All Creatures Great and...oooh! Lookie, Tristan!

[primsong]

I'm thoroughly enjoying slowly working my way through the seasons of All Creatures Great and Small via the old tapes from the local library, great stuff. I vaguely remember watching this on tv at some point, but not clearly... remember reading Herriot's books far better, loved them and am loving seeing them come to life on the screen so very well. Must go dig them up again.

And yes, young Peter Davison is a lovely Tristan - I think I may even (*gasp*) like him better here than as Five. Exploding cows, wild driving, dressing up as a monk, pouting, drunken singing and so on. X-D

Comments

[ravenskyewalker.livejournal.com]

Yay! I've both watched the series and read the books, and loved them both. That's one of my favorite series.

However, I really only like the original show, which I believe was three series (or "seasons," as they're called in the USA). They revived it later, without Carol Drinkwater as Helen (because there'd been behind-the-scenes screwing around and screwing up, and she wouldn't work with Christopher Timothy again), with a new character named Calum. Annoyingly, it seemed to be both a continuation and a reboot of the original, because any character development Tristan had in the first version was gone in the revival, and he was getting a little old to be so hopeless.

Jim Wight, the real "James Herriot's" son, wrote a biography of him that came out in 1999 or 2000. Reading it took some of the magic out of the fictional version, but was still worth reading. Interestingly, he never liked the casting of Christopher Timothy as James -- and I confess that, however much I loved the series, CT never felt right to me, either.

Young Peter Davison was a perfect Tristan, and I definitely still prefer him in that role (but, again, only in the original, not the remake, which he did after the Doctor). Davison was good at getting the idea of a very old soul looking out of that young Doctor's eyes, but I didn't like Five much, alas. Even though I was a teenager then, I thought he was too young. (Now that I'm a cranky older person, I definitely think Eccleston and Tennant have been too young... and whoever that will be, playing Eleven... arrggh!)

*snort* Watch me opinionating away. Sorry about that. ;-)

[primsong.livejournal.com]

I don't mind your 'opinionating' at all - and very much appreciate the feedback on the later series as I was pondering whether or not to look into buying a copy of the dvds but hate buying something 'unseen'. :-) I concur about CT as James, he doesn't quite fit the James I met in the books though I'm slowly getting used to him - but the chap playing Siegfried is a marvelous actor and more than makes up for his shortcomings anyway.

Lolz on the viewpoint of the older, cranky person...yeah, the older I get the younger those young-uns look, but then I also always preferred older actors even when I was a teen myself, probably part of why Pertwee remains one of my faves with his elegant silver-white haired older Doctor.

[ravenskyewalker.livejournal.com]

I also always preferred older actors even when I was a teen myself, probably part of why Pertwee remains one of my faves with his elegant silver-white haired older Doctor.

Ah, yes. When I was a teen, two of my favorite older actors were Pertwee and (don't laugh) Lorne Greene. I felt hugely embarrassed about LG, but had no such guilt over JP. (I got over my LG guilt as an adult, because he was a fine-lookin' man back in "Bonanza," heh.)

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Oh, you are a lady of fine tastes!

I *loved* Lorne Greene! He was a darn good-lookin' guy and had a lovely voice to boot. I remember all the Bonanza-swooners melting for Little Joe and I was the one melting for Pa, lol...

I remember watching some [i]Battlestar Galactica[/i] just for him as well. :-D