Chased by Dinosaurs/Sea Monsters Review (Part One)

Welcome back to Mesozoic Mind! We're continuing the Trilogies of Life this month with another instalment of it: 2002's Chased by Dinosaurs* and 2003's Sea Monsters. I remember watching them as a kid and being obsessed with them. Even today I can practically quote the whole scripts from memory.

* Note that they're not called this back home in Britain, only officially so in US and Canada, where the two are just called "Walking with Dinosaur Specials"

The biggest difference from the rest of the franchise is that there's a human onscreen hosting it and interacting with the prehistoric life: british naturalist Nigel Marven (who if your like me, is no stranger to this kind of thing). In many regards, its in the vein of Animal Planet's nature documentaries put out by Steve Irwin (RIP) and Jeff Corwin put out at the time. At the time (and still is), this was pretty novel: on one hand you had a typical documentary with plenty of humans in our time being interviewed or filmed, but for obvious reasons never interacting with living, non-avian dinosaurs. On the other, you had shows like Walking With Dinosaurs set entirely in the past with nary a human in sight. But this doc is in the middle with its premise of a camera crew and host going back in time and travelling around. Let's go through this two-parter segment by segment!

The Giant Claw

Link: https://vimeo.com/204566316

The first episode, The Giant Claw, takes place 75 million years ago in Mongolia, where Nigel treks across the desert and scrub of it to find the giant clawed theropod Therizinosaurus. However, the first dinosaur he encounters... encounters him instead when one attacks the tent he's in. its a herd of the hadrosaur Saurolophus*, and Nigel's not too mad at them for doing so. He proceeds to use a camera and hide in a bush to observe the unique way it and hadrosaurs chew: unlike mammals, they can't move jaws side to side, so they instead move their jawbones outwards and horizontally. Check out this video to show what I mean.

* Actually Dinosaurs' bulky-armed Anatotitan model with bony crest attached to it, and nothing like the real thing.

Nigel sets out on his desert trek, and the first dinosaur encountered is a nesting colony of the basal ceratopsian Protoceratops in a valley, as played by WWD's baby Torosaurus CG model. These squat little ceratopsians are described by literature ad himself as the sheep of the cretaceous, but its made clear they are not pushovers, with their beaks being some powerful snappers. Nigel decides he has to go through the colony (perhaps going around it's too much time?), and decides to go with the matador option and use  red flag to distract the colour-sensitive dinosaurs. Pretty nice and hilarious sequence, but the design of the Protos themselves leaves much to be desired, as they look more like obese pigs (admittedly not a bad comparison) then actual ceratopsians, and their tails are way too thin and flexible, instead of having tall, stiff neural spines it and many other basal ceratopsians had.

Nigel reaches a forested valley afterwards, and as he wanders through it, he sees some small but quick dinosaurs running through it. They're Velociraptors, frustratingly scaly when even at the time is was suspected of being feathered. Naturally, they're hunting another Protoceratops (because thanks to a certain fossil specimen pair, when aren't they at each others' throats), which is pretty decent scene, and we see that from one raptor with a broken arm, the protoceratops' beak is confirmed to us how dangerous it is. It at least helps that the scene and the ones before it has some decent handheld camerawork.

Also, in the scene beforehand, Nigel refers to how forests sprout in the desert as dunes settle before new ones come in and swamp it, calling it a Productive Dune System. However, I cannot find anything to do with the term online. Weird.

That night, as Nigel has set up camp after dangling a scorpion he has captured in front of his face, he is awoken by the arrival of the alvarezsaur "Mononykus"... or so the show call these dinosaurs. It's way bigger the the chicken -sized dinosaur it was in real life as seen below. I don't know why they didn't use an oviraptorid like Avimimus or Oviraptor itself that was closer to the size of the animal here. At least an ensuing chase scene of Nigel trying to catch one with blanket and their do make it one of the amusing ones in the segment, and they have actual feathers, which is more then even the rest of the franchise combined did for non-avian dinosaurs.

After leaving, Nigel comes across a nest that's been broken into and some dung. From the embryos inside, Nigel can tell its Therizinosaurus, but he finds that the dung is that of a herbivore, with seeds and plant matter in it. Nigel is puzzled as he still thinks its a carnivore. He also mentions that the desert has monitor lizards that break into nests like to day. While the lizards Estesia and Gobiderma (which re what he means) weren't really monitors, its still a nice touch.

A short while later, in a vegetated plain area, Nigel suddenly realises he's in the same territory as the tyrannosaur Tarbosaurus. Even though he's done some crazy stuff so far, even Nigel chooses to hide and wait until it passes, even getting the cameraman to turn it off. It does convey a sense of menace, and hey, compared to the monstrosity that's WWD's Rex, it looks way better, such as a more accurate skull (helps it recycles the model, since T. rex and Tarbo are sibling taxa).

Nigel then reaches a lake, and has decided to wait for the therizinosaurus to come there. He finds bones of it, and is puzzled by how its teeth are leaf-shaped, suggesting its a herbivore. He doesn't have long to muse for long, as the raptors arrive and for no reason I can understand, start chasing the crew and him, only relenting when Nigel scares them off with an airhorn. Nigel arrives back on the lakeshore to find a Tarbosaurus has come to drink.

However, a loud screech signals the arrival of another dinosaur: at last Nigel finally witnesses Therizinosaurus. Its exactly as odd as you'd expect, like as one other doc that also featured therizinosaurs said, "A half-plucked turkey", and even at the time it was suspected it had feathers, the design sticks well.  A confrontation breaks out between them as Nigel looks on, and though only a bit of blood is spilled and only one blow is delivered, the sheer scale and the haunting vocals of the Therizinosaurus.

Eventually after the mother of all slaps, the Tarbosaurus backs down as the rest of a herd comes out, and as they browse Nigel and we see why they have large claws: to help grab, drag, and cut branches as they feed. It ends with Nigel deciding that since he's a mammal and smells accordingly, they won't attack him and uses it to get real up close. It works.

Overall, this was a pretty good special. I love how the ep has the premise of "What was Therizinosaurus like and why the claws?" and builds up the mystery up. Besides a few inaccuracies, bad models, and some unusual story beats, its pretty good.

• Accuracy - 7/10
• Aging - 7/10
• Presentation - 9/10
• Music - 8/10
• Storytelling - 9/10
• Rewatchability - 9/10

Land of Giants

(Link: https://vimeo.com/204566258)

The other episode is in Patagonia 100 million years ago to see both two giants, the sauropod Argentinosaurus and the carcharodontosaur Giganotosaurus, as a herd of them is hunted by the other on their way to nesting grounds. After setting up the basics of his mission, hyping up how the two dinosaurs are the biggest of all time and passing by an argentinosaurus skeleton that by way of forced perspective looks huge, he arrives at a nesting site of the Argents by a lake. He then spots a baby argentinosaurus walking by, already pretty big, and goes over to observe it. He calls it his first dinosaur (ignoring the iguanodonts he drove by at the very start). It's... not very good in anatomy, even for a baby. More on that later.

... Only to be interrupted when a giant crocodile jumps out from behind him. It's slender sout gives away its not really a croc as its actually the philodosaur Sarcosuchus, which admittedly isn't known from South America (but not South America as a whole - enter S. hartti of 133 mya) or even 100 mya, but the scene with it does provide a lot of tension and suspense when Nigel lures out the croc by splashing a stick around, and then decides to trigger its snapping jaws.

10 Photos taken seconds from disaster

Next segment is about Nigel observing some of the iguanodonts from atop a hill, and discussing how they successful they are, existing for 75 million years across the Cretaceous across every continent. For not in the know, it used to be thought the genus Iguanodon was widespread across different continents and almost half the cretaceous. However, the fossils assigned to it are now recognised as belonging to different genera; and no large ornithopod of the time is actually known from South America save some travks. At least the iguanodonts themselves have a decent colour scheme.

|Nigel's journey takes him right to the coast of the era, we he encounters pterosaurs. Specifically... PTERANODON!? Sure its the most famous one, but didn't Pteranodon evolve 86 million years ago, well after the ep's time period? Well just like iguanodon, wastebasket taxonomy strikes again, as a pterosaur was assigned to the genus in the 1980's. Lo and behold, its not, instead being an ornithocheirid (if I'm remember it right).

Anyhow, despite some fetching designs (actually from an adaptation of The Lost World made by the same crew of ToL the prior year), they're not very accurate. Anyways, Nigel watches them fly around can catch fish, even tossing them some fish like they were seals at a zoo. Why they didn't use an ornithocheirid or a relative of it is anyone's guess. Variety, I guess?

When Nigel returns, he discovers the camp was raided, and finds a big tooth in a camera. He looks at it both and night and in the next morning, wondering what it means for it.

Setting out once again, Nigel comes across a trackway that may belong to Giganotosaurus hunting, and suddenly an iguanodont comes crashing by running. Upstream, Nigel finds an injured iguanodont, and stands by it. Its a soft, sombre scene, but the presence of its killer lingers around. Its not helped by Nigel finding blood splatters along the creek bed and on the rocks.

And sure enough, Giganotosaurus is further too. Okay, technically its the more recent Mapusarus, but compared to the other anachronisms its not that big (besides, Mapu won't be described for four more years). Still, the sheer size presented of it even from far away make for an imposing scene and creature. The tiger stripes are a nice touch too.

Oh, and while its described as being bigger then T. rex (as with most carcharodontosaurs and Spinosaurus were at the time and still are), but we now know Rex was way heavier then most, so it still is among the biggest.

We then cut to Nigel bringing in a small plane to try and spot the Argentinosaurus from above, and in doing so flies with the pteranodons. It's a pretty beautiful sequence helped by the flute heavy music. Eventually our old friend Ornithocheirus shows up just for the sake of it, anachronistic as it is.

Eventually, Nigel finally spots the Argentinosaurus, a whole herd of them. He observes them from the air a bit more before going in the jeep and setting of weighting scales to measure their weight

On one hand, the sequence itself is pretty amazing thanks to the sheer scale presented from in the air and when Nigel's practically next to them. Having a human for scale always does help in these situations to remind just how damn huge sauropods are.

On the other hand however... just look at them! The argentinosaurus have these stubby tails and neck, and bizarrely humanoid heads, rather then being like any other sauropod. They're even worse when facing the camera: they look like something out of trippy sci fi comics, and not in a good way. I actually think their CG model might be reused from the baby Diplodocus of Time of the Titans. Just... WHY!? 

Euagh

Apparently, they seem to be based off an Interpretation made by Kenneth Carpenter, which suggested it was a saltasaur and hence the short, horizontal neck. It wasn't the case. As seen below, people have correctly interpreted its neck held diagonally since it was first found.

Finally, after Nigel has a brief chase with a particularly small giga, the giganotosaurus congregate the argentinosaurus herd and together isolate a young one. Its a slow drawn-out process that unnerves even Nigel, but its still a great climax for the episode.

Finally, after a few more obligatory shots of  the herd wandering, they reach their destination, with them towering over the Sarcosuchus and making it move, and lay their eggs, with only some fluid to slow their fall. Its a beautiful scene, especially as Nigel notes how being next to them makes one feel small. Beautiful. Everything I could ask.

... Aaand then the Sarcosuchus charges in. The end, presumably eating somebody. 

I admit the episode is still pretty good, with a suitably epic feel and scale, but I admit its a bit let down by some egregious scientific errors even for its time.

• Accuracy - 5/10
• Aging - 5/10
• Presentation - 9/10
• Music - 8/10
• Storytelling - 7/10
• Rewatchability - 9/10

So with that done for now, I'm just gonna say that personally between the two I prefer Claw to Giants. One reason why is that I like how straightforward it is of Nigel going from. Another is that as a self-admitted stickler for accuracy, the fact that Giants has a lot of misplaced wildlife, anachronisms, and inaccuracies does bring it down. Course, both have different focuses: TGC is structured as a kind of a mystery about "What was Therizinosaurus really like?", with the dung and bones and/teeth of it being the clues Nigel has to go on before the thread is pulled and we see Therizinosaurus. LOG on the other hand, introduces its subjects only halfway/2 thirds in, and the climax is of how they interact.

In terms of hosting, Nigel's great. He's charismatic and boisterous, and really does a good job of selling the idea he's interacting with dinosaurs. There's a reason he has stuck with many.

Each of the story is well-paced and written. Having Jasper James as director as with WWD helps a lot.

Also in the case of LoG, I noticed recently there's a Land-Air-Water theme, where Nigel sees giants of the land (Giga and Argent), Air (pterosaurs), and water (Sarcosuchus).

The visuals as usual are up to par. The designs are all great. Though colourwise, most of the colours here are sandy yellows, oranges, and browns. While it does help distinguish them from WWD's and thus gives a much more gritty and dusty feel as befit the environments (respectively Fraser Island in Queensland, Australia and Tenerife in the Canary Islands), I do feel their a bit less interesting and more bland then most of the designs.

Speaking of, the cinematography is also great. It makes good use of handheld, shaky camera movements as befits a show where there's supposedly an actual cameraman filming dinosaurs, and since its mostly at human level it really helps sell how big dinosaurs can get, especially when they are tilted upwards. The colour pallet, like the animals, are mostly dusty yellows, browns, and greens due to the desert scrubland and forest settings a la New Blood or Death of a Dynasty. There are a few exceptions, like the forest scene of TGC which is green, and the ocean sequence in LoG, which has blue, Both are a refreshing change of pace from the rest of the settings.

Ben Bartlett's score rules as usual. Compared to the stately score , the score here is more about the human awe of seeing live dinosaurs so big and embarking on a journey through the Mesozoic and seeing the sights of it.

So is there anything wrong with the series? Well, there is the obvious issue of inaccuracies. Beside the obvious pronated wrists and scaliness of the show's majority of theropods, we have anachronisms, like TGC taking place 75 mya when half the fauna (with the exception of Velociraptor and Protoceratops) came 5 million years later as scientists have confirmed the Nemegt's that age, or the ones I mentioned above; in another case, the pterosaur Azhdarcho (who by the ay apparently has teeth) appears in cameos in TGC... even though it went extinct 90 mya. Naturally, this often arises from that time and science have also marched on.

Honestly, the only major way I'd improve Chased by Dinosaurs would be to add a third episode to round it out. I myself worked on making a hypothetical one about Nigel in the Wessex Formation of England 130 million years ago in search of the basal tyrannosaur Eotyrannus, at the time a recent discovery and in the headlines, just as both Therizinosaurus and Argie/Giga were (and because you can reuse the Iguanodon and Polacanthus wholesale). As for the other two? Well, they're fine as they are, so my changes would probably just be substituting one species for another, like the Monynykus for an oviraptorid as mentioned above, or some kind of member of the clade Ornithocheirae for the Pteranodon.

But otherwise, Chased by Dinosaurs is an otherwise flawless show that ranks high in my book. I wish there were more of it's kind.

• Accuracy - 6/10
• Aging - 6/10
• Presentation - 9/10
• Visuals - 8/10
• Music - 8/10
• Storytelling - 8/10
• Rewatchability - 9/10

Who knows what we'll have next time: maybe a blast to Discovery Kids' past with a certain actor, or continue Nigel's safaris. Or maybe burnt-out me will decide to go on hiatus a bit and spend time with my family and on other projects. Who knows? Bye for now!