Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, you’re probably aware that towards the end of last month, the second season of Prehistoric Planet aired on Apple TV+. This was a follow-up series to the successful first season, set in the Late Cretaceous, highlighting the variety of prehistoric life, not just dinosaurs. With Prehistoric Planet 2, we got another five episode showcasing a wide range of species, and more importantly their habitats. Something that always amazes me, is the detail in of the ecological interactions we can determine or infer, from fossils and trackways left by long extinct species. Then, thanks to the powers of modern technology, reproduced in photo-realistic scenes. I think I’m right in saying that there has been a major development in the animation style between the two series, as it was harder to differentiate between what is CGI, and what isn’t. This a brilliant for helping to depict the lives of long extinct animals, but also makes me think what direction wildlife filmmaking will take in the future. Will it soon be far cheaper and easier to animate everything inside a computer, instead of capturing those behaviours and stories in real life?

With that question aside, for the most part, the five episodes from this series focussed wholly on a different habitat, featuring dinosaurs and other Mesozoic plants and animals from around the world. It was only the final episode titled ‘North America’, where the focus was on a single assemblage for the entire episode. My favourite episode was the third one, titled ‘Swamps’, mainly because of the return of a fan favourite from season 1, Beelzebufo – a giant ancient frog. Now you can see why! This was followed closely by episode 4, titled ‘Oceans’, purely for its amazing visuals. It must be so hard to try to animate animals moving through water, especially at different depths due to the chromatic shift caused by the height of the water column. This combined with murky water, and other such environmental factors that mean water isn’t always crystal clear must make animation incredibly hard. However, the team behind Prehistoric Planet 2, pulled it off spectacularly!

An addition to the first season is a segment at the end of the episode called Prehistoric Planet: Uncovered, which is like the behind the scenes segments at the end of modern day Attenborough series. This segment introduces us to a familiar band of palaeontologists that have acted as scientific advisors to the series, as well as explanations about the science and research used to bring these amazing animals back to life. After all, Prehistoric Planet is the most accurate representation of dinosaurs (and other Mesozoic wildlife) to date, mainly because it has listened to cutting edge science, investigating various aspects of the ecology and natural history of these animals. This segment satisfied my inner science nerd, as well as helping to quell the feeling some people may try to point out that certain scenes were based on speculation.

With that in mind, the whole team behind Prehistoric Planet 2 have done a fantastic job, and I thoroughly enjoyed the series. I’m looking forward to season 3, although I hope it is set in a different time period to the Late Cretaceous. Why not the Devonian or the Carboniferous? It would be fun to explore the ecology of the animals and plants that lived in those eras, just as much as it has been the dinosaurs. Palaeontology has so much more to give, other extinct flora and fauna deserve to be brought back to life digitally, instead of being overshadowed by those animals that stick out most in the public conscious most when you mention prehistoric life. Does that argument remind of anything? If you’ve seen Prehistoric Planet 2, please let me know what you thought about it below.

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