Strange 6-Part BBC Series Opens With Liberation Guerillas Freeing Animals from UK Lab

The animation-style is kind of wild with each talking, clothes-wearing animal character being a collage of illustrated cutouts. The animal liberation guerillas have machine guns and grenades. A monkey masterbates. It takes shots at many different social targets. Future episodes will focus on the animals (or "not" animals) as they travel about outside of the lab, for which they are homesick, not to meet the liberationists again until the final episode.

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I AM NOT AN ANIMAL
Wednesday's at 8:00pm PST

Can animation double as serious social satire? Does the animal rights movement truly have the interests of their furry friends at heart? And can a talking horse really have anything meaningful to say?

These questions and more will be answered in the Sundance Channel presentation of the BBC's "I am NOT an ANIMAL", a six part animated series featuring some of the heaviest hitters of British comedy talent. Steve Coogan, Julia Davis, Amelia Bulmore and Winona Matthews all lend their voices to the cast.

The first episode of "I am NOT an ANIMAL" introduces us to its fully clothed menagerie as they enjoy a typical urbane evening in their well-appointed apartment at Vivi-Sec UK, a secret animal laboratory located in the English countryside. Officially known as Batch 4 of Project S, the animals are part of an experiment to create talking pets. Among them are Philip Masterson-Bowie, an avuncular, bespectacled horse who is the group's natural leader despite his poor analytical skills; Winona Matthews, a bourgeois bulldog who longs to settle down with Tim Robbins; and Claire Franchetti, a rat with a taste, as yet unsatisfied, for bad boys. Chatty and opinionated, the Batch 4 gang has all but forgotten that they are animals. After an animal rights group liberates the furry occupants of Vivi-Sec UK, these elite creatures must contend with the fact that they are just animals to the outside world.

In his review of "I am NOT an ANIMAL" for The Guardian in the U.K., critic Charlie Brooker called it " funny, clever, demented, and, perhaps most importantly, the only TV show you'll ever see in which a horse has to build himself a makeshift hand out of twigs in order to ring a doorbell."

"I am NOT an ANIMAL" premieres Wednesday October 5 at 11:00PM EST, with new episodes following each week.

LONDON CALLING
Wednesday October 5 at 8:00PM
PLANET OF THE MEN & WOMEN
Wednesday October 12 at 8:00PM
MONEY
Wednesday October 19 at 8:00PM
MY FAIR MARE
Wednesday October 26 at 8:00PM
A STAR IS HATCHED
Wednesday November 2 at 8:00PM
HOME
Wednesday November 9 at 8:00PM

http://www.sundancechannel.com/feature/index.php?ixContent=8311


original BBC "I AM NOT AN ANIMAL" series website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/i/iamnotananimal_999040510.shtml