon and the story telling is superior in the original series. The original also is much more effective in conveying the hard working life of farmers in the Yorkshire Dales and it explores their stories in more depth than the new series. Part of this may be the times. The original series was filmed in two batches during the early and late 1980s when the Dales still held some resemblance to the days in which the stories were set. That is gone now and the cinematography of the new show makes things look too pretty.
When the second season of the series is broadcast we will watch it but the original is the real deal.
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