User Reviews

A little history: Longleat became the very first Safari Park outside of Africa in 1966 when it first opened its gates to the public. It was perceived, at the time, to be a very dangerous undertaking and questions were even brought up in the House of Parliament. The fact they had lions in this fairly open area and not in cages had some locals were frightened but fears were soon allayed and the park has now been open for over 40 years. It has grown, and thrived, and is a multiple award winning sight with it's attractions. Conservation programs are doing their best to save species and educate people on these animals that most would never see otherwise.

The show that is set at this park, called Animal Park, is hosted by two people, Ben Fogle and Kate Humble, who do get right in there with the keepers and help out with many of the duties, like feeding and mucking out. It's a fascinating view of the way these parks work, how the animals are taken care of, and how these programs for conservation really do help to save some incredible animal species. Watch the show and you will learn a tremendous amount about worlds you probably would never have seen in your lifetime without Animal Park.

Daytime television producers must love reality television shows; and by reality I don't mean Big Brother, Celebrity Love Island and other big "event" type shows, but rather the day to day stuff where cameras record life in airports, hospitals, with traffic police and so on. It is pretty cheap to make and thus it can effectively fill many of the hours that make up the non-primetime slots. With Animal Park, I was curious to see what it was about because surely it would lack the meat and potatoes of most of this sort of thing – the infighting, drama and stress between real people. Walk into any work place and you'll find rumours, gossip, infighting and so on, so it is just a matter of finding somewhere good and sticking the cameras in there.

Of course, filming in an animal park does mostly remove the sort of stuff you get with airport-set shows but instead you have the dramas associated with looking after the animals. Whether it is surgery on animals, deaths, births and so on, Animal Park sets up the animals as characters themselves and follows them more than the staff. The idea is fine if you are a producer but I'm not entirely sure how much value it has beyond filling the air time. I was vaguely interested in the episode I watched to get a feel of it, but really I had little interest beyond that. Ben Fogle and Kate Humble do their best to be all warm and excited about things and, in fairness, they work well on this level and at least it keeps reality-show "star" Fogle safely off our screens at any other time than 0900.

Fills the long daytime television hours cheaply and probably provides non-challenging distraction for housewives and elderly people kicking around the house on weekday mornings, but I serious doubt anyone goes to work and sets their video for this stuff.