All Creatures Great and Small on ABC – Siegfried (Samuel West) receives some difficult news and becomes even more irascible than usual.
The perfect distraction comes along in the form of Major Sebright Saunders (Michael Maloney), who asks Siegfried to look at a difficult young racehorse called River. Siegfried is reminded of his love for horses, while also remembering his time serving under Sebright Saunders in the Army Veterinary Corp during the First World War.
Siegfried forms a close bond with River but struggles to get to the bottom of what’s wrong with him. The animal risks being destroyed if he can’t find the answer.
Siegfried’s increasingly erratic behaviour doesn’t go unmissed by the rest of Skeldale House, especially Mrs Hall (Anna Madeley). Tristan (Callum Woodhouse) bears the brunt of it and is tasked with reordering the dispensary from top to bottom.
He takes Siegfried’s words on board and even purchases new sedative ‘Soothe-Away’ in the hope of impressing his brother so that he can spread his wings more at the practice.
When things get worse with River, Tristan sees how the war still weighs heavy on Siegfried.
Helen (Rachel Shenton) gets a new insight into how hard James works but feels reluctant to help him by asking her father to take on the unpopular TB testing scheme. In the event of a positive case, farms are shut down and farmers could lose their livelihoods. When influential Dales farmer Isaac Cranford (Mike Harding) leans on James to fiddle the paperwork over a dead cow so he can reap the financial benefit, James feels pressured to agree so that he won’t lose support over the TB testing. Helen and Richard Alderson (Tony Pitts) have to decide whether to put their necks on the line for James’ cause.
Production credit: Production company: Playground Entertainment. Executive Producers: Colin Callender, Melissa Gallant, Hugo Heppell, Rebecca Eaton. Producer: Richard Burrell.
All Creatures Great and Small on ABC and ABC iview – Saturday 9 December, 2023 at 7.30pm
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