As a lifelong fan of author James Herriot and his "All Creatures Great and Small" books, I eagerly awaited the television premiere of the new adaptation from PBS Masterpiece. Snuggled in my arm chair, snacks in hand, I found myself instantly transported to the Yorkshire countryside that is so beautifully on display in this new version. And then gate incident happened.
I will refrain from any big spoilers of what was otherwise a fine episode, but as inhabitants of the rural, I think we all need to talk about "Gate-gate".
There is a scene early on wherein James Herriot is driving and his boss Siegfried is passenger and they come to a farm gate. Siegfried is "hazing" James a bit on his first farm call and instead of opening the gate (as we all know is expected of any farm vehicle passenger, LOL), he makes James open it.
And so he does.
But he DOESN'T CLOSE THE GATE.
I sat there, expectantly waiting for this to be a funny plot point---new vet doesn't know to close the gate, livestock escape, chaos ensues. It is almost formulaic comedy waiting to happen.
Except nothing happens. NOTHING.
They just never shut the gate and nobody cares or notices. You always shut the gate, always.
All farm folks know that gates must always be left as you found them. Therefore, if you open it, you shut it. If you don't shut it, it is the universal law of farmyards that any nearby animal will find that open gate within 1.7 seconds. Only someone who has not suffered the consequences of chasing loose stock over hill and dale (Yorkshire pun intended) would have the lead character forget to CLOSE THE GATE.
To add to the wonder of it all, in the scene background (I lost all focus on the characters after the gate was left open as I watched the farmyard to see what would happen next), you can see a sheep actually escape onto the road. I'm betting that although the character James Herriot escapes the consequences of leaving a farm gate open, the real-life member of the set crew got duly yelled at for his major farmyard transgression. One small detail and yet oh so important for those in the know.
This flaw in the farmyard details had me and my farm friends madly texting each other after the show, shocked that they would allow such a major breach of farm etiquette. And then rancher and author Eliza Blue and I joined Lori Walsh on In the Moment to celebrate the first episode but still had to dissect the gate incident yet further:
I also posted about this incident in my farm blog only to find that All Creatures Great and Small "Gate-Gate" had already been hashed out quite thoroughly already in Britain. It seems that the Universal Law of Farm Gates is truly a cross-cultural phenomena. In fact the UK's Daily Mail went as far to excerpt the scene and write about it here.
Of course, this is not the first time that the BBC and PBS Masterpiece has courted farmyard controversy. In 2016, a now-famous episode of Poldark showed star Aiden Turner scything shirtless in a farm field. Scything experts from across the UK pointed out that while shirtless scything may have its marketing aspects, there was altogether "too much sweating and grunting" as well as an incorrect overall technique.
In closing, don't forget to shut the gate but don't let "Gate-Gate" stop you from enjoying the next 6 episodes of what is truly a balm for the soul. New episodes will air each Sunday at 8pm/7MT (and Passport members can binge the whole series right now! Get your Passport membership here) Watch the first episode below online for free!