Walking With Dinosaurs

Take the ultimate journey back in time to the reign of the dinosaurs with state-of-the-art digital effects and animatronics that create living, breathing images, putting you in the scene of a virtual lost world.

Using the latest scientific findings, Walking with Dinosaurs examines the 155-million-year history of these great creatures, from the aggressive Coelophysis, who first learned to hunt in packs, to Tyrannosaurus Rex, the most terrifying carnivore on the planet. Feel the ground tremble as dueling Triceratops lock horns, and soar with Ornithocheirus, who could travel over 300 miles on a single wing flap. Narrated by Kenneth Branagh, this expanded video edition contains fascinating additional material not included on Discovery Channel broadcasts, giving you the most comprehensive and exciting view of prehistoric life ever created.

Includes the following episodes: New Blood, Time of the Titans, Cruel Sea, Giant of the Skies, Spirits of the Ice Forest, Death of a Dynasty, Bonus: The Making of Walking with Dinosaurs.<BR>

New Blood - 220 Million Years Ago - Set in the mid Triassic, the world is still recovering from a massive extinction that millions of years before wiped out 95 per cent of life. Across most of the Earth lie vast deserts but near the poles the weather is monsoonal. Here life is rebuilding the diversity that once existed. The programme follows a small group of animals in a river valley through the dry season. Large herds of the Placerias, an ancient, bulky reptile, feed off the fern prairies. Primitive mammals dig burrows beneath them, small pterosaurs chase insects in the air and an agile little dinosaur called Coelophysis lives on its wits among them. Terrorising all these creatures is the giant predator Postosuchus, a fearsome land crocodile with a head like a Tyrannosaurus.

As the drought drags on all the creatures are affected by it. The herds dwindle and the mammals loose their offspring, even the Postosuchus is driven into an unwise attack on a Placerius and is badly wounded. The only creatures that actually increase in number are the little dinosaurs that gradually come to dominate the river valley. Eventually they start to move in aggressive flocks killing the Postosuchus and driving out the last Placerias. By the time the rains come the Coelophysis are everywhere and larger herbivorous dinosaurs appear up the river. Life in the valley has changed forever.

A Time of Titans - 152 million years ago - By the late Jurassic, dinosaurs dominated the globe and the most widespread group of all were the sauropods. These long-necked herbivores were giants even among dinosaurs weighing between 20 and 70 tonnes. This single programme spans 12 years as we follow the hatching of a tiny Diplodocus through her struggle for survival until she reaches maturity and mates for the first time, completing the circle of life.

The action opens with a huge mother laying her eggs on the edge of a vast forest. She then abandons them and when they hatch they have to run the gauntlet of every predator in the area as they make their own way deep into the woods and seek the protection of dense vegetation. We follow one female over the years as she gradually piles on the tonnes avoiding dangers from hungry carnivores and fire. Eventually she is too big for the trees and leaves her forest nursery to join an adult herd on the plains. Here she experiences a rut and mating season among giants.

During the confusion, predators attack. Two Allosaurus pick her out and try to bring her down. Fortunately other members of the herd come to her aid, and she lives to fight another day.

Cruel Sea - 149 million years ago - For all the successes of dinosaurs on land, they never made it into the sea – that is the realm of an entirely different group of reptiles, no less successful and no less awesome. The Jurassic sea boasts the largest carnivore on the planet

– Liopleurodon, at 25 metres this monster was the same size as a blue whale but armed with teeth that were a quarter of a metre long. And Ophthalmosaurus – the fastest animal in the sea with huge eyes for night time hunting.

The programme follows the dramatic conflicts of nature that are an annual event in the waters around the small group of islands. It starts with the invasion of hundreds of pregnant Ophthalmosaurus who have come to give birth in the shallow protected waters. Over the course of the programme we watch how the young pups fend for themselves in seas where they are prey for the sharks and even for their own parents. Their mothers are scarcely any safer, and while giving birth are tempting targets for the giant Liopleurodon. As the pups grow up, other events bring the animals of the islands on to a collision course – the island’s one species of dinosaur runs amok in a colony of sea pterosaurs feeding on the beach. And a giant hurricane batters the islands leaving a beached Liopleurodon as food for scavengers. For the pups, the storm signals that it is time to leave the islands. The females among them will return one day to give birth to pups of their own.

Giant of the Skies - 127 million years ago - On a deserted beach lies the dead body of a gigantic pterosaur, an Ornithocheirus – with wingspans of up to 13 metres, these were the largest flying creatures ever. There is no sign of why this one died but over the course of the programme it is revealed how this King of the Sky met his end after undertaking an epic flight to find a mate. During his journey the incredible diversity of life in the Early Cretaceous is revealed.

The programme picks up the story several months earlier on a windy cliff edge on the coast of Brazil where the mating season for a bizarre-looking ptersoaur called Tapejara is in full swing. On every ledge the males duck and bob their fantastic red crests to attract a mate. The solitary Ornithcheirus is here too, dwarfing the local inhabitants. He has ended up in Brazil after wandering thousands of miles in search of food but now he has to return home to his own mating ground in Southern Europe. His flight takes him up the coast of Northern America where herds of

Iguanodon migrate up the beach beneath him, across a fledgling Atlantic that is a mere 100 miles wide and into Wales where he is a spectator as a pack of Utahraptors hunt down and kill their prey. Eventually the giant pterosaur reaches his breeding ground but is ousted by the younger, stronger males. In the end it is heat exhaustion that brings an end to his 70 years of ruling the sky.

Spirits of the Ice Forest - 106 million years ago - Throughout the entire time of the dinosaurs there were no ice caps on the poles. In the mid Cretaceous thick forests covered Antarctica. Although the climate here was warm, during the winter the sun would set completely for two months and then for the first time in their history dinosaurs would have faced ice and frost. The animals that lived here evolved to cope with what was, by dinosaur standards, the most extreme of environments.

The programme follows a small group of social herbivores called Laellynasaura that live in the forest all year round.

It starts with spring as the little dinosaurs survive another long dark winter. As the forest comes alive the Leaellynasaura build nests together and lay eggs. Gradually other dinosaurs migrate down from the north and start to graze in the river valleys. With the herbivores come predators and as summer arrives the Leaellynasuaura have to use all their speed and ingenuity to survive. As the continuous summer sun warms the forest the young Leaellynasaura grow and learn to cope with the dangers around them, all the time the adults keep a watchful eye on them. By autumn the light begins to fade and the temperatures drop. The forest begins to empty and the Leaellynasaura prepare for a long cold winter.

Death of a Dynasty - 65 million years ago - After 160 million years of dominating life on Earth the dinosaurs appear as vigorous as ever. Tyrannosaurus rules over plains full of herds of horned and duck-billed dinosaurs.Yet closer study reveals there are hidden stresses and the rich ecosystem hides problems. Volcanic activity is high and disease and sterile eggs common. The central character in the programme is a female Tyrannosaur that is trying to raise a new brood of chicks. As the programme starts small mammals are already swarming over one nest that she has abandoned and she is looking to mate again. She lives at the base of an active volcano and the migration of local herds has been disrupted by lava flow. She finds a mate and starts a second nest, but it needs constant attention as mammal populations are unusually high. After several months she successfully hatches some of her eggs, but in an attempt to protect the young chicks, she is killed by an Ankylosaurus.

At this point in the programme a bright light appears on the horizon. It glows for a while and then disappears. 3,000 kilometres away a huge meteor has hit Earth. Earthquakes, shock waves and a rain of fire destroy everything at the foot of the volcano before a dense cloud sweeps over and blocks out the sun for months. This is the end of the series and the end of the dinosaurs. Many smaller dinosaurs did survive and are with us today, it is just that we call them birds and don’t generally recognise their true heritage.

BAFTA® Awards
2000 - Best Original Television Music – Ben Bartlett
2000 - Best Innovation – John Lynch, Tim Haines, Mike Milne
Emmy Awards ®
2000 – Outstanding Achievement in Non-Fiction Programming – Sound Editing – Andrew Sherriff
2000 – Outstanding Animated Program – John Lynch, Tim Haines

 “If you really do want to experience walking with dinosaurs, then this is as good as it gets.”  -The Australian

“This BBC TV series brings the dinosaurs to life again in breathtaking perfection.” - Der Spiegel

“The BBC has taken computer animation by the throat to deliver a series that sends Jurassic Park to the stone age.” - Sydney Morning Herald

“… sexy slice of prime-time prehistory.” - Guardian

“It’s gripping – and gripping in a way that manages to transcend age and perhaps even mortality.” - Sunday Telegraph

“Mondays won’t be the same.” - Daily Record

The word dinosaur comes from the Greek words deinos meaning ‘terrible’ and saurus meaning ‘lizard’. The word was first coined in 1841 by British scientist Richard Owen, who founded the Natural History Museum.