all creatures great and small christmas special

The 1985 special takes place several years after the 1983 special.

My parents and I saw the 1985 special after watching the 1983 special over the Christmas period in 2008. This is a shame as I would’ve liked to have seen James and Helen’s married life from Series 4 to 7 with Chris Timothy and Carol Drinkwater playing the characters together in the TV series.Īnyway, rant over.

I’m not sure since there isn’t a behind-the-scenes documentary to confirm it.Įither way, this is where Carol Drinkwater makes her last appearance as Helen alongside Christopher Timothy as James. Maybe she didn’t want to do it or maybe she was unavailable at the time. I’m not sure why Carol Drinkwater didn’t continue playing Helen in the show’s fourth to its seventh seasons after doing the Christmas Specials. But why did they continue it without Carol Drinkwater as Helen and instead have Lynda Bellingham play the part? The show loses its credibility if they don’t have the same actress playing the same character here. High ratings for two Christmas Specials is a good reason to carry it on. He said it was because of the ratings success of the two Christmas Specials that guaranteed ‘All Creatures’ to continue on from the fourth to seventh seasons. I did chat to Peter Davison about it and asked at the ‘Science of the Time Lords 2019’ event why the series came back after he did ‘Doctor Who’. Not certain why the decision was made to continue the series after a while in the late 80s. It’s interesting how there was this long gap between the first three seasons of ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ from 1978 to 1980 and the last four seasons from 1988 to 1990 with the two Christmas Specials in between. This episode has the last TV appearance of Carol Drinkwater as Helen Herriot. I will be reviewing Series 4 to 7 after this, but this is where I feel ‘All Creatures’ stopped being good after this 1985 Christmas Special. This is where it properly ends for me regarding the golden age of the ‘All Creatures’ series. Please feel free to comment on my review.

All creatures great and small christmas special