The very first Farthing Wood death is a relatively easy one
upon the viewer, in that it occurs entirely off-screen and is only really
hinted at, prompting some fans to question whether it even happened at
all. Indeed, I imagine that my decision
to include the Newts in this retrospective at all may trigger a bit of a
negative reaction from viewers who’ll insist that, actually, the Newts’ fate is
technically unknown and we can never say for sure. I include the Newts here because 1) the odds
were definitely not in their favour and 2) Badger has clearly accepted the
Newts for dead, and I believe that the series wants us to trust his judgement
on this one.
From the outset, the Newts always looked like they were
going to struggle to complete the long trek to White Deer Park more than any other
animal. Not only were they smallest of
the Farthing Wood creatures (fun fact: the show's magazine tie-in, Farthing Wood
Friends, left them out of a sticker collection in which the characters were
all rendered to scale because they were too small, which apparently prompted a
lot of readers to write in and complain), but they were not adept to travelling
across long distances on land. Making it
through a housing estate to a swimming pool on the very first night of the
journey proves a painful enough slog for them.
Well aware of these weaknesses, the Newts choose to settle in the first
viable habitat they come across – a marshland adjacent to an army-training
ground. Fox can see the Newts’ point, so
he doesn’t object to leaving them behind.
Later in the episode, fire breaks out in the local area on account of human stupidity, and a few of the animals, having been separated from the
others, barely escape with their lives.
Among them is Toad, who remarks upon how fortunate they were that the
wind was blowing in the opposite direction, causing the fire to spread back the
way they had come instead of toward them.
Badger, however, realises the full horror of this – the fire would have
completely obliterated the Newts and their new home. When, later in the episode, Mole, another straggler, is reunited
with the other animals, he asks what happened to the Newts, Badger simply responds,
“Don’t ask.”
I’m sure that denial amongst fans over the Newts’ fate was
fuelled in some part by the aforementioned Farthing Wood Friends – in their
character profile for the Newts they included the line “The animals fear that
the newts have died, but who knows? They
might have gone into the water and survived.”
Sorry, but that’s not how it works.
Even if they were able were avoid the fire by going into the water, they
would still have been suffocated by the smoke.
And, if they had miraculously managed to live through that, then the
surrounding habitat would have been completely destroyed, making it impossible
for the Newts to continue to thrive in their marshland home for very long. The Newts are indeed goners.
HORROR FACTOR: 5. Happens entirely off-screen, although the
understated manner in which Badger comes to the realisation that the Newts most
likely did not survive is nevertheless pretty chilling.
NOBILITY FACTOR: 4. The Newts were the tragic victims of circumstance
which could so easily have been avoided if some idiot human had learned to
extinguish their cigarettes properly (or to not discard them in long grasses,
period). Nonetheless, they did set a
pretty potent example to the other animals as to what could happen if they
failed to stick together, and in that sense they did not die in vain.
TEAR-JERKER FACTOR: 7. The Newts were only around for a very
limited time, but they were fairly likeable characters (enough to prompt a bit of
outrage amongst readers when they were left out of a sticker collection), and
I’m sure their vulnerability gave them an underdog charm which had many viewers
rooting for them to make it all the way to White Deer Park. Sadly it was dashed almost immediately.
OVERALL RATING: 16
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