''Manhunters'' was a three-part TV drama series that aired on
BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...
in the United Kingdom in 2005. It tells the story of three cases of
man-eaters
Maneater or man-eater may refer to:
* Man-eating animal, an individual animal or being that preys on humans as a pattern of hunting behavior
* Man-eating plant, a fictional form of carnivorous plant large enough to kill and consume a human or other ...
through the memoirs of those who hunted them and, in the case of the third episode, accidentally unleashed them on their community. The first tells the story of
Jim Corbett
Edward James Corbett (25 July 1875 – 19 April 1955) was an Anglo-Indian hunter and author. He gained fame through hunting and killing several man-eating tigers and leopards in Northern India, as detailed in his bestselling 1944 memoir '' M ...
(played by
Jason Flemyng
Jason Iain Flemyng''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005.''; at ancestry.com (born 25 September 1966) is an English actor. He is known for his work with British filmmakers Guy Ritchie and Matthew Vaughn appearing in ...
) and the Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag. The second tells the story of George Rushby and the Lions of Njombe, and the third tells the story of the
Wolf of Gysinge
The Wolf of Gysinge was a man-eating wolf which, in three months, attacked and killed many children in Gysinge near central Sweden in the early 1820s.
Attacks
During a three-month period between December 30, 1820, and March 27, 1821, the wolf at ...
.
Reception
''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' television critic Sam Wollaston called the series "done very nicely" with "a half-decent script" and "reasonable actors" but found the show to be similar to Channel 5's shows. The newspaper's Nicole Mowbray of ''The Guardian'' had a similar view, calling ''Manhunters'' "basically an historical version" of '' When Animals Attack!''. She said, "Once you've seen one man-eating beastie stalking a remote African village, you've seen them all." David Stubbs of ''The Guardian'' found that "the magnificent photography of this drama" renders it "thoroughly agreeable" to watch a story portraying wolves eating kids who are five years old.
The ''
Glasgow Times
The ''Glasgow Times'' is an evening tabloid newspaper published Monday to Saturday in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. Called ''The Evening Times'' from 1876, it was rebranded as the ''Glasgow Times'' on 4 December 2019. ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.
In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
''s Mick Bradley praised the episode "The Man-Eating Wolves of Gysinge" for being "a well conceived drama which proves that, as usual, man is to blame for corrupting nature".