Everything to Remember Ahead of 'All Creatures Great & Small' Season 5

All Creatures Great & Small will return to our screens in January 2025 with Season 5. Are you ready? Put on the kettle and bring out the scones! Based on the immensely popular books of James Herriot, the pen name of Yorkshire veterinarian J. Alf Wight, the BBC originally debuted its first adaptation in the late 1970s, which ran until the 1990s. The initial cast included Shakespearean star Robert Hardy as Siegfried Farnon, with Peter Davison (who later left to star as the Fifth Doctor in Doctor Who) as his brother Tristan, and Christopher Timothy as James Herriot. The series aired on many local PBS stations, so it wasn’t surprising Masterpiece picked up the new version, a 21st-century reboot.

We all loved All Creatures from the beginning for its humanity, depictions of the glorious Yorkshire scenery, and the animals. Like Timothy, Nicholas Ralph was a newcomer when he was cast as James Herriot, a newly qualified veterinarian living in Glasgow in the late 1930s, who is spurred south when a letter from Yorkshire invites him to interview with veterinarian Siegfried Farnon (Samuel West), who owns a practice in Darrowby, Yorkshire.

When Siegfried is in a good mood, you know it — he sings selections from Gilbert & Sullivan. If he’s angered by something, you know about it immediately. James learns the secrets of dealing with Siegfried, when to stand up to him in an appeal for reason, and when to just let him rant. Like many men of his generation who saw action in World War I, Siegfried has PTSD and sees his veterinary work as penance for the horses and comrades-in-arms he couldn’t save. He is deeply principled, ready to challenge the Power Bros of the Yorkshire Dales, the landed gentry, to prevent patient suffering. As he often says, it’s not the animals that are the problem — it’s the humans.