# Watership Down (1999)

> A group of rabbits flees a doomed warren and searches the English countryside for a new home, only to find they must fight to keep it.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/10882

## Facts

- Seasons: 3
- Episodes: 39
- Episode runtime: 23 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: animation, family, adventure
- Created by: Richard Adams
- Network: YTV
- Cast: Andrew Falvey, David Holt, Stephen Mangan, Sue Elliott-Nichols, Lee Ross, Rob Rackstraw, Ian Shaw, Rik Mayall
- TMDB rating: 7.6/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211882/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: mild
- Tone: adventurous, tense, hopeful, mythic, warm

## Synopsis

Watership Down (1999-2001) is a Canadian animated fantasy adventure series created by Richard Adams and broadcast on YTV, adapted from his celebrated novel. Its protagonist is the anxious, visionary rabbit Fiver, whose warnings lead a small band of rabbits, including the bold Bigwig voiced by Stephen Mangan and the steady Hazel voiced by Ian Shaw, to abandon their endangered warren. Fiver and his companions travel across the English countryside, braving predators, human dangers, and rival warrens in search of a safe place to live. Once they find the hill that gives the show its name, they must build a new community and defend it when outside threats arrive. The series runs three seasons and thirty-nine episodes, structured as a continuing journey with each episode carrying the group forward through new perils. Its tone mixes fable-like mythic storytelling with real peril, sometimes stark and unsettling, while its emotional center is loyalty, courage, and the cost of leadership. Animated with a hand-drawn sensibility, it sits in the lineage of The Secret of NIMH and The Wind in the Willows, appealing to viewers who enjoy animal fantasy with genuine stakes and gentle warmth.

## Shows like Watership Down

- [The Storyteller (1988)](https://ember.film/tv/5030)
- [Lost Ollie (2022)](https://ember.film/tv/119149)
- [Little Bear (1995)](https://ember.film/tv/9127)
- [Storm Hawks (2007)](https://ember.film/tv/5705)
- [Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (2024)](https://ember.film/tv/125975)
- [Redwall (1999)](https://ember.film/tv/27571)
- [Elliott from Earth (2021)](https://ember.film/tv/99796)
- [Creature Comforts (2003)](https://ember.film/tv/32094)
- [Wolf King (2025)](https://ember.film/tv/149403)
- [The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends (1992)](https://ember.film/tv/10061)

---

Site overview: https://ember.film/llms.txt