Upcoming Dinosaur Documentaries: Thoughts and Opinions

 If you haven't heard, two new palaeo-documentaries were announced just a few months ago, right after the success of Prehistorc Planet. While I did miss the initial announcements because I was on vacation, they excite me no less.

Surviving Earth


The bigger announcement is Surviving Earth, an eight-part series intented to be about the many mass extinctions of Earth and how life bounced back. It is notable for two things: the first is that its being created by the legendary Tim Haines, who you may recall also invented the modern palaeo-documentary with a certain 1999 series, as well as the acclaimed exhibition Dinosaurs in their Time. The other is that instead of a streaming service or some cable channel, big network NBC will air it, along with another BBC Natural History Unit documentary.

I admit my interested is at the very least not as big as you'd expect. I admit that extinctions are a bit hard for me to sit through, mostly because its always sad and tugs at the heart and I kind of prefer to celebrate the reign of life rather then demises. NBC's involvment also puts me on the fence: I'm worried advertisers are going to have way to too much influence over it and potentially remove any discussion of out own Extinction we're causing, or turn it into a sponsered crapola. Nevertheless, I am still looking forward to it, as any documentary, let alone one like this on a massive size, is great to see.

As for speculation, I presume the extinctions featured will be:
  1. Ordivician (443 million years ago)
  2. Devonian (372 million years ago
  3. Carboniferous rainforest collapse (305 million years ago)
  4. Permian–Triassic (251 million years ago)
  5. Triassic–Jurassic  (200 million years ago)
  6. Cretaceous-Palaeogene (66 million years ago)
  7. Eocene Thermal Maximum (55 million years ago)
  8. The Anthropocene (literally now)
Although it is likely either the Permian or Cretaceous or even both will be a two-parter due to just how damn huge they were.

Dinosaur – with Stephen Fry


I will be honest and say I'm more excited for this then Surviving Earth. This documentary, airing on four nights across Channel 5 (and by extension will also be on Paramount+), will feature the iconic British actor apparently as a human host getting up close with dinosaurs in their environment, Nigel Marvin-style, while scientists in a hi-tech DinoLab (hmmmm) bust myths about the creatures in experiments, presumably like Mythbusters or the obscure CBBC show Deadly Dinosaurs. I love me some human hosts in situ in palaeo-documentaries, which are pretty uncommon and could always use more of. Plus, British national treasure Stephen Fry is hosting, so I'm definitely watching it for him as much as the dinosaurs.

Given its a British-made and hosted, I presume that in addition to the obligatory Morrison and Hell Creek dinos, british dinosaurs are gonna be featured most prominently, like Iguanodon, Neovenator, Baryonyx, or any of the early cretaceous icons.

Given its four nights, I wonder if the episode lineup will go Triassic-->Jurassic-->Early Cretaceous-->Late Cretaceous, each a different period of the era.

I do worry at the moment though, the models mighr be cheap stock models and thus be very wrong. Doesn't help the setting is described as a simulation called Dinosaur World; while that might just be a funny way of describing the Mesozoic, if it starts committing major anachronisms I'm gonna be put off. Doesn't help that while the Jurassic and Cretaceous are nameddropped in the article, the Triassic isn't which could mean its getting shafted here, something thsat happens all too often. But still, I'm interested deeply.

So far, the only dinosaurs confirmed are the sauropod Diplodocus, some kind of raptor/dromaeosaur, and surprise surprise, Tyrannosaurus (so in other words, my predictions above are true). So far its all rather standard, and with apparently only four episodes its not out of the question there there won't be many dinosaurs in the lineup. I hope its not just the Big Five of T. rex and Trike, Apato, Stego, and Velociraptor.

Also, Triassic won't be shafted. Yay!

By any rate, the fact that these docs were announced is amazing. I hope it means we'll be in a new golden age for plaeo-documentaries like the early 2000's were.

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