The "Walking with..." Specials Review

Walking With Prehistoric Life Marathon (Part 3)

The Ballad of Big Al (2000) Review

Walking with Dinosaurs spawned several additional episodes, with the first special taking viewers back to the Jurassic period for a closer look at the top predator Allosaurus in an hour-long episode devoted to the life and death of a particular individual nicknamed Big Al: a real-life allosaur fossil which showed how hard his life was by the number of injuries present on the bones. The Ballad of Big Al was more than just a Walking with Dinosaurs special, it was a full-fledged chronicle delivering everything there was to love about the series before it in one great helping. 

I saw the American re-edit on Discovery Channel, called Allosaurus: A Walking with Dinosaurs Special, combining footage from a separate documentary about the research put into the show. This made it feel a little less like Walking with Dinosaurs and more like another dinosaur show that had been on Discovery, When Dinosaurs Roamed America. Later I saw the original BBC broadcast on DVD, and with the exception of a few moments removed due to runtime, found it’s mostly the same, and plays more like a typical Walking with Dinosaurs episode. 

The program starts with a ghost of Big Al roaming the halls of the museum of the Rockies, where the actual skeleton is kept, then we go back in time to see Al hatch from his egg, and the story jumps ahead incrementally, showing him mature and encounter many other dinosaurs in his environment—most of which were previously seen in the second episode of Walking with Dinosaurs, but some are new or shown more extensively, like the Apatosaurus and Othnelia—as well as show how Al sustains many of his injuries, before succumbing to them and dying in a river bed. The dinosaurs all look as great as they did before, but a couple of the designs were tweaked. If I’m being nitpicky, I prefer the look of Allosaurus in Walking with Dinosaurs, but it’s nice to see more of them in action.

The Ballad of Big Al is as good as any of the Walking with Dinosaurs episodes, if not better in several ways, such as the cinematography, storytelling, and music. The sequence with Al and some other Allosaurus ganging up on a sick Diplodocus is a thrilling action scene, and another scene where a larger female Allosaurus attacks Al is brutal and harrowing. You come to feel bad for Al, without them anthropomorphizing him too much, and when he dies at the end, it’s actually sad. This episode may actually exceed the second episode of Walking with Dinosaurs for me, and that is one of my favourites. Also worth checking out is the documentary Big Al Uncovered, which explores the science behind bringing Al back to life. 

Chased by Dinosaurs (2002/2003) Review and Sea Monsters (2003) Review

Walking with Dinosaurs and Walking with Beasts intended to give the illusion that the footage was actual documentation of real prehistoric animals in their natural habitat, and occasionally, something would happen to remind viewers of this, whether it was the T. rex roaring at the camera and covering the lens in saliva, or the Indricothere knocking over a cameraman. Chased by Dinosaurs took it to the next level, by having real-life zoologist Nigel Marvin host the program, telling the audience about the creatures, environment, and even interacting with the camera crew following him on his adventure. This change in presentation may have alienated some fans of the more realistic approach utilized in previous programs, and that’s understandable. As a kid, I loved Chased by Dinosaurs, and even taking nostalgia out of the question, still find it very enjoyable. 

Chased by Dinosaurs is actually the name of the DVD which collects all the Nigel Marvin episodes together, but they were broadcast differently, with the first two being The Giant Claw and Land of Giants, both subtitled A Walking with Dinosaurs Special, and Sea Monsters being a separate three-episode miniseries called a Walking with Dinosaurs Trilogy. 

The first, The Giant Claw, follows Nigel’s quest to locate Therizinosaurus, a Mongolian dinosaur with massive claws on its hands, which makes him think it must be a predator. Along the way, he encounters other species, like the pack-hunting Velociraptor, the fast-running Mononychus, and Tarbosaurus, the T. rex of Asia. It’s a fun, well-paced episode, though the mystery surrounding Therizinosaurus’ status as a carnivore is a little flimsy, even for younger viewers. 

Land of Giants takes Nigel to Cretaceous-era South America where a migrating herd of long-neck Argentinosaurus are stalked by the largest South American predator ever, Giganotosaurus. This is probably my favourite Chased by Dinosaurs installment, just because I love all the creatures that are featured, and the events that transpire are played serious, even though the premise of Nigel tracking dinosaurs with 21^st century technology is a bit silly. There are exciting scenes, moments of tension, and even sadness: everything to love about the best Walking with Dinosaurs episodes. 

Sea Monsters has Nigel and his crew exploring the seven deadliest seas in prehistory, jumping all around in time, going back as far as the Ordovician period when there was no life on land yet and giant sea scorpions and orthocones ruled the depths, as well as up to only a few million years ago, when the biggest predatory shark that ever lived, Megalodon, hunted ancient whales. The episodes are half an hour each, with episodes one and two covering three seas, both ending on cliff hangers, and the final episode covering the top two deadliest seas, in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

It’s a fun concept, and the underwater photography is even more ambitious than in the “Cruel Sea” episode of Walking with Dinosaurs and “Whale Killer” episode of Walking with Beasts. There are some questionable gimmicks, like when Nigel uses a “smell suit” to deter deadly Liopleurodon in the Jurassic sea, but a lot of it is pretty fun and inventive, such as a round metal cage used so the ancient fish Dunkleosteus can’t bite it. In terms of Nigel’s interactions with the animals, which are brought to life using the same special effects techniques as always, Sea Monsters has the most convincing interactions of all, as well as some of the most suspenseful scenes in the entire franchise. 

Overall, Chased by Dinosaurs and Sea Monsters are fun and informative programs, and actually follow in the steps of previous Walking With… series pretty well. The music, visual effects, and landscapes are all up to par with everything that came before, if not better, and it doesn’t hold back in any way despite having a more family-friendly premise. How much you like or dislike Nigel Marvin’s commentary will influence your overall enjoyment, and the concept of him travelling back in time is decidedly less realistic than previous approaches, but he does a good job making viewers believe he really is walking with these prehistoric creatures. Another mini-series, Prehistoric Park, utilized Nigel Marvin the same way, and had him actually bring creatures back to a 21^st century wildlife preserve, but it’s not part of the Walking With… series, and doesn’t quite achieve the same level of quality. That’s a review for another day.