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'All Creatures Great & Small' Cast Shares Details About Season 2

Ani Bundel

Ani Bundel

— 3 min read
'All Creatures Great & Small' Cast Shares Details About Season 2

Since the premiere of the All Creatures Great and Small reboot, the series has brought in a whole new generation of fans. Like the original series, the show is based on the writings of James Herriot, who worked as a veterinarian in Yorkshire in the interwar period and World War II era. The show was a hit on the U.K.'s Channel 5 and was renewed for Season 2 before it premiered in the United States. With that season heading to PBS come winter 2022, the main cast appeared at the Television Critics Association 2021 Summer press tour to discuss the new season.

For those wondering if Season 2 will pick up the pace at all, the good news is that it won't. The show's writer, Ben Vanstone, said that going in, the production team felt they had four or five seasons worth of stories they could adapt from Herriot's writings, and currently, they are on track for that to be the case. "This show is quite peculiar in a way, that most series eat stories very quickly, where this show gives those stories time to play out slowly and the characters time to breathe. We have a fair way to go with our plans." Executive producer Colin Callendar mentioned Season 3 production was slated to get underway in spring 2022, so the production seems to be planning to run at least as long as the original 1970s era show.

The new season teasers have also featured Patricia Hodge as Mrs. Pumphrey, stepping into the role developed by the late Dame Diana Rigg. When asked about the choice to recast the role instead of letting it go, Callendar joked, "if they could replace Dumbledore in Harry Potter, we could find another Mrs. Pumphrey." More seriously, Callender admitted they'd considered changing things up and creating "another character who was related to Mrs. Pumphrey." But, "in the end, we decided that Mrs. Pumphrey was such an iconic character in the book that we needed to have her and she would be missed, and if we found the right actress who could create the character herself, that we would have a win all around."

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