In this brief article I cover the latest news surrounding Prehistoric Planet and give an update about my websites development.
It has been a bit of a while since I wrote a blog post for the website, so this article will be the first of hopefully plenty more for 2023. Happy belated New Year to everyone!
Before I get into the palaeo news focus of this article I want to give a quick overview of what is to come for this website. I have a few ideas for potential blog posts across this year and am planning to update the website with more posts over the coming months. I have recently updated the Fieldwork page of the website, so if you haven’t already do check that out.
In terms of palaeo news I figured I had to cover the big news that Prehistoric Planet has been confirmed to be getting a second season. The premiere of which will drop on May 22nd across a 5-day event on Apple TV +. The second season will once again focus on the Late Cretaceous, sixty-six million years ago and will introduce audiences to new dinosaurs and environments.
From the information available it seems that everyone who worked on the first season is returning, with Jon Faverau and Mike Gunton returning as executive producers, the BBC Natural History Unit producing and MPC working on the CGI. Sir David Attenborough also returns to narrate the series. I would imagine all the palaeontologists who consulted on the last season are returning as well, especially Dr. Darren Naish.
I loved the first season of Prehistoric Planet; in my personal opinion it is one of the best pieces of palaeo media we have ever received. I am very excited for the second season and the potential new species and environments the documentary will showcase (fingers crossed more hadrosaur species are shown!).
I’m most excited by the palaeontological consultancy work undertaken on this new season, the prospect of new research and scientific evidence being displayed. The consultancy work on the first season really shined through and there was a lot that leaped out at me, research and biomechanics wise that I learned about on my master’s course.
I gave my view on the first season of Prehistoric Planet alongside stop motion maestro Mike Tharme in our review on The Missing Compys Podcast last year. You can listen to the review below in episode 164, we discuss everything from the dinosaur depictions to the behaviour displayed on screen.
Ep# 164 Apple TV's Prehistoric Planet Review – The Missing Compys Podcast
2023 looks to be a fantastic year for dinosaur documentaries and palaeomedia. Recently the BBC did a two episode series on palaeontological fieldwork in the Jurassic Mile of Wyoming presented by Liz Bonnin. Its a fantastic documentary and the first episode really made me want to get out there and do some fieldwork! The documentary series is available to watch on BBC Iplayer now.
A new palaeo media series called Life on Our Planet will also be dropping on Netflix later this year. This series will not just cover the Mesozoic era but the Paleozoic and Cenozoic as well! You can check out the trailer for that series below.
I am really thrilled we are getting more palaeo media series showing dinosaurs as actual animals. Sharing the science surrounding palaeontological discoveries is incredibly important, it is great to see new documentaries being made to reflect new discoveries and the latest scientific evidence. This new documentary series on Netflix along with the second season of Prehistoric Planet, will mean palaeontologists and dinosaur fans will have a wealth of dinosaur content to watch and obsess over.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this article, it’s great to be back writing for the blog and I look forward to supporting the website with more palaeo content across this year! You can find all my palaeontological science communication outreach at the scicomm links page Do give the website a follow to keep up to date with my newest blog posts, alongside latest updates to the website.
James Ronan Palaeontologist 