All Creatures Great & Small (S6)

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I've tried very hard to not pay much attention to someone who follows along with the UK airings on my Tumblr dash, which means it's finally time for the US airing of season six.

Each episode's recap will go in the comments below, and like last year, I'll probably update the posting date later so this won't get lost amidst the Fandom Snowflake Challenge posts.

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Episode 1: Gathering The Flock

Soap Central recap. No Telly Visions? Yes, well, I have a bad feeling that the past links may not work anymore. Current message on Telly Visions Update: Due to the recent federal funding cuts and after much consideration, WETA has decided to put the Telly Visions project on hiatus. We would like to thank everyone who has read our articles and recaps, listened to our podcast, and sent us your cat pictures — and maybe even contributed a few cents along the way. Your support and engagement have meant the world to us.

I'd already picked up from my Tumblr dash that there was going to be a time jump; for this show, three years is a pretty big jump, but I can't say I'm too surprised. (The 1978 show had enlistment at the end of one season and jumped to the end of the war when the next season came back.) Instead of picking up in the spring of 1943, this season starts in the first week of May in 1945.

Mrs Hall has gone to Sunderland to live with her son (approximately an hour northeast according to Google Maps); it seemed like she meant to go temporarily to help him as he recovered from injuries, but she's apparently been there a while. He has a wife - Bessie, I think - and an infant daughter at this point. Siegfried talks about trying to find a replacement, but all we see is the current lack of a housekeeper. It's presented humorously, but I do wonder if it may be a sign of Siegfried struggling that will come up later.

James only stays over at Skeldale House when he needs to be available for farmers to call. Otherwise, Helen and him seem to be living with her dad at the Alderson farm, and she's had a daughter during the time jump who's an infant, Rosie. (Knowing that a daughter and son have been interviewed regarding their father who wrote the books and such, my family was not surprised at this.) Jimmy is now four, four and a half, so he's old enough for an actor to talk. Mr Alderson refuses James' idea of getting a telephone in a way that sounds like a reoccurring difference of opinion.

This means that we get to see James get a chance to complain about Siegfried to Helen at their home without the risk of Siegfried walking in (compared to past seasons when they lived at Skeldale). Mostly, James wants to go pay a visit to Mrs Hall and ask her to come back because Siegfried is barely keeping the practice going. Helen doesn't think they should, James agrees with this until Siegfried has a miniature horse in Skeldale overnight and forgets to pick up Tristan at the train station, Tristan goes with James to Sunderland, and they all just surprise Siegfried by not warning him that Mrs Hall would be stopping by. You know, just for a few days.

Going back to the humorous presentation of the mess. Mrs Hall walks into the kitchen to see the table covered in miscellaneous things, and she finds one of Siegfried's pet rats in the pantry behind the sardines. (Volonel's grandson, Gerald. There's a second one, but I can't remember a name for that one.) The next scene where we return to her and Dash [the dog], she's obviously cleaned the kitchen up and reduced the disorganized mess throughout the house.

The main vet case is focused on a border collie named Fly. James and Siegfried both agree that she probably has arthritis setting in at age 12, but Siegfried doesn't want the farmer to no longer see her as valuable as a herding dog and euthanize her, so he okays her returning to the field. James thinks she should be able to retire from herding and brings up the idea of letting her be a pet. A stray dog attacks Fly's son (who's described as not ready to be the main herder), scatters the flock, and the farmer temporarily loses Fly and the flock. After a discussion where James brings up how Siegfried pushes people away, they dramatically find Fly who has managed to keep the flock together despite getting injured. The farmer thinks she should take some sort of less active, teaching role for her son, so she will be sorta semi-retired (though he doesn't entirely rule out Jame's idea of having her be a pet in the future).

Circling back to Mrs Hall: Things are awkward between her and Siegfried in a way that seems like they fought before she left. She brings out the Scrabble board that they've played in past seasons, and he gets upset about seeming like "a problem to be solved". Siegfried makes himself some coffee in the morning while the owner of the miniature horse is there, and he gets very upset at how Mrs Hall tried to swoop in when he spilled the hot water on his hand. (Something about not being a child, perhaps?) It's the sort of thing that accumulates to Mrs Hall trying to get Dash to leave with her on a one-way return trip to Sunderland, and Siegfried needed the clue-by-four in that searching in the fields discussion about not pushing people away. He rushes to the train station to talk to her and convince her to stay, which does work out.

In the midst of that, the news is breaking on the radio that Germany has surrendered. It's May 8th, 1945: Victory Day. Lots of people in The Drover hugging, random people on the train station platform hugging, there's a bonfire and fireworks later in the evening. Tristan is not enthusiastic. He hadn't done a very good job of encouraging Maggie that her husband will return from Burma. He visited a local war memorial alone. He did not want to tell anyone about his promotion to Captain as he was simply "next in line" (_{possibly a battlefield promotion from someone else dying? maybe?}), and he didn't want to drink the congratulatory alcohol sent with that news. (Siegfried opens the bottle for their drinks on the evening of V-Day.) Tristan throws a Military Cross medal in his drawer, and it's just all adding up to an impression that this season will feature Tristan having Issues, if not outright PTSD, from his service.