Life On Our Planet

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Episode 2
The First Frontier

Time to truly start the journey.

Our first visited location is Archean, one of two Precambrian segments of this show. I was completely wrong in my predictions, oops. Still, it is significantly better than the other currently existing segment in Precambrian – formation of Moon from WWM, as it is much more informative and relevant to the overall story (and not just cool explosion). The only problem I have with it is lack of acknowledgement for anaerobic life – you know, the one that was accidentally suffocated by the rise of cyanobacteria and oxygen they produced. The critters who were forced to hide in black smokers as far away from light as possible. Instead, this show treats Great Oxygenation Event as a miracle that allowed life to rise, while in reality it was more like a violent revolution. Not even LUCA from the previous episode is acknowledged, despite the fact it likely did not breathe oxygen (seeing that first photosynthetic life descended from it).

Then we have our first interlude, in which we see modern animals in modern habitats. I like that they are treated as a part of an overall storyline and are used to demonstrate some points about evolution, even if it sometimes clashes with paleontology, mainly because it’s unique. This one is about sea slugs hunting anemones, and it demonstrates a level of threat they represent to sessile animals. And as I said, while it strengthens the storyline, it doesn’t really fit in either Ediacaran (with its small pancake animals) or Early Cambrian (with its small shelly fauna). But the next segment is even more questionable in that…

We skip to 530 million years ago, which is the end of Fortunian and the age of SSF. Instead of offering us diverse Cambrian biota, the show instead demonstrates how polyps managed to escape sea anemone traps by becoming jellyfishes. The problem is, however, that 530 MYA there may be already existing older jellyfish (especially with well-known Precambrian polyps like Haootia) or no anemones (since they are first known from Burgess Shale, which seemingly is the next segment by the way), and any confirmation on both these statements will ruin this segment.

This segment (508 MYA) is pretty much the same as the one in WWM, but much, much better. First of all, no specified location, so there is no wildlife misplacement. Trilobite design is better (especially the inclusion of antennae), and it has a much better role than WWM one which was pretty much a cameo (although I don’t like how Freeman says it is an ancestor of all other arthropods, which especially clashes with another arthropod featured here). Anomalocaris is much more colorful than in WWM, looking almost like a Spore creation, and doesn’t engage in a stupid, pointless fight with its… erm, foe. The only problems are that Anomalocaris is hunting trilobites (an old stereotype, it seems like their soft jaws targeted worms instead) and the lack of other fauna (especially chordates). Still, this segment is not at all 5-minute plotless nonsense, and instead is more like first half of WWM Silurian one, but with a trilobite instead of Cephalaspis and Anomalocaris instead of Brontoscorpio.

Then we jump to Ordovician. I really like the effort creators put into making trilobites of different periods as unlike each other as possible. Here, however, despite their cool looks, they are just a meal for Cameroceras, who also has a really nice design. I especially like its cephalopod eyes and algae excrescences on the shell. And then we have a real star. Arandaspis. This show treats it as a first fish, which is a very bold thing to say, as at least some groups of jawless fish may have originated in the Late Cambrian. Ironically, this episode is more like WWM Cambrian than the LOOP Cambrian, but with a nice twist to it…

We go to 444 MYA and witness it in all its glory. O-S. Extinction which wasn’t featured since, I think, Animal Armageddon, which has a horribly outdated neutron star hypothesis. Here, we instead get to see a glaciation, which seems to be a more plausible theory. Then, for some reason we dive into deep waters and witness real-life animals that seemingly act as Ordovician one, I guess? Like, how they say that Nautilus was the one to descend from the cooling (even though these Nautilida with modern shells only appeared in Triassic), and even feature a chimaera (who first appeared in Carboniferous)! Still, from a “modern animal segment” documentary this part is quite nice, as it doesn’t have crazy vertebrate bias and depicts deep-water cephalopods in a very nice way.

Same can be said about modern cuttlefish segment, which behavior is very reminiscent of the one elephant seals have (plus Barbaridactylus in Prehistoric Planet). Yeah, honestly, I don’t really have much to say, it is just a good PP segment.

And finally, we get to Devonian. Dunkleosteus, while stock, is always good, even if currently oversized and not bulky enough (but in their defense, the paper revising this giant placoderm’s size came out while this show was already in post-production). Ammonites are also nice, since they are usually associated with Mesozoic and rarely appear outside of it.

Dunkleosteus’ domination in Devonian seas brings us to our last modern segment, which talks about – who else – jawed fish. As always, I don’t really have much to say in these, outside of the displayed stereotype about ancient sharks (who, as I said in my FIW review, only appeared in Cretaceous; all previous groups are not really true sharks).

And so, we reach the end, which is Late D. To round up all the storylines, we end with, ironically, plankton causing anoxia and death of most oceanic life (although this irony doesn’t work if you remember anaerobes…). Two-event structure is unmentioned, but I guess it’s not that important. And then we get a glimpse into what caused such a dying – a terrestrial invasion… of plants… and animals…

Overall Thoughts. This is a much better representation of Paleozoic seas compared to WWM or any other paleomedia. Yeah, I don’t like Precambrian skip (even if they still got GOE) and lack of Cambrian fauna (plus some minor issues), but the plot is more solid and animals are just as good, if not better. Inclusion of modern animals was, surprisingly, a very nice addition to the plot (science, not so much) that helped explain some plot points. But will it hold up? Let’s see.

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Episode 3
Invaders of the Land

So, episode 3. Let’s see how it will turn out.

We start with plant evolution, which is expectable. What I didn’t expect is their take on it. While many other paleomedia (like WWM for example) just show us extinct plants like Cooksonia, here we instead start with lichens (not sure if they originated in Cambrian, but alright), then cover moss and explain how the rise of complexity resulted in the very first forests. While I doubt that this is exactly what happened, it is nonetheless a good representation of biological succession.

From plants we switch to a different group that colonized the land – arthropods. We also skip to 345 MYA (wow, we skipped tetrapod evolution, so weird), in which we witness a cockroach, a scorpion and… you guessed it. Arthropleura from the promo materials. By the way, here Morgan Freeman says that arthropods got so big because of high oxygen levels, but I’ve already explained in FIW thread why it is not correct. The giant millipede itself got a very weird and goofy segment about blind specimens reproducing, which is more in line with Prehistoric Planet, although it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. Just unusual.

Then we immediately jump to a modern era, where we see two segments about spider reproduction (which is also quite chucklesome) and beetle vs trapdoor spider (which is a segway into an insect flight). These parts are okay, but nothing special.

After a montage of different insects flying, we get back to the past (heh), 310 MYA to be exact. This part shows us the first animals to ever conquer the sky, dragonflies… but not Meganeura. How unusual – creators of paleodocumentary had a restraint not to include this creature at all, not even mention it! But the true stars of this part are vertebrates. We see some lobe-finned fish (both big and small, both unnamed) travel from swamps to swamps. When I first watched this part, I was puzzled. We skipped Tiktaalik and Ichthyostega just to show their analogues in Carboniferous? What the…?

Turns out, it was a bait. Anthracosaurus (who looks like Crystal Park sculpture to me for some reason) ate it, and Freeman says that lobe-finned fish were too late and other groups took ecological niches… which is bullshit, since tetrapods are lobe-finned fish. Overall, mediocre segment. WWM had a better Carboniferous.

After Anthracosaurus goes to rest, we look at what modern amphibians are doing. These parts see the comeback of dragonflies, albeit as a food for frogs. First segment is also humorous and showcases these semiaquatic tetrapods as goofy losers, barely being able to catch their prey. Second one is about poison dart frog who saves its offspring from a disappearing puddle. This segment is better, as it presents us with a really big problem this group has and brings us back to the prehistory…

300 MYA, Pangea forms and rainforests collapse (though it’s likelier that climate change is to blame). One or maybe two groups of amphibians develop amniotic membranes, which changes everything. Yeah, there is nothing really to say, this is just a bridge to a Permian segment. Also, it is weird that they chose live-action lizard to showcase this creature. And it is too late, at this point amniotes were already giants (like Ophiacodon and Edaphosaurus).

Then we skip near 50 million years, wasting a chance to attract normies with Dimetrodon, to the very end of Permian. This segment is also not as strong plot-wise as WWM, which had created a better ecosystem with more interesting animals. And WWM didn’t call Pareiasaurus the first big herbivore. There are still moments that I actually like, with the clearest one being Gorgonops. It does look like a stem-mammal with its short hair and dog-like nose, and it helps in differentiating para-reptiles and synapsids for the audience.

And so, finally, P-Tr. The Great Dying. It is, once again, represented in great detail and shown to be completely different from previous ones, and unlike WWM it actually gives the correct reason why it started (volcanism, not drought). And it is insanely dark. No wonder 90% of all species died. I’m glad that Lystrosaurus is okay though.

Overall Thoughts. This episode is weaker than the previous one, mainly because its competitors did the Late Paleozoic better. Quite a lot interesting creatures for both normies and paleofans were skipped, ecosystems are weaker and less represented, modern stuff is becoming way too long… But still, it is not bad. Ooh, Mesozoic is starting, let’s see how they handle diapsids!

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Episode 4
In Cold Blood

Triassic time! By the way, with knowledge about endothermy/ectothermy changing rapidly in modern science, I wonder if the title is even correct at this point...

So, we start with a brief segment that pretty much recaps the end of the previous episode, plus shows the organisms that survived the Great Dying. The thing I really like in this part is the focus on fungi (even if it’s very brief), as well as general acknowledgement of the reemergence of life which I already highlighted. Lystrosaurus is also not bad, I think it is the best creature in this show and I’m glad that creators actually gave it its own plot (instead of just being wildebeest analogue like in WWM) plus highlighted it is a Permian survivor (and not descendant of Diictodon) with gigantic population.

Then, instead of showing diapsid survivors, we switch to a modern-day Atacama Desert, which Freeman states to be a relictual Triassic desert, which is not true – with all the fluctuations in climate for the past 200+ million years it appeared in Middle Miocene at best (still impressive ofc). Yeah, the environment might be the same, but even in this case it would still be a poor wording choice. Same can be said about frequent use of “lizards” as a synonym for “reptiles”. Still, the segment itself is quite nice and informative. Compared to Cryptile’s FIW and Pectinodon’s PP parts it does a better job explaining why animals hunt brine flies (for filtered saltwater) and is relevant to the overall story.

Now we go back, to 248 MYA. Lystrosaurus are thriving (even though they seem to disappear around 250 MYA in reality, but I’ll let it slide), but it seems like their era is coming to an end. A new creature appears – unspecified erythrosuchid. Its design is fairly cool-looking, but the story around it is questionable. Our mammal ancestors (by the way, I really like that synapsids are never called “mammal-like reptiles”, at least one outdated fact they don’t engage with) are shown to be “dodos”, too stupid understand the threat of carnivores… But why? Predators already existed in Early Triassic, like Proterosuchus and Moschorhinus, and just killing them all on a supercontinent is unlikely. Competition from newly appearing herbivores (both reptile and stem-mammal) is probably a better reason why they perished. Also, no mammal bias in this episode so far.

Okay, we return to the Anthropocene. This live-acted segment is about a lizard forming an air bell around its head to hide from bird predator. For some reason Freeman says that lizards aren’t known for their swimming, which, while true for a normie, disregards mosasaurs and Galapagos iguanas for no apparent reason (latter even appear in Episode 6, funnily enough). Other than that, it’s fine.

We next jump to Indonesia, as creators introduce us to a place where reptiles still rule. Komodo dragons, once presumed to act as Megalania, are actually here, and are shown in a respectful and awesome way. I still think it’s way too much modern footage though.

As we switched to an ocean, I prepared to look at Triassic seas and first ichthyosaurs, but instead I got… turtles. And not archaic ones, modern live-acted sea turtles. I thought “Oh God, another modern segment about their reproduction”, but instead we teleported to… Jurassic? The age when modern sea turtles did not yet exist? How weird! This is also the first instance of non-linear story (aside from modern stuff, I guess), so I’m not sure about it yet. What does bother me though is the usage of term “plesiosaur” on pliosaur. While it is technically true, calling it like that will be confusing to less knowledgeable viewers and a little unusual for others. I still like that the writers acknowledged pliosaur’s viviparity, that’s a big plus. Pterosaur stuff is fine, but after PP almost every paleodoc with them looks like shit by default.

Now we go from salt waters to fresh ones. This is a segment about crocodiles, and much like Komodo dragon one, it doesn’t glorify mammals. Instead, it highlights how cool are those underwater hunters. Also, their extinction is mentioned to not be caused by mammals, but instead by the rise of another group (which is bullshit, since most crocodylomorphs actually started diversifying after Tr-J, but I was mainly speaking about mammalian bias that many people presumed to be the case) …

Wait, Carnian pluvial episode? What a surprise! Possibly the least expected segment for me. I mean, it probably was a catalyst for the rise of several new groups (although modern knowledge suggest it may not be the case), so it is important for the plot, but most documentaries skip it, so that’s another plus. The only thing I dislike here is the lack of animals. Showing us Ischigualasto Formation would’ve been a very good choice, considering what comes next…

We end this episode with a scene from 210 MYA. A big coniferous forest, with some hatchlings in it… Yup, dinosaur time. It’s kind of sad that we only got Plateosaurus, but compared to other docs (and especially WWD) it’s quite good. There is a small youngling bi/quadrupedality problem, but compared to the other bits of science around this creature (like normal neck and bipedality) it is not that important.

We then see a glimpse of Jurassic, and it… oof… doesn’t look good…

Overall Thoughts. Regarding my thoughts on this episode, they are uneven, with a lot of parts that I consider both good and bad. The episode itself is sandwiched in-between 1 and 2 at this point, with slightly better modern parts than 2 and worse prehistory than 1. But will it keep its spot? No one knows for sure.

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Episode 5
In the Shadow of the Giants

Age of Dinosaurs, finally. Though from what I’ve heard and seen (couldn’t stay completely spoiler-free, sorry) it is not that good.

If anyone here gave me a nickel for each time dung beetles are shown in a Jurassic period near Diplodocus, I would’ve had two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

Wait, 200 MYA? We get to see Early Jurassic for the first time since When Dinosaurs Roamed America? Well, both yes and no. We technically were in it, but the segment is very short and focus mainly on the breakup of Pangea. A shame. I also don’t really like how Tr-J was only briefly mentioned, despite being quite influential in the rise of the dinosaurs, but it seems like I was spoiled by Great Dying segments.

Then we get back to the mandatory Morrison Formation. Diplodocus here are genuinely worse than in WWD, mainly because they can freely move their necks to get to the treetops, which is not only outdated af, but also disregards the existence of macronarians who were better designed to fill such niches. Allosaurus is not really better, with a mediocre design seemingly from Jurassic World (eugh) which, in spite of seemingly being more accurate, doesn’t seem right to me for some reason. Wow, I wrote all that, and I didn’t even start comparing to WWD yet… Yeah, this is another, probably much bigger problem.

Time of the Titans, despite having a lot of scientific problems, is an all-time classic. You know why? Plot. Viewers can genuinely connect to Diplodocus babies struggling to survive and grow up in a hostile world full of dangers – something this segment only has for 30 seconds. Overall, it is more of a brief pitstop than a genuine story, which saddens me.

After we are done with sauropods, we jump back to modern world, as we start discussing life that flourished alongside dinosaurs. And we start with… angiosperms? What a surprise! The rise of flowering plants, despite its revolutionary consequences, is rarely depicted in documentaries, with it being barely even mentioned (the only doc I remember doing that is WWD). Here however, we get a really nice segment explaining how pollination works and why was that so important. The only minor nitpick I have is Freeman saying that their evolution was a great event of diversification for most groups, without even acknowledging the decline of some taxa that they caused (much like in the second episode), most notably non-flowering plants.

We switch back to the prehistory, this time landing in the Early Cretaceous. Main focus of this part is Deinonychus, which has a better design than Allosaurus for sure, but still has some potential flaws. This one seems to be its sociality. While many dromaeosaurids were once depicted as pack hunters, modern studies are actually unsure if it’s true or not, with some parallel trackways implying that these packs existed, while ecology of its bird relatives implies that they may have been only opportunistically social (like Velociraptor in the first season of PP, for example). Still, on a more positive note, Freeman highlighting feather evolution is nice, and believe me – his words will be much more important in the next episode. Arkansaurus is fine, has a nice bird-like design, but its seemingly avian screeching bothers me a little. I know a syrinx was found in one ankylosaur species, but did all non-bird dinosaurs have it? The segment itself is mid. Pure PP moment.

Okay, what next. Eusocial insects? Didn’t expect this one as well. This part is a fairly good depiction of intraspecies combat and nicely showcases the wonders of hivemind mentality, but saying the relationship between termites and ants is an evolutionary arms race is a bit too much. Many species of these groups don’t interact much, especially in the cool habitats where only ants are thriving.

90 million years ago. We once again learn about the movement of tectonic plates, and learn that by that time, continents came to somewhat resemble modern ones. Sadly, no species are show, but I’ve already highlighted this problem before. At the very least creators highlighted the breakup of Laurasia and Gondwana plus tied it to the plot, which many of their competitors don’t even do.

As the show ends its narration about the formation of modern landmasses, we jump in time to the 76 MYA, but this pitstop seems to be even more disappointing than the previous ones. Maiasaura’s model is just a cameo here, a brief reminder of the pilot. We also have unidentified small mammal, which reinforces the stereotype about our Mesozoic ancestors. Seems like paleodocs will never feature the real Mesozoic mammal diversity, sadly, and Campanian is wasted as well.

Numbat segment, on the other hand, is much better. While monotremes are a better example of Mesozoic mammals (and we even have a tease of that with a cameo from echidna, although to be fair their group is actually Cenozoic unlike platypuses), this part was a great representation of not just mammals, but snakes as well. Much like in the previous episode, I don’t see mammalian bias at all. Instead, snakes and their warm-blooded prey are shown to be equal foes to each other. It also highlights how diverse modern snakes are, especially by showcasing marine specimens.

Eh, another mandatory formation, this time Hell Creek (or maybe some other place, since we never actually get to see the exact place, plus Alamosaurus are present and swamps are absent). This last segment is obviously about T. rex, the main attraction of every paleomedia. As I watched this part, I suddenly came to a horrifying realization. This part is pretty much stolen from Prehistoric Planet. Both documentaries have large theropods approaching each other, seemingly to fight, only with narrator instead stating these are male and female who are performing a mating ritual. The only things absent are Triceratops’ corpse and a river. Yeah, you can say that there is only so much you can do in a realistic wildlife media, but many other shows like WWD at least have some slightly different plots and situations to compensate for that. Also, if PP taught me anything, it’s that asteroid impact should not be mandatory for every Maastrichtian setting. It is too predictable and shrinks several million years of evolution into a single, generic landscape.

Overall Thoughts. I am a paleofan. I am interested in all extinct animals from Archean to Holocene. But many average viewers (or just dinofans) are not like that. They like big, scary dinosaurs. And sadly, this episode can’t deliver what they want. It is insane that they managed to screw up the main attraction, the Mesozoic era. WWD, while inaccurate and not representative of every place in time, had great plots, many of which got viewers to sympathize with creatures long gone from this planet (especially Ornithocheirus, poor guy). PP was its complete opposite – weaker in plots, but stronger in science and ecological relationships. This created a very unique type of documentary that transports people watching it to Maastrichtian and depicts most of its animals as parts of complex biosphere. But here we have the worst of both worlds. Constant time-skipping with 2-3 animals featured, complete lack of interesting plots regarding creatures themselves, outdated or controversial science being presented as 100% accurate… Man, so disappointing. The only pros I can highlight are the evolutionary plot regarding the transformation of life and modern segments demonstrating it, as well as life of our less intelligent neighbors (and extinctions ofc). Now, I can only hope it won’t get any worse…

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Episode 6
Out of the Ashes

Ok, I hope at least this episode won’t disappoint me…

We start in the same location where the previous episode ended – North America at the very end of Maastrichtian. Edmontosaurus arrive to nest their younglings, and honestly, I’m not sure if this design is bad or not. The coloration seems to be a little too bright for these giants, with known hadrosaurs instead displaying grey elephant-like coloration in their melanosomes. Also, the horn is suspicious, haven’t seen it on the more recent reconstructions so it may be also incorrect.

Then we teleport 1000 miles to south, where the T. rex mother teaches her offspring how to hunt in a brief recap of a scene from the pilot. Honestly, while I’ve seen criticism of this scene, it’s not bad. If I was that Triceratops, I would’ve run too – no point in engaging with predators in a situation that doesn’t favor them.

Alamosaurus herds are also cool, while the marine scenes reuse “plesiosaur” footage in an age where all pliosaurs are already dead. Maybe they wanted this creature to act as mosasaur or polycotylid plesiosaur, but I don’t buy it – former don’t look anything like this model, and the latter aren’t found in Africa (yet) where the scene is said to take place. Landscape shots also show us some unnamed pterosaurs (maybe azhdarchids?), dromaeosaurids and ornithomimids.

And then it begins.

An asteroid is approaching the Earth. For some reason it is shown to pass by the Moon, arising some questions about gravitational pull of our only natural satellite, but I digress. It hits our planet (duh), which results in a hilarious scene where T. rex stands on a cliff for no reason (yeah, literally no reason – at first it starts to roar, but then… stops?), not giving shit about the bright light on the horizon, with a simulated camera shaking, high-pitched whine and brightening video effect applied to the end of it.

Still, I have to note a positive which I’ve already talked about before – extinction stuff is made really well. Compared to previous extinctions, though, there is a competitor – Planet Dinosaur, and from what I remember in the regards to showcasing biosphere collapse they are almost tied (although LOOP beats PD by one point by showcasing marine ecosystems). Shots of the ravaged Earth from both the orbit and the Moon are also top notch.

Okay, now it’s over. Animals rise again. Though, there are still problems (even if they are minor) that I have to acknowledge:

• Using lizards to demonstrate reptile survivors is a weird choice. Their group was decimated in K-Pg and could not rebound until the start of Eocene, with most Mesozoic families going completely extinct (monstersaurians are one of the few exceptions, although it doesn’t look like gila monster or Mexican beaded lizard). Snakes in this shot would’ve been a better choice.
• Freeman states that due to a lack of food, only small amphibians survived, which is not true. Habrosaurus, giant sirenid, passed from Mesozoic to Cenozoic with little to no trouble, only dying out in the Late Paleocene. By that logic, crocodylomorphs and choristoderans should’ve died out too.
• Once again, numbat acting as a Mesozoic mammal is a poor choice. Metatherians at the time would’ve been more accurately represented by otters (stagodontids) or opossums/rodents (early polydolopimorphs, sparassodonts and true marsupials).
• Same can be said about an animal we will discuss in more details in its own paragraph…

By the end of this montage, we see a group of eggs which many people presumed to be of theropod origin. They were right in their assumptions, but these structures… are modern. Yeah, this an emu egg. Even though the choice for a live-action Paleocene bird substitute may seem reasonable, especially with a knowledge of palaeognaths being the first group that branched off the true bird lineage, emus only appeared in Middle Miocene. Actual K-Pg survivors from this group were probably similar to lithornithids, the most basal paleognaths, who, unlike modern groups, had the ability to fly and looked more like rails and cranes. There is still one redeeming quality of this part though.

When this show was still in the makings, some Twitter users had doubts that LOOP would even say that birds are dinosaurs. I’m happy to prove their absurd speculations wrong, with Freeman highlighting this fact many times in this episode, and taking us back to Mesozoic, to see the first flight of this group. But even here persists an unfortunate fly in the ointment – creators say how bird flight is a marvel way too many times and never even acknowledge insects (whom they celebrated as well several episodes ago) or pterosaurs (barely featured in this show).

Oh, where are we… Yeah, back in Jurassic! This time the location is more interesting. The main character of this segment is Chinese feathered dinosaur named Anchiornis, whose coloration is purely fictional – thanks to melanosomes, now we know that it looked more like a woodpecker and was definitely not blue. It is hunted by an obscure Sinraptor, who, funnily enough, has a better design than widely loved Allosaurus. Not much else to say, the story is brief and doesn’t offer anything other than flight origins.

Then we get back to modernity, with the segment about flamingos in Altiplano Desert. It is fine, its biggest strength being the explanation of main bird features like flapping wings (which not all birds have by the way, just look up frigatebirds), beaks and elaborate courtship rituals. Yeah, solid one for sure.

This one, however, is not as good. We jump 5 million years to the Selandian, and it would’ve been fine (with the exception of climate, which likely wasn’t able to support taigas, especially with PETM just another 5 million years away), but the ideas they try to represent in it are baffling. Voles are not a bad choice for Paleocene mammals, as they can slightly resemble multituberculates and basal rodents, and owls did exist in the early Paleogene, but the implications seem to be that birds dominated over mammals in that period of time (since these rodents are mentioned to be in a process of escaping from the shadows of long-gone dinosaurs). That’s not true and can be an example of anti-mammalian bias, since by that time mesonychids, creodonts and myacids were already big predators. Why did you use modern forests for a time drastically different from ours? We can only thank God they didn’t use Gastornis in this owl’s place…

To the south of this weird anachronistic taiga are the rainforests. Writers remind us of angiosperm radiation and showcase us yet another animals that do not fit into Paleocene (and I remind you, this is Paleocene, Freman says that this a jungle rebuild six million years after the apocalypse). Hummingbirds, first known from Early Oligocene of Europe, who at best branched out from swifts in the Eocene. As a modern segment it is fine, but why do you show modern birds in such a distant period? Wouldn’t it be more interesting to show archaic ones? Yeah, models are kind of expensive, but in this case this decision is even more lame.

Finally, thank Christ Almighty, a Cenozoic period that is not live-acted by modern biotopes. Miocene South America, what can you offer us? Theosodon is an unusual animal for paleomedia, but for a very good reason – it’s just a lama-looking litoptern most people don’t care about. Phorusrhacos is good and finally resides in its actual time. Hunt is captivating, but that’s all this segment can offer.

While I criticized a lot of previous segments, and eventually grew to dislike some other ones (damn you, unrealistic Paleocene taiga!), this is the only part that made me MAD. 15 million years ago. Shallow seas full of fish and semiaquatic birds. And instead of focusing on an unfairly overlooked family of gigantic pseudotooth birds, we explore… gannets. You know (completely) feathered “pterosaurs” I just mentioned were already found in New Zealand, which is not too far away from Australia, right? Why did you waste a chance to represent this forgotten lineage? Pelagornithids are not small zygodactylids. They don’t look too similar to modern groups like presbyornithids. They are big, they have “teeth”, they look like a living relic from Mesozoic. What a waste God damn it!

I’m sorry for the rant, but this group does have a special place in my heart. If gannet segment was a part of a modern wildlife documentary, I would’ve even loved it, since it Is informative and doesn’t have scientific problems. But let’s check out the next segment.

Yeah, not bad, not bad. I love island ecology, and Galapagos islands are just the best archipelago for that (mainly because we wrecked Madagascar and New Zealand lol). We get to see its endemic penguins and marine iguanas, and the point of this part is to demonstrate the advantages of endothermic swimming over ectothermic. Freeman compares birds and reptiles in that regard, and while it’s fair for modern representatives, some semiaquatic reptiles (choristoderans) probably had “warm blood” until the start of Eocene.

So, it seems like the end of this episode is fast approaching, with a typical narration about the shocking diversity of nearly wiped-out dinosaurs. But then… Oh no. Here it is. The mammalian bias again. And it is awful… Once again...

Overall Thoughts. In real life, I study birds, and with a baggage of my paleontologic knowledge I was prepared to see some interesting archaic birds (a fool). And this episode… was bad (in that regard). Much like most other documentaries, it depicts Cenozoic avifauna as “modern birds plus terror birds”, which is very inaccurate. Aside from already mentioned pelagornithids, Paleogene before faunal turnovers had flying paleognaths in form of lithornithids (plus some stem-ratites and stem-kiwis), convergently similar suliform plotopterids and giant penguins, early gull-like tropicbirds, duck-like flamingos named palaeolodids, formerly diverse mousebirds, passerine-like zygodactylids and carnivorous parrots. I’ve named all of them to show that bird evolution after K-Pg was not static, and that all of these groups would’ve been a great addition to a bird-focused episode. Alas, here it didn’t happen.

Another problem that is especially prevalent here is the usage of modern ecosystems and organisms to represent the past. It just doesn’t make sense. It was stupid in WWD with coati Steropodon, it is stupid here. Insects, fish and some groups like turtles and salamanders are only passable because they haven’t really changed since the Cretaceous, which is not true for many other tetrapods. And yeah, that damn taiga…

Lmao, nearly forgot about non-avian dinosaur segments. Many of Maastrichtian animals did not get much spotlight (especially pterosaurs), which is sad because they were advertised so much only to be almost immediately killed by an asteroid in the beginning of an episode...

Still, even with that manuscript of text I just wrote, the episode is not as bad as the previous one. It doesn’t have as much big problems with science, and the actual prehistoric segments are better (with the exception of pliosaur which is probably because of money constraints, as well as the last minute…). I would say it is more in the middle, somewhere around Triassic episode.

[theropod]

There is apparently an entire series on Paleocast where the scientific consultants for LOOP are interviewed. Haven’t come round to listening to it yet, but I’m very curious to do so. Let’s hope that there might be some sort of deeper meaning behind some of the things I perceive as inaccurate or misleading.

[zoograph]

Episode 7
Inheriting the Earth

Finally, mammals. How will this episode represent our very own lineage?

We start with a brief throwback to a worst segment of this show – Late Jurassic North America. After getting a glimpse of Diplodocus’ bending necks and Allosaurus’ poor design (WWD one is more aesthetically pleasing for sure), we see the representative of a “dynasty” currently hiding in trees (although Freeman does note that only MOST of them were small and arboreal… still sucks that they decided not to show Mesozoic mammal diversity, would’ve helped dispel the stereotype). This creature is definitely a better pick than numbat though.

But this part was just a prologue. Asteroid hits, many species die out, and mammals invade cleared ecological niches. We once again visit Paleocene jungle, with mammals of that period represented by a coati. Once again, questionable choice, since procyonids as a whole only originated in Miocene, but I’ve already talked about this. Freeman also states that this group was devastated in K-Pg, which is seemingly not the case – all of mammalian groups present in Maastrichtian reappear in Danian, with some of them at best suffering local extinctions (metatherians in North America and multituberculates in Asia, although herpetotheriids and lambdopsalids seem to prove otherwise). Smaller nitpick I have is him stating that all mammals are warm-blooded, which is not true for naked mole-rat and possibly Balearic goat. Other than that, I don’t really have much to say about this segment. Typical informative semi-modern segment which tells you about main mammal characteristics, nothing more, nothing less.

Then we truly return to the Quaternary and focus on capuchin monkeys. This part is literally the same as the previous one, but focus on primate strengths (mainly their intelligence) rather than mammalian ones. Still fun to watch nonetheless.

Time skip. 34 MYA. LOOP once again gives us a narratively-important segment about extinction, which is nice. This time, it is Grand Coupure. While the reason it started is fairly well explained, this segment definitely lacks showcase of a biotic turnover. A shame, paleomedia rarely focuses on that, with only WWB briefly mentioning it as a reason for archaic whales’ extinction. Still, even this throwaway line is better than nothing.

Meanwhile in North America, we get to see our first truly prehistoric mammal. Megacerops. It is fine, although his small eyes give him a very stupid-looking face. Freeman mentions that it evolved to cope with cooler climate, which I am inclined to disagree, since this very critter perished in the Grand Coupure. Its segment is very PP-like, with no other mammals in sight and weak reproduction-related plot. Another thing I noticed is that by the end of it, when our protagonist walks away after defeat, a very recognizable blue jay calls, which is, once again, very anachronistic and showcases that writers don’t much about Cenozoic bird evolution. Passerines are thought to only enter North America in Miocene, and first Mordecai appears only in Pliocene. It is not that important, still.

As the forests burn out, Freeman introduces us to a very new biotope – grasslands. What I really like (and I hope other paleofans noticed) is him clearly stating that grass already existed before the start of Cenozoic icehouse, even if it was a very rare type of plant. With many still outdatedly believing that grass first appeared around Miocene, I think that this is an even better representation of modern science than dinosaur birds!

Time to switch back to modern day. We start new segment with zebras, and, as always, creators do a good job at explaining why ungulates are so adept at eating grass. Cheetah segment, on the other hand, is a little less interesting, mainly because every wildlife documentary does it.

Wow, 2 million years ago already! Didn’t you skip three potentially interesting epochs? This part is about Smilodon and Doedicurus, and honestly, it pales in comparison to WWB. While its Pleistocene South America had more outdated (Phorusrhacos' claws) and inaccurate (scavenger Megatherium) science, it represented unique wildlife better. In regards to plot, funnily enough, it is not bad. Humor of this segment is better than in previous episodes, mainly because it is in-character for young sabretooth to be an idiot baby. Possibly the only moment in this documentary that made me smile.

We then switch to Himalayas, and this time I can definitely say that this is a modern segment. While Freeman says that these majestic mountains arose 50 million years ago, it is implied that some passage of time happened. The part itself is about snow leopard, and surprisingly, its story is probably the best in all of this show. We are introduced to old male and its offspring, we see how dad tries to hunt and suddenly dies, and then we get a bittersweet ending where younglings, in spite of their father’s death, continue as big predators thanks to their mother’s tutelage. Also, did we just get three cat-related segments in a row? Thankfully, I’m all for the cat bias.

Time to explore the most unusual mammals this world produced. We start with flying ones, bats, which are possibly one of the few animals I’m fine with being substitutes for their ancestors, since the earliest found bats already resemble modern species. This segment, thank God, doesn’t have mammal bias and clearly shows that birds dominate in the daylight (most of them, to be fair), but fails to definitely explain why bats are nocturnal (abstract “better and stronger than bats” is not a great answer, LOOP).

Non-linear narration returns briefly, in order to introduce us to another unusual group of mammals. Here, 47 million years ago, we meet Maiacetus. Its design is quite good, and the decision to include it in the show was very nice, seeing how Protocetidae are unfairly overlooked in favor of generic Ambulocetus and Basilosaurus. This part also has an actual enemy – Otodus. This recently gone genus of sharks is reconstructed in the safest way possible, as an oversized great white, which may be untrue since cartilaginous skeleton doesn’t fossilize well and as such, they can resemble other modern groups. We even have a tension, with Maiacetus nearly running out of air! Damn this segment is good, I wish more of them were like that.

The last thing this episode has to offer is some modern whale reproduction. This segment is okay, but mostly relies on the magic of this giant mammal.

Seems like show forgot another unusual type of animal. I hope it will be properly represented in the next episode…

Overall Thoughts. This episode is probably somewhere around the second one in my rating system. It definitely can’t dethrone Walking with Beasts as the best Cenozoic documentary (even if these are currently the only competitors). Many segments don’t feature much plot or many creatures and are very mediocre, but there are very nice parts I just mentioned that I think may be one of the best. Some scientific problems persist, but the mention of pre-Neogene grass was unexpectedly great. The narration of evolutionary weapons is good as always, probably the only consistently good part of this show (even if sometimes it’s not that accurate). Damn, only one left. Will the finale be any good?

[zoograph]

Episode 8
Age of Ice and Fire

Damn, finally here. The last episode. What will it show us?

We start it in… the present day? That’s unexpected. In all of the previous episodes creators at least showed us some sort of prehistory before entering modernity. The segment is about Yellowstone bisons defending its calves from wolves. Typical wildlife documentary, not much else to say.

Then we jump 2.5 million years in the past. Seeing the cliffs, I thought about pelagornithids again (since they were still present in that period’s Japan), but this time I was prepared and knew that my wildest fantasies won’t ever happen in paleomedia. Instead, we focus on the start of Pleistocene glaciation, and this part seems to be mostly okay, with the best moment being the computer-generated snowflakes. I don’t know, they just seem good to me.

Time skip that happens after previous segment ends is a little bit disappointing. Last Glacial Period seems to be the only recent ice age ever acknowledged. Maybe because its fauna is the best preserved and probably the coolest (heh) one, but it is still kind of sad. Our first prehistoric beast of this episode is a woolly mammoth, and it seems to not have many flaws. Honestly, it is hard to completely screw up them, given a lot of great evidence and their gigantic mark on a mass culture, so it’s not a very big plus of the show.
Narration is still insane, with Freeman mentioning their elephant-like ancestors (dude, Asian elephants are literally a sister group to mammoths, there’s no point in this uncertainty. Just call them what they are). Cave lion, meanwhile, is worse. It once again became a victim of “white ice age kitty” stereotype. It is known since 2016 that their fur was lighter than the one modern lions have, but still yellow. WWB had an excuse, being produced in the late 1990s, but I highly doubt this show was in works before 2016. The story is mid, literally the same one as the bison’s segment.

Let’s move to the south, where the climatic changes force tropical forests to turn into savannas. And the segment about its inhabitants is not the one I expected. At first, I was sure that creators just screwed up the timeline, and instead wanted to show hominization, but it was not the case. Baboons are protagonists instead, since their part, despite the narration, doesn’t really have much relevance to the overall plot. Seems like it was more of an attempt to shrug off the human evolution (which is important for us and could’ve showcased the most unusual new mammal). And don’t get me wrong, in isolation the story is fine, but I’m surprised that an EVOLUTIONARY documentary would skip the origin of bipedalism, creation of fire and behavioral modernity (aside from a small tease at the start of the episode) – all of which are insanely important in the rise of finale’s protagonist.

16 000 years ago. The LGM is ending. This segment was also very surprising for me, but for more positive reasons. We see massive floods that took place when the glaciers melted, something paleodocs very rarely acknowledge (more often the Pleistocene episode just ends and doesn’t speak about rises in temperature). Columbian (?) mammoths on the background are a disappointment, but horses in some panic shots are actually a great addition that probably shows American perissodactyls for the first time on big screens. Once again, it seems like LOOP nails the catastrophes.

Surprisingly, we then return to the Danube delta from Episode 2’s frog segment, but this time we focus on terns. Not a bad part, but I don’t really have much interest in it.

Finally, time to enter our very own epoch – Holocene (although Anthropocene enthusiasts may disagree with me). We start it with a montage of every live-acted scene from previous episodes (as well as this one) combined, but with nice additions. Alongside normal animals that we can often see in the wild or zoos, there are three shots of extinct mammals that were still present in the Early Holocene – woolly mammoths (although background doesn’t fit the real place where they endured the longest – cold forests of Siberia and Alaska), Smilodon and Doedicurus. This shows the viewers that even just 11 700 years ago wildlife was still a little bit different, and even more diverse than today.

Seems like instead of focusing on these predators, writers decided to show us the “ultimate” one. To witness him, we get back to bisons, who are deviously pushed from the cliffs… by us. Well, I wouldn’t call humanity the ultimate predator, especially with our omnivory, but I get why many people do that. For me though, term “ultimate consument” would be more accurate. Other than that, I don’t have any problems with this part.

But humans were not just the most dangerous predators. Their big brains helped them perform the most surprising feat in all of Earth’s history. They tamed animals and plants and freed themselves from the dangers of hunt and gathering. And this is what I really like about this segment – it greatly showcases just how insanely quick by geological terms and influential for our planet the development of civilization was. I nearly got proud for all the achievement our species had since the days of cavemen.

Sadly, we paid a terrible price for our success. This documentary knows it and rubs all of our genuine faults in the face. Honestly, I would’ve preferred another strategy to explain viewers the situation we’re in. Instead of speaking about oceanic acidification and the release of carbon dioxide, I would’ve instead shown what it means to US. We are egotistical species, no doubts, so talking about how we might all die out without insects or maybe even displaying terrible consequences of Aral Sea disappearance for Kazakhs and Uzbeks would probably be the best strategy. But the worst was yet to come…

Seemingly content with the ending of this show, I was prepared to close the video player, but then… I saw a dragonfly imago emerge from an abandoned building… and fly into a landscape of semi-destroyed London. What the hell??? Since when this documentary is a Life after People promo? Isn’t it a History Channel original? Seriously though, I loved and still love this show where people suddenly vanished, but it definitely feels out of place here. Morgan Freeman just said that we can still correct our mistakes, but this part cancels out his words and instead paints a very grim and purely speculative vision of the future that did not yet happen. Maybe I’m a little bit too harsh, but it does feel like inserting aliens in the end of Our Planet.

Overall Thoughts. Before watching this episode, I thought this would be a Walking with Cavemen remake. Nope. Not at all what I imagined. This is a wildlife documentary, poorly disguised by just inserting Ice Age plot (which is actually quite good), a small mammoth segment and cameos of Pleistocene South America into it. But this is only a first part. When we enter Holocene, it immediately does a heel-face turn and transforms into an ecologic message for viewers. And in the end, into a future where every human being on Earth disappeared. And due to that I’m legitimately confused – where to put it on rankings? It is a little bit disjointed and is barely a paleodocumentary, but it also has almost no scientific problems and features some previously unseen glaciation-related content that I really liked. Maybe it is better if I just ignore this episode completely…

[Exalt]

I'm honestly surprised at the lack of complaints for the cave lion and mammoth scene. To me, the last part of the sequence is probably the worst part of the series.

SPOILER: Click to show

One cave lion, by itself brought down the teenage mammoth, and quickly killed it? What year is it? How strong do they think that lions are? If cave lions are this powerful, I can only ponder what they think that P.atrox could do. And it can take several minutes for lions to choke out animals far weaker than a mammoth, but this one comes out here like what people once thought that Smilodon could do. I'll retract this one if someone who knows about elephant necks has a counter, but good lord.

Anyways, nice to see your thoughts. I might comment on some things in the near future.

[dinosauria101]

Oct 31, 2023 21:01:00 GMT 5 Exalt said:

I'm honestly surprised at the lack of complaints for the cave lion and mammoth scene. To me, the last part of the sequence is probably the worst part of the series.

SPOILER: Click to show

One cave lion, by itself brought down the teenage mammoth, and quickly killed it? What year is it? How strong do they think that lions are? If cave lions are this powerful, I can only ponder what they think that P.atrox could do. And it can take several minutes for lions to choke out animals far weaker than a mammoth, but this one comes out here like what people once thought that Smilodon could do. I'll retract this one if someone who knows about elephant necks has a counter, but good lord.

Anyways, nice to see your thoughts. I might comment on some things in the near future.

Agreed. Although it is not to the point of very few people noticing it, I am surprised that there are viewers who don't seem to have anything to say about it.

As I alluded to in my spoiler comment, it would have been great to see the adult mammoths physically remove the lions from the adolescent. Not only entertaining but it would look far more visually convincing, considering the adults would have both the time and capabilities to do it before the adolescent would be suffocated. 

[zoograph]

Time to post my final thoughts on this documentary.

With 8 episodes of content finally behind us, I can finally say what kind of show this is. Trilogy of Life is a collection of different species from different periods of time, with small plots in every episode (with a slight exception of WWM). Prehistoric Planet is an ecological show that only shows us Maastrichtian fauna interacting with each other. This is a plot documentary, which revolves around the progression of groups, and it shows. Live-acted segments are very prevalent and are used to demonstrate some points in evolution, while prehistoric segments are short and have small numbers of animals. Science, meanwhile, seems to be worse than in PP, but better than in TOL (which is not a great feat, by the way). Funnily enough, both first and last episodes do not follow this formula too much, which make them both slightly better and worse in some regards.

If we were to rate how each era of life is represented, then it is extremely obvious which part is the best. Paleozoic, even if because of lack of competition. Only other documentaries that did it are WWM, Sea Monsters and Animal Armageddon – first two do a worse job to represent it, and the latter is just bad. Still, WWM segments that its creators cared about are better than LOOP (but that’s mostly just Carboniferous). Mesozoic is bad, can’t really compare to WWD and PP, and even PD, but it’s still not the worst dinosaur documentary ever. Cenozoic is somewhere in the middle, but is not as nicely showcased as WWB.

What else… There are definitely some moments that are better than both ToL and PP. The acknowledgement that birds are dinosaurs is the easiest one to name, but there are others, like a mention of Cretaceous grass, Lystrosaurus being a Permian survivor, Paleozoic ammonites, trilobite antennae etc. But all these moments can’t really compensate outdated science – terror birds and sabretooth tigers’ competition, stereotypes like ancient sharks and miniscule Mesozoic mammals, Anomalocaris hunting trilobites and many others. You saw how disappointed I was about the bird episode, so you understand what I mean.

Freeman’s narration, I would say, is somewhere in the middle between Branagh’s and Attenborough’s. Although it’s definitely more majestic than the one PP has, it is also less enthusiastic.

Music is cool sometimes, but I did not memorize it. Seems like ToL can’t be dethroned in that regard.

Graphics were already discussed way before LOOP released, so I won’t be focusing on them that much. My favorite model is Cameroceras. I don’t know why, but I really dig its realistic eyes and algae growths, they kind of make these orthoconids more interesting than their Sea Monsters version. The worst one for me is Allosaurus. While it seems to be somewhat scientifically supported, it is not really aesthetic. WWD one is still an unbeatable classic, it seems.

In short, this series is definitely not a worthy successor of Trilogy of Life. It also struggles with filling its own niche. Still, it’s not awful, and the overall product seems to be more of a tragedy (I would even somewhat unfair one, seeing how most people were prejudiced against it way before release) than an outright farce.

What changes I would’ve made, you probably (don’t) ask? I would’ve played into its biggest strength – extinction segments, and made it “Animal Armageddon but good”. Another scenario is creating a fully prehistoric evolutionary epic, but I understand that it would’ve been way too expensive.

See you soon…

[Exalt]

Oct 31, 2023 21:06:00 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

Oct 31, 2023 21:01:00 GMT 5 Exalt said:

I'm honestly surprised at the lack of complaints for the cave lion and mammoth scene. To me, the last part of the sequence is probably the worst part of the series.

SPOILER: Click to show

One cave lion, by itself brought down the teenage mammoth, and quickly killed it? What year is it? How strong do they think that lions are? If cave lions are this powerful, I can only ponder what they think that P.atrox could do. And it can take several minutes for lions to choke out animals far weaker than a mammoth, but this one comes out here like what people once thought that Smilodon could do. I'll retract this one if someone who knows about elephant necks has a counter, but good lord.

Anyways, nice to see your thoughts. I might comment on some things in the near future.

Agreed. Although it is not to the point of very few people noticing it, I am surprised that there are viewers who don't seem to have anything to say about it.

As I alluded to in my spoiler comment, it would have been great to see the adult mammoths physically remove the lions from the adolescent. Not only entertaining but it would look far more visually convincing, considering the adults would have both the time and capabilities to do it before the adolescent would be suffocated. 

I must have missed this post, maybe it was made before I finished.

And yes, especially considering the lions had to run past the adults in the first place.

[creature386]

I've finally watched the show, too. I know, I'm a slow watcher. That "binging" these kids of today talk about is not for me.

Unfortunately, there isn't much I can say that zoograph and theropod haven't already pointed out much better. It's a good documentary, but it isn't great. Maybe it's due to the inherent difficulty of beating the Trilogy of Life, maybe it's due to the insane expectations that PP has created, but the show just can't live up to the expectations most of us probably had. The Paleozoic episodes were the best, as zoograph already pointed out, Mesozoic ones were the worst, with the Cenozoic being in the middle.

I have to admit, in some ways, I was also pleasantly surprised. On Discord, I got the impression that this documentary pushed a "superior species" narrative, but outside of the atrocious terror bird scene in the pilot or the idea of "dynasties" that didn't really happen. Nonetheless, as theropod already pointed out, the ideas of evolution pushed here are both inaccurate and, thanks to the non-linear storytelling, confusing. Cladograms along with timelines would have added more accuracy AND clarity AND given the documentary more uniqueness. In its present form, it lacks all three.

When I watched LOOP, I spent almost as much time being sidetracked by other things as actually watching the documentary. It didn't do a terribly good job at keeping my attention. The exception was the finale, that is, the second half of episode eight. I found it interesting how different it was from its counterpart in the Trilogy of Life, so I'll probably discuss it in a spoiler.

SPOILER: Click to show

I'm at least talking about the appearance of the most important species of all. "The ultimate predator", as the documentary puts it. Us.

WWB featured humans in exactly one episode and it treated them in a way that I have rarely seen in media. Most people imagine evolution is an ascending ladder that starts with goo and ends with us and a lot of media implicitly treats it that way.

What I liked about WWB is how it avoided this trap and instead featured humans as just a normal animal throughout. In the one episode we got featured in, a Cro-Magnon human is killed off-screen by felines and it isn't treated any sadder than if it had happened to any other animal. Heck, we barely even get much screentime in that episode. Instead, the plot features on mammoths with even Neanderthals being given a more active role than us. It fits the central theme of the entire Trilogy of Life. Every species comes and goes, humans are no different. It's a rather unique treatment that doesn't stroke our ego and I liked that.

LOOP does something fundamentally different. Just from the way we are introduced, it's clear we are special. Freeman hypes up predators that are stalking bison and from the way they look, you'd be mistaken for thinking it are just weird wolves. Wrong. It are Native Americans wearing wolf fur. From then on, the show highlights all of our technological achievements and the current ecological crisis we caused.

Just from this description, you'd think this is another human exceptionalism narrative and it kinda is. On a scientific level, I hate it. This idea that humans are somehow "independent" from the environment is both inaccurate and harmful.

But on a narrative level, this segment feels climactic. Yes, it's predictable, but it fits the show. Extinctions have always been a big theme of LOOP and the current ecological crisis is, as the documentary neatly shows, effectively multiple extinctions rolled into a very short ecological time frame. That, along with the inherent uncertainty about how it will end (I'll ignore the epilogue) makes it feel different from anything before. The documentary also really drives how this thing we call "history" is nothing, but a blink of an eye on a geological time scale which makes this segment feel compact and pointed, as any ending should. Like, the documentary spent eight episodes establishing a status quo and then we turn it around in a few minutes screen time. It has a "movie ending" feeling that I've rarely felt when watching a documentary so far. Perhaps there's some benefit in hiring filmmakers, even if literally every other aspect suffers.

Now, half of an episode that isn't boring plus a meta-narrative that is both inaccurate and confusing isn't a terribly good track record, but it's not terrible either. 3/5 stars.

[Exalt]

SPOILER: Click to show

So are you saying that the human specialness narrative seemed bad, until it was the setup for the next extinction event?

[creature386]

Nov 3, 2023 1:44:19 GMT 5 Exalt said:

SPOILER: Click to show

So are you saying that the human specialness narrative seemed bad, until it was the setup for the next extinction event?

Basically, I disliked it on a scientific level, but I found it entertaining in the context provided by the documentary.