Rent All Creatures Great and Small: Series 3 (2022)

Showing signs of decline - All Creatures Great and Small: Series 3 review by SB

This pair of discs contains the Christmas Special from Series 2 as well as the Series 3 episodes.

In many ways this series is as good as Series 1 and 2, in terms of location, cast performances and some story lines. This is particularly evident in the struugles of Helen to find what being a married woman means for her role, and Mrs Hall's attempts to feel connection with those who may or may not want it as much as she does.

More the pity, then, that the dead hand of political correctness has fallen across the series. An example is the character Florence Pandy, whom we hear endlessly 'really knows who she is', but in fact has no discernible dramatic function or occupation in life other than to be a multiracial person. This approach reaches its nadir in some crudely inserted scenes where Mrs Hall goes to see her son at a station, when very awkward interactions with a pair of women, one deaf and the other Asian, are jemmied in. This is slovenly and patronising.