Walking With Prehistoric Life Marathon (Part 3)
The Ballad of Big Al (2000) Review

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

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 21st 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.

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.

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