The Animals of Farthing Wood is a unique series that is both of its time and is impossible to be replicated ever again. The way that main characters die throughout the three series run is incredible. Imagine a George RR Martin animated series “for children” and you get the picture. There’s absolutely no way that this kind of show would make it to air or streaming these days without a dozen clickbait articles and/ or twitter campaign about how it was distressing children and therefore campaign to increase the rating. We really were made of stronger stuff back then.


Its also unique in that it truly has a linear ongoing storyline, it was common then, as it is now, to make animated shows so that they could be played out of order and the viewer wouldn’t miss anything. Here the show starts off with the Farthing Wood animals set off for a new home because of their home being bulldozed by humans (a theme prescient today) and the later two seasons involve them settling into White Deer Park, which doesn’t quite turn out to be the sanctuary they thought it to be. Main characters come and go quicker than a Sean Bean film to the point where I lost track of the body count.


Around the same time (1994) the legendary all-CGI animated series **ReBoot** was released – another unique animated series with many adult oriented themes and references that didn’t talk down to their audience.


The only issue I had with the series is more the way that I watched it – I discovered Prime Video had the whole thing streaming a few weeks before it was set to leave the service so watching them back-to-back in quick succession highlighted how the same musical score was repeated again and again.


Regardless this is a highly recommended series; they really don’t make them like this anymore.