What’s ahead for ‘All Creatures Great and Small’? We’ve got answers

“Arriving on Day One was a little bit of art imitating life,” he says. Herriot graduated from veterinary college and got his first job; Ralph graduated from drama school and was on the set of “All Creatures.”

“It was a huge learning experience,” Ralph says of those first days on set. In addition to realizing he didn’t have to pack a lunch for his workday (there’s catering on set), he learned how a big television series runs.

By his side: co-star Callum Woodhouse, who plays Triston Farnon. He filled him in on the food situation and answered questions. So, too, Samuel West, who plays Siegfried Franon.

“It was just incredible,” Ralph says of his first day. “It was a wonderful introduction to the world of TV and it’s just been continuing on from there.”

Woodhouse says he had a similar indoctrination when he was on “The Durrells.” Actor Josh O’Connor took him under wing and answered similar questions. “On ‘All Creatures,’ it was really crazy that I (was) suddenly this person who’s telling Nick where he can go and get his food in the morning.”

Now in their third season, Woodhouse and Ralph will face other challenges. A tuberculosis threat is sweeping through the country; a shift in family dynamics is obvious since James has proposed to Helen Alderson, a farmer’s daughter, and Triston has passed his exams and has a bit more cachet in the veterinary world. “It doesn’t quite hit him in the way that he wanted it to,” Woodhouse says. “It doesn’t quite solve all of his problems and anxieties about himself and the world around him.”

Outside forces put stress on the veterinary business and the new “family,” West says.

When executive producer Colin Callender decided to reboot the series in 2016, the United States and Great Britain were “more divided than ever before. My thought was that these books are about this sort of oddball family at the center of it. There are no villains in these stories. This is about characters trying to get through the day with dignity and be kind of each and helpful. This is not about rich people living in a big house in the middle of wherever. This is about real people dealing with real problems and the problems are explored through the animals.”

As that port in a storm, “All Creatures” attracted large audiences in both countries. It also proved to be a great balm during the pandemic.

The only concern? “How to embrace it without becoming sentimental or sappy,” Callender says. “I think the wit…avoids that. And the real honesty of the emotions of the characters avoids it.”

Because it can make large issues understandable, “All Creatures” has a platform to discuss many pressing subjects.

Global warming, for example, can be touched upon through the animals. Great Britain recorded its highest temperature this year. “The death of one cow is a problem and could be a tragedy” in this small-scale farming world, West says. “Maybe that’s the scale our heads need to be at now.”

With Helen becoming part of the “family,” Mrs. Hall, the housekeeper, shows more than a little concern. “When we have a little bust-up in the household, Helen’s seeing it for the first time from the inside,” Anna Madeley, who plays Mrs. Hall, says. “It deepens the relationships knowing each other more intimately as you become part of the family unit.”

And, then, cast members say, there’s the matter of those farm animals. The special effects cow, which was used in the first season, is in the warehouse, Madeley says. And there’s a new, non-animatronic, pet that has joined the household.

The actors have had more close encounters with the animals and admit they often put their human co-stars to shame.

“We couldn’t do the show without them,” says Ralph. “They’re integral and they’re absolutely brilliant.”

James, he has come to realize, “is an everyman character. We saw him being vulnerable. We saw him being kind of fun. And we saw him handle some of the drama and then the romantic side of things. Because it’s based on real people, he was so three-dimensional…and multifaceted. It was like an actor’s playground.”

The third season of “All Creatures Great and Small” will air in January on PBS’ “Masterpiece.”