All Creatures Great and Small renewed for seasons 3 and 4 on Channel 5

Channel 5 has renewed All Creatures Great and Small for seasons three and four, with six episodes per season in addition to two more Christmas specials.

Season three will arrive “on our screens this year,” meaning we can likely expect the series to premiere sometime in autumn 2022, followed by the third Christmas special.

Sebastian Cardwell, Deputy Director of Programmes at ViacomCBS Networks UK, said he was “looking forward to us all being reunited with the Skeldale House family” following the double series order.

“It is clear that our viewers adore James Herriot’s adventures in Darrowby and so do we at Channel 5. I am looking forward to us all being reunited with the Skeldale House family when series three arrives on our screens this year,” he said.

The All Creatures Great and Small cast features Nicholas Ralph, Samuel West, Anna Madeley, Rachel Shenton, and Callum Woodhouse, all of whom are set to return for the third season.

An official synopsis from the broadcaster reads: “As series three returns, we will rejoin our beloved Skeldale House family in the Spring of 1939 as the prospect of another World War looms large over the Dales.

“Change is afoot for all our Darrowby residents, especially James and Helen, who are embarking on the next chapter of their lives as the wider world around them heads toward a period of great uncertainty.”

Season three will also likely feature the long-anticipated wedding between Scottish vet James Herriot and local farmer’s daughter Helen (played by Ralph and Shenton respectively).

Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com, Callum Woodhouse (who plays Tristan in the All Creatures Great and Small cast) recently said the wedding would take place in the third series, after admitting he thought viewers “might have expected” the nuptials to take place in the recent Christmas special.

“I was thinking they might have expected [the wedding] as well, to be honest,” he said, adding: “I quite like the idea that it’s not straight into the wedding. It’d be quite nice for that to be, you know – if we are lucky enough to get a series three, then that’s going to be one of the things that happens.”

The series is based once again on James Herriot’s real-life memoirs (real name James Alfred ‘Alf’ Wight) and the author’s children, Jim Wight and Rosie Page, released a joint statement on the announcement of a third and fourth series.

They said: “For many years the books of James Herriot have provided a source of comfort to tens of thousands of people worldwide at difficult times in their lives. With this recent adaptation of his books, a new generation has been introduced to the joys of the Herriot stories. We are delighted that there are to be at least two more series of All Creatures Great and Small, and we are especially pleased that the same excellent actors and producers are to be involved.”

You can order James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small from Amazon.

All Creatures Great and Small airs on PBS Masterpiece in the US and Channel 5 in the UK. Take a look at the rest of our Drama coverage, or check out what else is on with our TV Guide.