User Reviews

Here we have the Skeldale Christmas Party, take two.

A cloud hangs over the vets and their circle as Tricky Woo has gastroenteritis and is faring poorly. He can't keep down food and has become dangerously dehydrated. After Seigfried brings him to Skeldale for close observation and treatment, James suggests asking Mrs. Pumphrey to come to be with him.

In the meantime James and Helen face the conundrum all families do: Who to be with at Christmas. James has his parents in Scotland, and they're expected at both Helen's home and at Skeldale. Most of us have been through that in our real lives.

James' solution is elegant and heartwarming. You won't want to miss it.

These Christmas specials provide another function. They allow for Tristan to have been off for a session at veterinary college without them having to film episodes without him, which happened at times in the original series.

Another quality episode but Christmas specials do tend to fall short.

Here, a scattering of snow appears in certain scenes but not others slightly blighting the usual breath-taking views.

. A scattering of snow and a robin on the opening titles puts the viewer in festive mood

A good storyline with mixed news for Tristan and, as usual, there are animals in distress.

Unlike regular episodes, this one does seem more blatantly contrived with concerns over where people will be for Christmas lunch and then, at the end, Mrs. Hall sees dark skies from the window possibly lining up a darker series 3.

Despite this being set in rural, traditional, pre-war country, it seems no-one goes to church at Christmas; throw in a couple of unlikely ethnic minority characters in the British countryside these days never mind 80 years ago and the PC brigade has taken over our Christmas entertainment schedules.

The usual 45 minutes would have been sufficient. The extra 7 minutes just prolonged a show that was pretty good in the first place.

When a show is as good as this usually is, lengthening it can detract from the magic and, for me, this happened here.

No doubt series 3 will bring evacuees of all creed and colour to the show and all in the name of inclusiveness and TV ratings.

There is so much pain in the world, day after day. We have wars going on on several fronts. We have terrorists. Every day something new pops up. So I became a sucker for this episode. There is certainly conflict and people are put to the test. But the love and affection here was so old fashioned. I grew up in a simple place and we were very poor. I enjoyed the sacrifices that were being made. I also thought that James grew a great deal when he put up with the farmer who verbally attacked him. How often I've heard people who say they know more than the experts because they are threatened by intellect. Despite my college education and career, the most talented man I ever met was a master auto mechanic. His skills spoke for themselves. The beauty is that there are happy endings here but they are so quiet and so gentle.

The actors as normal were great, I liked some modernising of minor characters but it was the contrived story and the especially poor special effects. Let's face it, it doesn't always snow but the white painted logs around where he picked the log to whittle up were just laughable.

Please get these stellar actors back to decent scripts and stop with the awful painted logs please!