Prehistoric Planet - A Review, and Hopes for the Future

 

I still feel somewhat like I'm waking up from a dream. I had been looking forward to this program for a while, but it still exceeded my wildest expectations. I think it is safe to assume that most of the people who have found and read this blog are already well aware of Prehistoric Planet, and most have probably watched it. Nevertheless, I wanted to briefly share some of my thoughts about this series and discuss what it means for the future of paleontology media.

So, it goes without saying that it looks and sounds fantastic. Jellyfish and MPC did a great job of designing these creatures and bringing them to life, supported by spot-on location filming and direction which just makes every episode a visual feast. The Foley work and animal vocalizations were all convincing, with everything from footsteps to warbles and rumbles sounding absolutely realistic. I can't tell you how good it is to have a piece of media where dinosaurs don't just stomp and roar all the time; in Prehistoric Planet, they feel like real animals, not movie monsters.

The naturalistic approach that Prehistoric Planet takes is its strongest quality. We are presented with a picture of these animals in their natural habitats, expressing a diverse array of behaviors, many of which have never been depicted in a documentary before. As a result of this, and the very modern animal designs, what you get is a highly immersive experience with the most believable prehistoric animals I've ever seen.

I've heard a few commentators jokingly call this "All Yesterdays: The TV Series". It's impossible to deny that the DNA is there; the brilliant Darren Naish of TetZoo fame was the lead scientific consultant on this show, after all, and the speculative approach to portraying prehistoric animal behaviors is certainly prominent. I don't mind this at all, in and of itself, but having watched it alongside several people who didn't have as much familiarity with paleontology as I did, and having read many, many reviews, I became cognizant of the fact that there is some confusion among viewers as to which behaviors we have direct evidence for, and which ones we do not.

I fielded a lot of questions from my companions about these moments, and in most cases I was able to point out where identical or similar behaviors are known from dinosaurs' living relatives, but I must admit that I was a little disappointed that there wasn't more supplemental material to clear these things up. The Uncovered episodes are great, but they are only five minutes each and only cover a specific item of interest from their corresponding episodes. I feel like Prehistoric Planet really needed a behind the scenes documentary for this, or perhaps even a shorter companion series to cover more of the speculative behaviors displayed. As it is, things like hadrosaurs navigating by the stars go mostly unexplained.

I was also a bit disappointed by the lack of representation for three major animal groups in this series: mammals, birds, and crocodile-line archosaurs. For mammals, we briefly get a creature that's said to be modeled on Cimolodon in the forest fire segment of "Ice Worlds"; for birds, there are several cameos of enantiornithines and what might be a brief glimpse of a hesperornithiform in "Coasts"; and as for the poor crocodyliforms, they are not in evidence whatsoever, even in "Fresh Water" where you'd expect them to be all over the place. This feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. I doubt general audiences care that much, but Walking With Dinosaurs had better representation for these groups twenty-three years ago. I realize it's probably very difficult to convince executives that animals like these are important when the ultra-charismatic dinosaurs are right there. Hopefully, should this series continue in some way, the creators will have more leeway in the future.

Speaking of Walking With Dinosaurs, it only feels proper to remark on how far we have come since that other BBC-produced series aired in 1999. Science, needless to say, has grown by leaps and bounds, and as time has passed, it's become increasingly clear that we sorely needed another documentary of that same caliber to cover everything that has changed. From a technical perspective, Prehistoric Planet is light years ahead of where Walking With Dinosaurs was. But why is it important to make this comparison? Although there have been many dinosaur documentaries over the last two decades, some of them good, it is safe to say that among those passionate about paleontology, Walking With Dinosaurs has continued to be considered the gold standard. I was beginning to wonder if anything would ever come close to living up to it. After a number of disappointments (most prominently the 2013 Walking With Dinosaurs movie, which really did not live up to the name) I'm pleased to say that I am finally satisfied. Despite my small quibbles, I loved this series, and I hope to see more from these creators in the future. Failing that, if we are lucky, a high-quality documentary such as this may inspire others, having proved that scientifically rigorous dinosaurs, if rendered with enough care, can reach a mass audience.

If you have not streamed this series already, it comes with my highest recommendation. The future for dinosaur media looks pretty bright... for the most part. In a week or two, I expect to have another review post out, this one for the movie Jurassic World: Dominion. My hopes for this one are not quite as high. I expect to be entertained, at least.

Also, keep an eye out for more posts about archosaurs in the meantime. Crocodilians, sauropods, and pterosaurs are overdue for some love.

Kāma'o (Myadestes myadestinus) pronounced extinct

 

M. myadestinus taxidermy specimen from the Bishop Museum, Honolulu. Retrieved via Wikimedia Commons. CC0

I usually enjoy returning to old topics with new information, but in this case I wish I wasn't. Readers will recall that I previously wrote a post on the lost solitaires of the Hawaiian islands back in 2016. At that time, the kāma'o, an endemic Hawaiian thrush, was still officially considered Critically Endangered by the IUCN. After not being spotted since at least 1989, however, the official pronouncement of its extinction was really only a formality.

I doubt that many people took note when this bird was included on the US Fish and Wildlife Service's memo on 29 September 2021, where it and 22 other organisms were proposed for de-listing from the endangered species rolls due to extinction. The ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) was also on that list, and predictably it got all the headlines.

I'd like to call attention not to the ivory-billed woodpecker, but to a troubling metric seen on that memo: the fact that of those 23 species, nearly half are species endemic to Guam and Hawaii. We still understand so little about the species that we're losing in these Pacific island ecosystems, and I worry that as long as people focus their time and energy chasing woodpeckers that probably aren't there, we risk losing even more of our planet's amazing species - not just birds - that might not be as large or as charismatic, but which are every bit as important. As our planet faces a climate crisis with unforeseeable consequences, I only hope that people who are passionate about the natural world and conservation will find room in their hearts for birds like the small thrushes of the Hawaiian islands, which still need all the help we can give them.

I'd hate to end my first post in a couple of years on such a gloomy note. There's a lot more in the pipeline for this blog in the near future, including a review of the amazing Apple TV series Prehistoric Planet, which should be coming along in the next couple of days. Thank you for your patience!