The book was told from the viewpoint of Black Beauty, and focused primarily on what happened to him and the other animals. If there's any story that demands talking animals, then it's this one. While they didn't have CGI back in the 1970s, they could have done something similar to Mr. Ed.<br /><br />This show suffers from a major change in focus from the book. It's not about Black Beauty. It's about the humans in the story, plus some extra characters they threw in.<br /><br />It's like making a show or movie based on the novel Traveller by Richard Adams and having it focus on General Lee.<br /><br />The show was pretty, and the acting was good, but I can't give this show a good rating. A show supposedly based on the novel should actually be about Black Beauty, not about the parade of humans that passed through his life.