Ultimately, All Creatures Great and Small remains what fans want, if a little sadder than the early seasons.

All Creatures remains the ultimate comfort watch. Just for an hour, you can retreat from the real world and immerse yourself in Darrowby.

[Siegfried's] erratic irascibility (“maybe I’m a trifle abrupt,” he conceded) actually adds something approaching an edge but the soapy emotional dramas, as old-fashioned as a Werther’s Original, made me pine for a bit more of the show’s gently humorous side, the eccentricity you get with Mrs Pumphrey and her overfed furball Tricki-Woo.