Prehistoric Park.

[ffutures]

The two-disc DVD set of Prehistoric Park, a predecessor of Primeval, is currently being sold second hand by CEX stores at 50p, and by That's Entertainment on line at £2 including delivery. Or new for £4.82 from Amazon. For those who aren't familiar with the series, it was a "docu-drama" about a zoo set up to rescue extinct animals via time travel, from the makers of Walking With Dinosaurs etc.. Each episode they'd go back in time, rescue one or more extinct animals, and bring them back to the zoo.

There were plot holes you could drive a bus through, such as the reason (never explained) why they could only rescue animals moments before animals went extinct - e.g. a few minutes before the dinosaur-killer hit. Why not five years or five centuries earlier? But apart from that it was a fun show, and I prefer it to Primeval.

Anyway, it's available cheaply and the disks, while PAL, are Region 0 - should be playable on most DVD players (not sure about the USA) and computers. It's worth a look if you're a fan of man-dinosaur interaction.

Note - if you look on Youtube for this series you will find several animated episodes - basically, someone has taken the original programs and made animated videos with the show's soundtrack. But the real show mixed live action and CGI, and is much better.

Comments

[eledonecirrhosa.livejournal.com]

Was that the one with Nigel Marvin playing himself? I remember it being quite fun (though part of the entertainment was probably that Nigel used to work in our department!).

I do remember thinking during the dinosaur-killer asteroid one that maybe they ought to CLOSE THE WORMHOLE RIGHT NOW as surely the blast wave could also travel through it from the past???

I thought the "just before they die" bit was to avoid altering time? If you steal a T rex's eggs 67 million years ago, mum might get annoyed and go and stamp on humanity's proto-mammal ancestors. But if you loot them from a nest that got obliterated 65 million years ago, the timeline is preserved. (Sort of)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That's the one - there also seem to have been a couple of spinoffs from the Walking with Dinosaurs series with him as a time traveler, I'm trying to get hold of them.

I'm guessing that you're right about the reasons, it's what everyone assumes, but they never specifically said why it had to be so close to the event. I'll probably go with it too, but if I can come up with a better explanation I'll use it.

[eledonecirrhosa.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, Sea Monsters and that one about the dino with the giant claw (Therinosaurus???). Didn't they kind of imply that Nigel had been eaten at the end of one of those?

Don't think I ever saw those series on DVD.