All Creatures Great and Small: Difference between revisions

 

The [[Theme Tune]], ''Piano Parchment'', is [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS7Z1q9hL2I particularly lovely].

* [[The Alleged Car]] - Pervasive throughout the books: small, mass-produced 1930s British cars were woefully underpowered, lacked the bodily integrity to keep winter drafts out (let alone heaters!) and generally weren't up to the duties called for by a quasi-emergency service in mountainous territory.

* [[All-Natural Snake Oil]] - Farmers sometimes try natural home remedies on their animals before calling the vet. These can range from the mildly useful to the downright sadistic.

** Ironically, many of the standard veterinary practices of the 1930s seem only a little better to a modern audience. Trepanning (drilling holes in the head), for example.

*** Routinely lampshaded in the books when Herriot mentions that he doesn't doubt that the modern vet student will look at his descriptions of their treatments of the time and consider them to be unbelievably barbaric (lungworm, for example, was treated with turpentine squirted into the lungs). He usually mentions, in the same breath, that the technology and attitudes of the time just didn't allow for better practices - either the science wasn't there yet, or no one had realized that there were better ways. And in the story about the first time he ever got to use sulfonamide on some seriously ill calves, which was spectacularly successful curing them, he notes that he still considers it to be a godsend, even for all the problems that have resulted from over-prescription.

* [[Crazy Cat Lady]]: Mrs. Bond, the owner of Boris, believes that he's a reincarnated gladiator. She owns at least a dozen other cats.

* [[Eccentric Townsfolk]] - Quite a few of these turn up.

* [[Eureka Moment]]: A tricky diagnosis is eventually solved when James is reminded that the cow looked like it was wearing spectacles.

* [[Fan Disservice]]: James and Tristan often get shirtless, and then promptly get covered in cow shit.

* [[Good Smoking, Evil Smoking]]: The show is set before the 50s so Tristan smokes cigarettes and Siegfried smokes a pipe.

* [[Happily Married]]: James and Helen.

* [[Have a Gay Old Time]]: If you hear someone say "bitch," they're talking about a female dog.

* [[Hospital Hottie]]: Tristan is very fond of nurses.

* [[Hypocritical Humor]]: Siegfried's trademark. He often patronizingly lectures James and Tristan for exhibiting the same faults as himself or for following advice he gave them last week and has now changed his mind about.

** Also a frequent case of [[Broken Aesop]], on his part.

* [[Impossible Insurance]]:

* [[Replacement Flat Character]]: Inverted. Instead of becoming less uptight, Tristan becomes less rambunctious over the years and Calum is brought in partially to provide the necessary level of wacky hijinks. He's less of a Niles and more of a [[Happy Days|Chachi]].

* [[Road Sign Reversal]]: The 'removing road signs to confuse invading troops' version happens in one of the episodes set in [[World War Two]]. A local tells the soldier who is removing a sign that, if he wants to confuse the Germans, he should leave that particular sign up as it has been pointing the wrong way for years.

* [[Scenery Porn]]: The English countryside gets a lot of screentime. And it's very pretty.

* [[Series Hiatus]]: The break in the series between 1980 and 1988 wavers between this and [[Revival]].

* [[Serious Business]]: The local agricultural fair is not to be taken lightly.

* [[Sibling Rivalry]] - Siegfried and Tristan are constantly trying to get one over the other. Siegfried tends to use his position of power as the head of the practice to stick Tristan with the worst jobs, always claiming that it's either a complete coincidence or for Tristan's own good. Tristan has to resort to sneakier plans that can range from a [[Batman Gambit]] to a [[Zany Scheme]]. He rarely succeeds.

* [[The Slacker]]: It takes Tristan a long time to pass his exams.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:British Series]]

[[Category:The Seventies]]