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During the filming of the first series Christopher Timothy had an accident resulting in a broken leg. The location work had been completed in the Autumn of 1977 and the cast then filmed the interior scenes at the Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham for the first block of seven episodes up until Christmas 1977. Then Christopher Timothy was knocked down by a car and was incapacitated with a broken leg for two months. This meant a delay in filming the studio interior scenes for the remaining 6 episodes until February/March 1978 when he was well enough, resulting in a short gap in the transmission between episodes 7 and 8. In these later episodes while James Herriott was seen out-and-about attending outside the surgery (because the location scenes were already in the can) the directors had to use clever editing and close ups in the interior scenes to disguise the fact that Timothy was unable to walk properly. The actor was forced to use a wheelchair in between filming. A few of his scenes were re-written and given to Peter Davison resulting in Tristan becoming a major character.
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