American Primeval; Sandi’s Great British Woodland Restoration

“For all its power to compel – and it is a gripping yarn – there isn’t quite the heft such a carefully attended drama should have, or even appears to think it has. The message seems to be the same as all modern westerns: pioneer life was nasty, brutish and short. American Primeval wants to transcend the myths and find some additional, deeper truth to the country’s origin story. But it is still, at heart, in thrall to them and unable to escape the lure of essentially repeating them, albeit with added dirt and Mormons.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“If you like your westerns harsh, hyper-realistic and brimming with unrelenting, eye-watering violence, then American Primeval is for you. Good Lord, it’s bleak. But it’s well made, I’ll give it that. It deserves respect for refusing to airbrush or glamorise anything about this era of history. There is no romanticising, no prettifying. There is barely even any colour, the palette set to a dour greyish hue so we are in no doubt about the hardness of the surroundings and the perishing cold.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“The violence is unrelenting, thanks to director Peter Berg. Yet the series feels pacy and the brutality of what we’re seeing doesn’t make for an unbearably bleak viewing experience, because it is tempered by placing two female characters at the heart of the drama.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“American Primeval soon becomes suffocatingly overpacked, with at least six major storylines and 17 main characters demanding attention. That’s far too many. I ended up gravitating towards one or two stories, and got annoyed when the action kept yoyo-ing between the others. American Primeval could have had better legs as an anthology with loose connective threads. But if you hitch yourself on this bandwagon, this is a wild ride that captures a historical turning point in a relentlessly unflinching watch.”
Tilly Pearce, The i

“I don’t mean this as a personal slight against Toksvig, who is a jovial presence in Sandi’s Great British Woodland Restoration as she pads around like an industrious little Womble. But why does every celebrity endeavour have to be filmed? Can’t they just happily get on with things without a camera crew present?.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“I’m full of admiration for her willingness to roll up the sleeves of her woolly Nordic jumper and get stuck in to conservation work. But when it comes to sharp cutting tools, I don’t want to see her handling anything bigger than a cake slice.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail