Watership Down science fiction writer and conservative social commentator writing in the "National Review", declared that the novel was "pleasant enough, but it has about the same intellectual firepower as Dumbo." He pilloried it further: ""Watership Down" is an adventure story, no more than that: rather a swashbuckling crude one to boot. There are virtuous rabbits and bad rabbits: if that’s allegory, "Bonanza" is an allegory." John Rowe Townsend notes that the book quickly achieved such a high popularity despite the fact that it "came out at a high price and in an unattractive jacket from a publisher who had hardly been
Watership Down (TV series) drastic changes from the novel (like Blackberry changed from a buck to a doe) and its more child-friendly tone as compared to the violence of the movie. The third series changed this for a darker tone. Watership Down was voiced by many familiar faces in British film and television. John Hurt, the voice of Hazel in the film, was reprised as the voice of General Woundwort, and Richard Briers, the voice of Fiver in the film, appeared in the series as Captain Broom. Dawn French, Jane Horrocks, Stephen Fry, Phil Jupitus and Rik Mayall all provided voices, as Buttercup, Hannah,