Tom Goodman

Extraordinarily poor acting mars this film. Menjou, Macready and Moriis are particularly bad. So, too, is the writing especially in many of the opening scenes. The theme is a potent one but these wooden actors undercut it.

An appalling bad update of one of the finest series ever produced. It's hard to determine where to begin with this awful production. In no particular order the acting is completely over the top, especially with Siegfried and Tristan. The relationship of Siegfried and the housekeeper Mrs. Hall is particularly ridiculous. No housekeeper in the 1930's in England would be on such familiar terms with her employer and certainly no housekeeper in any era would show up at a farmer's barn to assist in the surgery on a cow. This production takes so many liberties with James Herriot's books that it might as well have started from scratch rather than to combine elements from serveral Herriot stories in a pastiche that undermines the originals without reaching new understandings. Literally from the outset this series portrays several situations that defy credculity. James arrives in Yorkshire for an interview and gets off the bus in the middle of nowhere. Narry a farmhouse, animal or sign of live yet he "mistakenly" gets off the bus and then walks hurriedly into town for his interview. I would have rejected his applicaltion right away on the grounds that he does not possess a shred of commonsense. Later he goes to an appointment and leaves the gate open to a farmer's land, an absolute no-no. At his first tough case James protests several times he cannot help the animal before finally doing so. No vet, especailly one trying to establish himself among the farming community, would come across so negatively. I could go on and on but there are so many poor decisions throughout this series I am baffled by any favorable reviews it has received. My advice to PBS would be to simply revive the original series and consign this one to the composte.