Series Thoughts: The Animals of Farthing Wood (Full Series)

• Released: January 1993
  
• Total amount of seasons:3
• Seasons watched:3
• Rating: 3/5

Synopsis

After their old home is destroyed, a group of animals travels to the hopefully safe White Deer Park for sanctuary. Here, they encounter new troubles.

My Thoughts

This one has been on my to-watch list for a very, very long time. Even as a kid I caught a few episodes but they did not air this show often where I live, so I never was able to watch more than a handful of episodes (and even that's generous, I think it was more like two, three at most). But now I finally managed to watch the entire thing.

And I gotta say...it's something. Not good, but it's something. Mid, is the best way to describe it if you ask me. And I don't like being hard on this series because it does have a lot of elements I like in a show. Animal xenofiction. Serious stakes. Not being afraid to kill of characters. A wise old leader figure. Foxes. A forest setting. 

But for everything this series does right, it also takes two steps back. One example would be the ungodly amount of annoying characters in this show. It's like they weren't confident in the show sticking closer to the tone of the book, so they changed some book characters and added a few new ones for comic relief. And it doesn't work. These characters aren't funny, they're annoying. Half of the time when these characters got in trouble or even died I legitimately didn't care or was even relieved because they were such a pain to be around. From Pheasant being a vain sexist to the smaller animals constantly complaining to Weasel's tone-deaf singing and outbursts of laughter to the rabbit's repetitive shtick. It didn't work at all.

These comic relief characters also led to my second major gripe: the tonal issues. I really think that they should've picked a lane for this series and stuck to that lane. Either make it a serious drama where anyone can die and where the tone of the series fits, or make it more of a lighthearted family series with less death and lower stakes. I certainly know I would prefer the former, but this half-and-half they ended up doing didn't work at all. One moment characters can be in the most terrible of perils or even die a brutal death, and next Weasel is singing off-key or one of the rabbits keeps complaining for "comedy". Mood whiplash for sure.

I guess out of the three seasons I do like seasons one and two the best. One had a pretty good story of the journey which was kept interesting throughout, and season two took place in one location (White Deer Park) but had an interesting and intimidating antagonist. Season three...boy. What a downgrade.

I will praise season three for having slightly better animation than in the first two seasons, don't get me wrong. The animation in those two seasons isn't bad, but it is definitely a bit stilted and often recycles the same shots. It also often doesn't feel very structured and the characters aren't always on-model. Season three definitely has more fluid and less recycled animation, and the designs are usually more on-point. 

But for those things it does right...it also has the weakest plot and antagonists. The rats are terribly weak and unfunny villains. The writers seem to think that having your main antagonist and his minions shout his name a lot somehow makes him intimidating. Bully is just a bully but he doesn't hold a candle to the real threat Scarface was in season two. Heck, even within the same season, Trey the deer is a more fearsome antagonist than weak-ass Bully.

Also, I gotta say, while the animation itself is slightly better in season three, the style change I don't vibe with too much. It's not too different, but you can just tell that it looks subtly different from the other seasons, and it does look a bit worse if you ask me. It's not a huge change but something about it just looks slightly off, particularly some expressions and some of the older characters from previous seasons (especially the foxes, for whatever reason). The characters do stay mostly on-model within this season itself, but the designs of returning characters are subtly different when compared to seasons one and two. So while I give them points for the more fluid animation, the style feels like a slight downgrade.

I also just gotta mention how in season three the plotline of the animals going missing really doesn't go anywhere? The Trey plotline is also kind of forgotten about for a while, but it gets more of a conclusion. The "Warden takes animals elsewhere" plotline is a major issue in the first few episodes, but after Plucky quite sporadically manages to escape it's barely even touched on anymore until the final conclusion. I really feel like this should've been more of a consistent issue, especially with the first few episodes of season three making a huge deal out of it.

So yeah, bit of a mixed bag of a series. I do want to make clear that overall I enjoyed myself watching it despite my gripes. I did cringe a bit here and there at the groan-worthy humor, but it also had some genuinely nice characters, character dynamics, and season two had a pretty good main conflict and villain. It just sucks that for all these good elements there's also so much working against the show.