'All Creatures Great & Small' Season 3 Starts "Second Time Lucky"

The opening sequence of All Creatures Great and Small Season 3 echoes the series premiere as James drives his car through the spectacular green scenery that impressed him when he first arrived. But this time, he pulls over to watch a plane flying low overhead, captivated by the pilot’s skill and daring. Already he’s feeling the pull of duty to his country and how he can reconcile that with responsibilities at home. Appropriately enough, he’s literally at a crossroads, the one where he got off the bus on his first visit to Darrowby and where he encountered Helen for the first time.

Both Helen and James are getting nervous as their wedding day approaches. In the final episode of Season 1, Helen walked out on an unsuitable groom at the ceremony, something that was witnessed by the whole community, and her family at least are a bit jittery about this second attempt. Worried dad Richard Alderson lurks behind walls to listen to conversations between Helen and her younger sister Jenny. Helen, Jenny points out, has form. No wonder their dad is worried.

The principal ally of the upcoming wedding is housekeeper Mrs. Hall, who is highly suspicious of Siegfried’s tactless volatility and Tristan’s sense of mischief. Sure enough, Siegfried blasts off a lecture on marrying in haste and at such a busy time of year (it’s spring) before Helen reminds him that the wedding has been planned for six months. Tristan, entrusted with the wedding ring (you know this is asking for trouble), searches his pockets, goes through a pantomime of pretending it’s lost, and then finds it again. This from the man claiming that he’s finally become an adult, but he has more growing up to do. James’s parents Hannah (Gabriel Quigley) and James Sr. (Drew Cain), have arrived, and his mum mentions that his dad is getting so much work on the Glasgow docks now you’d think the country was at war.