Series Thoughts: Watership Down (Full Series)

• Released: August 13th, 1999
• Total amount of seasons: 3
• Seasons watched: 3
• Rating: 3.5/5

Synopsis

The rabbit of Watership Down try to stay safe when another colony named Efrafa wants to take over their warren.

My Thoughts

I've been meaning to watch this one for ages, and now I finally did. And it's honestly quite good.

I will say that overall the best season is season one. Not because it sticks closer to the book or anything (it doesn't need to be an accurate adaptation in order for it to be good, in my opinion), but it was just the most well-structured, and I thought the character work there was the best.

Later seasons are still good as well, but I did spot a few bad or unlikable episodes (e.g. an episode where the character development just gets reversed for no reason, or where there's a plothole). And if you're looking for accuracy to the book, the latter two seasons are basically fanfiction when comparing it to the main plotline of book one.

I did overall really like the characters, voice acting, visual style (well, both styles), backgrounds and the plotline of season 1 and early season 2. My favorite characters are probably Campion and Hawkbit, with Captain Broom being a close third (of course). And Hannah, I love my girl Hannah. There is some genuinely really good stuff to appreciate about this show.

Yes, I will of course admit that the dark tone and violence is toned down a bit from the original novel, or the movie adaptation, but still it's a solid series overall and honestly the slightly more juvenile tone mostly didn't bother me (aside from a few scenes or jokes). The series never felt overly childish to me or anything, it still takes itself seriously enough.

If there is something that did annoy me a bit, it's the repetitive background music. The music itself isn't bad, but when you hear the same soundtracks recycled over and over again it gets a bit old. A bit more variation would've been nice.

I also don't really like the ending. Now, I don't mind the inclusion of more fantastical and magical themes into this adaptation of the story. I thought it made this version unique and I like fantasy elements, so it wasn't bad in my opinion. But I did not like how Hannah, who became magical at this point, is sidelined completely in the climax and instead Silverweed gets to defeat Woundwort. There was this whole buildup spanning multiple episodes about Hannah learning magic and knowing she'd use them to defeat Woundwort in the end. But then in the climax Silverweed, without giving her a choice, mind you, just takes her powers to defeat the evil rabbits instead.

And I know, I know, Hannah was probably going to die or at least have to make a huge sacrifice if she'd used her powers. But from a storytelling point of view, wouldn't that have been stronger? This series isn't opposed to killing of characters, or writing them out of the show, so it would've been a nice, bittersweet ending to the series. And it would have led to a good payoff of all that buildup. But this? Right now Silverweed (who is a bit of a nothing character, mind you) gets all the glory and the sacrifice they were building up to is that...he grows old and loses his powers. Wow. All that buildup for a bland nothing-burger of a character to claim Hannah's glory and the "big sacrifice" to barely mean anything. 

Another issue with this series is the instalove. Pretty much none of the romantic relationships feel well-developed and realistic. Hazel and Primrose, Hawkbit with that one doe, Kehaar and his girlfriend, Campion and Blackberry, and Bigwig and Spartina. These are the major romances and none of them feel well-written. This was an issue the miniseries adaptation also has, but it was probably worse here. Especially when the series tries to make some of these romances out to be deep connections, only for the actual characters to have barely shared one or two scenes together. I feel that if the series took the time to develop its romances more, it would've been better.

I also do gotta bring up the art style shift: In season three the style completely changes and most of the voice cast was replaced. I honestly don't mind the art style change that much, to be honest. It does take some getting used to (mostly because some character designs change as well), but once you get used to it it does look nice. What I do mind is the voice acting. I'm not a huge fan of the new voice cast. They're not bad by any means, but I found myself just preferring most of the old voices for the characters. Especially losing John Hurt as Woundwort was quite sad. Thankfully a few of the old cast stuck around (my favorites being Richard Briers as Broom and David Holt as Vervain), but it was a bit jarring to see such a huge part of the OG cast replaced alongside a huge style change. I can imagine that for younger viewers watching this, this could be very confusing.

But overall I do genuinely like this show. It might be my favorite adaptation of the story that I've seen so far. It has a very strong first season and even the two latter seasons aren't bad. I do think that book purists may not like this show as much due to the more juvenile tone, fanfic-y plots and the inclusion of overt magic, but for what it is I genuinely enjoyed myself here.