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This has been an idea that I toyed around with ever since the original marketing push for the show. It was clear to me then that the show was going to portray a very distinct narrative regarding dinosaur paleobiology and paleoecology. When the series originally came out I watched it, took my notes and then sat on it. I did this in part because I knew that most people would view the criticism as petty whining or complaints about dinosaurs not looking the way that “I” think they should, or any of the other complaints I received the last time I shot down these “documentaries”. So I let it go.
The first season of Prehistoric Planet came and went with a bunch of fanfare from the paleophile crowd but very little movement on the pop culture barometer (being shackled to Apple TV+ really limits the reach of the series). No harm no foul. Except that to date no one has really tackled the myriad problems with the show’s factual accuracy. As far as internet history is concerned, Prehistoric Planet is a resounding success for paleontology and science communication.
Then “season 2” came out to a similar amount of hype. I was intending to release this post during then but sat on it again. This time was because I got too busy IRL. Now, here we are some two years after the original came out and with us on the cusp of a new Walking with Dinosaurs series, I’m finally publishing this.
This post is the first of an 11-part series done in the style of the CinemaSins YouTube series. Each installment covers an episode. This installment covers the MLQs or Most Likely Questions (can’t be an FAQ if no one has asked it yet). The goal is to cut off some of the most common questions before I (inevitably) see them in the comments.
Here is a brief response to what I suspect will be the most common questions. As the blog post ages, I’ll be updating this section a bit.
You are just doing this for attention/clicks/engagement
Sure, why not? My blog is not monetized so I don’t really need to push for engagement, but I’m not going to lie and say that tackling a popular series like this isn’t going to cause a stir. I know it will and that was part of the reason why I shied away from it the first time. After the first season aired and received effectively no pushback on the internet (real life was another matter), I felt that there needed to be at least one dissenting voice on this series. I didn’t do this for the All Yesterdays book and I regret it as I feel that book has done more harm to modern paleo-art than any other dinosaur book in history (it basically gave carte blanche to paleo-artists to make up whatever they want and hide it under a veneer of “reasonable speculation”).
Some of these complaints seem really nit picky
Some will be. I’ve broken up each episode by scene and added a tier list for my complaints based on their severity.
- Baseless speculation (= just making shit up)
- Mostly speculation (= has some grounding in the data but is still mostly made up)
- Reasonable inference…but still speculation (= has the most solid ground, albeit fictionalized)
The most nit picky bits will likely fall under the Reasonable Inferences area. Take from that what you will.
It’s PhP/PHP, not PP
This is an unfortunate consequence of the name choice. I don’t abide by arbitrary letter assignments for initialisms. The name is Prehistoric Planet, so it’s PP for short. Maybe PreP if we are going to go the acronym route.
Why do you put season 2 in quotes?
The release of Prehistoric Planet occurred after 3 years of development. “Season 2” released after 6 months. That type of turnaround is not possible for a CG heavy series like this. At least, it’s not possible with the budget they were given. That means that this “second season” is really just the back half of the first season. That is to say, Apple paid John Favreau and company for a 10 episode order. Apple then split those episodes into separate “seasons” so they could extend the mind share of the brand.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. As John Hutchinson wrote on Twitter, season 2 was in the bag long before it was ever announced.
Going through “season 2” in prep for this series made this even clearer as we not only are shown similar locations, but also the same species and even the same individuals (e.g., the Quetzalcoatlus northropi hatchlings). It appears that the original pitch was for five, one-hour episodes. This was later split into ten, half-hour episodes.
This parsing of seasons is not new and it’s not limited to Apple. Cable networks are notorious for pulling this nonsense. If you look at the series run of Mythbusters you’ll find that it apparently ran for 17–19 seasons. Yet, when you look at the air date for the series, it was only on for 13 years. While still a great run, Discovery Network effectively broke the seasons up into several mini seasons that they would then air as new “seasons” that they could charge extra for. The whole thing is a shitty marketing gimmick used to boost subscriptions.
Bringing it back to Prehistoric Planet, since “season 2” is clearly just the back half of the original episode buy, I don’t recognize it as a legitimate season. I feel the same way about Mythbusters too. You are free to call these episodes whatever you like, but just remember that it is marketing that is driving these choices.
Are you going to do this for Walking with Dinosaurs 2025 or Prehistoric Planet Ice Ages?
No. Barring some major event this will be a one-off. I have no interest in turning my site into a teardown of all the different, terrible prehistoric CG-fests out there. I chose Prehistoric Planet because it had a massive hype train going for it. One that was spurred on by the paleophile community. WwD2025 did not get the same treatment, and was pretty polarizing in its final reception. PP: Ice Ages will be more of what we got in the first round but without the major hype surrounding it (compare Walking with Dinosaurs to Walking with Prehistoric Beasts).
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. — Theodore Roosevelt
This is the fancy quote. In the current vernacular it would be something more like:
You’re just being a hater.
In other words, why did I dedicate so much blog space to hating on this series? The reason is simple: Because no one else has. This has led to a general appearance of a show without problems. A glowing recommendation to future paleontologists, etc. I don’t believe that this is true. I think that Prehistoric Planet is a series riddled with problems and that 99% of those problems would disappear in a puff of smoke if the series didn’t bill itself as a documentary. So yes, this means I’m going to be “hating” on the show for the entire stretch of this blog series.
If it’s not a documentary then what is it?
This is an issue that I have grappled with before. I think that the best name for series like this, Walking with Dinosaurs, When Dinosaurs Roamed America, etc. is to call them Prehistoric Fiction. They offer scientifically-grounded examples of something that is then augmented / dramatized for effect.
None of the stories or characters are real in these series. They are all made up by the writers and choreographed by the director, with input from the science consultants. If this was a documentary, these dramatic reenactments would be relegated to smaller parts of the show, with the bulk of the show talking about how we know what we know and where scientists disagree. In other words, bring back the old “talking heads” segment that appears to have died out in the ’90s. The closest that we have to these older documentaries for dinosaurs was the 2022 dinosaur documentary: Dinosaurs: The Final Day.
This documentary heavily features the work of controversial paleontologist, Robert DePalma, and his alleged find of a site that record the day of the asteroid impact. Despite the controversy over the find, the format of the show is what matters here. There are lots of scenes where DePalma is being interviewed, or where there is a (staged) debate over the interpretation of a find. There are even scenes with the venerable Sir David Attenborough describing how we know what we know about a fossil. In other words, it’s doing the job of a documentary and actually teaching you something. There are still dramatic reenactments with not so great quality CG, but they are the extra toppings to the documentary rather that the main course.
This was already covered in the BTS / Reddit AMA / Live tweet
I’ve done my best to cover all the areas where Naish and other consultants have offered further information on the scientific backing for the show. I may occasionally miss one. When I do (and it’s pointed out) I’ll update the relevant section. That said, Prehistoric Planet should not require this level of background checking. In an interview with the creators of the show, John Favreau promised a “making of” for the show was in the works. That was over two years ago and we’ve still not seen anything from it. Even the Twitter Megathreads that Darren Naish provided for each episode are of limited reach as one needs to have a Twitter account now to view anything on that site. There is an official Apple Podcast about the show, but of it’s just four episodes long and only two of those episodes tackle the science behind recreating the animals.
So, is all speculation bad to you?
Depends on the context. For a show that touts itself as educational, speculation should be bound by a tight leash. Some areas of prehistoric recreations will ultimately have to get into speculation (final outward appearances, certain biomechanics, most behaviours, etc.), but even these necessary speculations can be addressed by the show to make it clear where things have to be guessed vs. where any real data lie.
Didn’t you like anything about the show?
This may be the most common question to pop up for this blog series, and I understand why. These posts are going to come off fairly negative and all that negativity is bound to raise the question of whether I found any saving grace in the series. So, to set things straight these are my thoughts on the overall quality.
I think the series does a very good job of depicting certain interpretations of dinosaurs. I applaud it for including several lesser-known species and rendering them in unprecedented detail. Many of the scenarios depicted are closer to what one would expect to see in a real nature documentary. I’m also grateful to the showrunners for pushing to display dinosaurs acting more like real animals and less like monsters.
All of these aspects of the show are great…but that’s not the point of this series. If you want a glowing review of Prehistoric Planet you can go to anywhere else on the internet. There is no shortage of love for the show. The point of my blog series is to shed light on the areas where the show has problems. Again, similar to CinemaSins, this is not a rebuke of the show. These posts are here to highlight mistakes / creative liberties and shine a light on where future series can improve.
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