Why ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ on PBS is a great escape

As if we had lost the War of Independence at the same time as we won it, the United States has long sought out our former lords and British sovereigns in search of cultural relief. We turn to the UK as a tonic for our monotonous or debilitating times, looking across the water with a kind of post-Lapsarian desire for a picturesque land with lovely accents and alternative spellings, of village greens and stacked stone walls, by Sherlock Holmes and Bertie Wooster, mews and views and seal.

The proliferation of platforms in recent decades and the slowdown in local production during the pandemic have made British imports ubiquitous on television (including two Anglophile subscription services, Acorn TV and BritBox). But for many years they were almost the only province of PBS, widely presented under the umbrella of “Masterpiece” (originally “Masterpiece Theater”) and “Mystery!” (now “Masterpiece Mystery”); they are still in the game.

PBS is offering a double film on Sunday night from the Victorian police series “Miss Scarlet & the Duke” and a new “All Creatures Great and Small”, based on James Herriot’s autobiographical novels (James Alfred Wight’s pseudonym), about a Scottish vet who literally wet his feet in the Yorkshire Dales in the late 1930s. It’s not a bad way to end the weekend, no matter how much, each series offering solved cases and not demanding more from the viewer. to dive into their other worlds.

In the pastoral idyll that is “Creatures”, Nicholas Ralph plays James, who after many rejections finds himself tenuously attached to Siegfried Farnon (Samuel West), snorting, snorting animal doctor for the fictional village of Darrowby. Siegfried’s younger, slightly wilder brother, Tristan (Callum Woodhouse, a good physical partner for West), arrives after college time in evening clothes – a character who in a more dramatic drama may be doomed to tragedy, but this is not that series. The wise housekeeper Mrs. Hall (Anna Madeley) subtly keeps them in order; Rachel Shenton plays the farmer’s daughter who piques James’ interest; and the late Diana Rigg joins us like a very wealthy lady with a fat puppy. Some characters are more problematic than others, but there are no villains here, and it’s a great pleasure to simply see James being accepted by the locals as a regular part of their lives: Who doesn’t want that validation?

Herriot’s books were previously adapted for television, also under the title “All creatures large and small”, in several series and several specials from 1978 to 1990; “Young James Herriot” in 2011 described his college years. There were films too, none of which I saw. (Nor, by the way, have I read the novels.) Even the threat of endangered animals is enough to pull me away, so I approached the series with some apprehension, and there are indeed some moments of tension, even life and death with the big and small creatures they met here. Most of the time, things are going well, and this is also true of human drama, which, despite all its passages of open conflict, passive aggression, comic errors and silent regret, leans towards friendship; the tone is more humorous than not, and even when things get a little rough between the characters, the camera and the soundtrack turn to the landscape for romance. (Even a tractor ride can bring radical ropes.) We are practically being instructed to fall in love with these people and this place, and it is an easy instruction to follow.

“Miss Scarlet & the Duke” is a six-part series that, in a contemporary way, mixes episodic cases with some long-bow deals. Created by Rachael New, it is possibly not the latest in a long line of stories in which an amateur or private detective joins forces and / or fights with an official member of the police and the subset in which there is a romantic spark between them – as in “Castle” or “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries” – often represented by exasperated mockery, a la Beatrice and Benedick.

Miss Scarlet (Kate Phillips, whom you may have seen in “Wolf Hall”, “Peaky Blinders” and “The Crown”), whose name comes from the game Clue, is the daughter of a police officer who became a private detective who, like Jacob Marley he has died, but he appears from time to time in his old office to advise his daughter. (He’s not a ghost – this isn’t that kind of series – except in dramatic terms; technically, he’s an invention of her imagination. “Don’t be angry,” he says. “It’s you putting these words in my mouth.” ) Scarlet was raised from childhood to understand how crime works and, therefore, despite sexual prejudice, she is ready to go when it is necessary to take over the family business. The long arc mentioned above will revolve around Scarlet’s questions about her father’s death.

The duke is Scotland Yard inspector William Wellington (Stuart Martin, a type of Hugh Jackman), hence the nickname, which is not widely used; his father’s former partner, he is also his childhood friend and – if only for the space of a much discussed and rejected youthful kiss – almost an old passion. The common will-they-won’t-go dynamic remains here.

Scarlet attaches little importance to decorum, moving where she doesn’t officially belong – be it a private club, the morgue or anywhere in London alone after dark – or greeting Wellington in her own office, the whole Scotland Yard powerless to stop her. At the same time, she will explore her 19th century femininity from time to time, asking for aromatic salts or a glass of water to buy time to snoop, or flicking her eyelids a little when necessary; she may depend on someone stronger than herself to punch and fight, although she is the savior here just as often, if not more often, than the rescued.

The series takes a tour of contemporary issues (female suffrage) and fads (death photography) as the investigation progresses. There are gay-themed stories woven around Rupert by Andrew Gower, a suitor, friend and investor at Scarlet’s agency. Ansu Kabia plays Moses, a Jamaican security guard from what we would call a strip club, who becomes a situational ally; it’s underutilized – you could easily build a series around this partnership like the title. And, like “All creatures big and small”, “Miss Scarlet” comes with a wise and supportive housekeeper (Cathy Belton, like Ivy).

It is an easy to take program that does almost everything well, looks good and has a lively pulse. The mysteries are appropriately devious, but not so obscure that you will not solve some before the detectives. There is a little action (an episode is mostly a game of cat and mouse in an abandoned prison), a little social justice. If it is more melodramatic than realistic (“Stop the execution!” Scarlet will start to cry in one scene), it is also not “dark” or brave “. A prank with murder and agitation.

Series like these celebrate the old days and the fact that times are changing. “The old methods are the old methods for a reason, boy,” said a farmer full of popular medical wisdom to James in “All creatures, large and small.” “These modern forms also have their merits,” says James. It is in this fulcrum that these satisfying amusements are balanced.