The Poppies of Terra #77 - Dino Dynasties

Despite their incomprehensibly vast age, dinosaurs never grow old.

The latest four-part documentary miniseries to focus on them, aptly but unimaginatively titled The Dinosaurs (2026), comes to us courtesy of a global production team led by showrunner Dan Tapster (Planet Earth & The Life of Mammals with David Attenborough, etc) and series director Nick Shoolingin-Jordan (One Strange Rock, A Perfect Planet). Billed as a spiritual successor to the incredible eight-part series Life on Our Planet (2023), for which Tapster was also showrunner, the new show is produced by Silverback Films and Amblin Documentaries with executive producer Steven Spielberg, narrated by Morgan Freeman, scored by Lorne Balfe, and brought to life through Industrial Light & Magic (ILM)’s state-of-the-art visual effects. That’s a titanic talent roster, almost on a par with the grandiosity of the creatures themselves.

Of key importance in a series like this is not only the quality of the paleontological research that informs the script, but how immersive the individual sequences are, how well they play together, and, as a result, how much sticks with us after the credits roll. Reconstructing 170 million years of history in four hours, trying to balance coverage of popular dinos with the lesser-known species, and making the latest discoveries blend seamlessly with what we knew before, requires the skill of a dramatist and the lucidity of a master expositor. How rich and deep are the mental footprints left in The Dinosaurs’ wake?

“Rise” kicks things off by tracing the emergence of dinosaurs from tiny, agile ancestors on Triassic Pangaea. We’re shown how climate upheavals such as the Carnian Pluvial Event reshaped deserts into forests, undermined dominant reptile lineages like the Rhynchosaurs, and gradually opened up ecological space for early dinosaurs, plateosaurs, and pterosaurs to grow, diversify, and begin challenging ancient reptile rulers. It’s an energetic, muscular start not lacking in pathos and effective foreshadowing.

From here we move to “Conquest,” which begins with the end-Triassic mass extinction, where volcanic eruptions and toxic gases wipe out many reptiles. This clears the way for dinosaurs to dominate the Jurassic. Sauropods grow gigantic, specialized herbivores and predators evolve, flight experiments unfold in the trees, and armored Stegosaurus perfects defensive weapons against apex hunters. The dinos have now cemented their supremacy on land. This episode includes a few moments that feel like contemporary versions of pop hits, but continues to build momentum and entertain at the same time. 

The dino “Empire” expands in the third episode, which jumps into the Cretaceous “age of extremes.” Volcanic warming melts northern ice. Flowering plants and insect pollinators trigger a green revolution that reshapes herbivore evolution. Ankylosaurs and other advanced plant-eaters thrive, while sea levels rise to all-time highs, turning continents like Europe into archipelagos with dwarf sauropods. Giant predators such as Hatzegopteryx and semi-aquatic Spinosaurus push dinosaur rule into the skies, islands, and the oceans. This may well be my favorite of the lot; you’ll understand why when you get to the part involving a shark. 

The final episode. “Fall,” follows dinos at the height of their global empire, from penguin-like aquatic Hesperornis and vast hadrosaur nurseries to heavily armed Triceratops and Ankylosaurus facing intelligent T. rex. These scenes are crosscut with the long approach of the Chicxulub asteroid, which spells ultimate doom for our dino friends. Its inevitable impact unleashes devastating planetary infernos and an abyssal impact winter, depicted in several heart-rending scenes. Non-avian dinosaurs are wiped out, while a few small feathered dinos survive and persist into the present as modern birds, the last living remnants of a once formidable reign. And, of course, we have fossils. Many, many fossils.

Here are a few facts I found particularly memorable:

• Marasuchus was a mouse-sized, warm-blooded, feather-fuzzed reptile that could run on two legs and is presented as the distant ancestor of all dinosaurs.

• Early sauropods like Vulcanodon led to giants such as Mamenchisaurus, whose neck could reach the height of a five-story building, while its brain remained smaller than an apple. 

• Heterodontosaurus, a chihuahua-sized dinosaur, had a powerful beak, varied teeth, and cheek pouches that allowed it to eat almost anything and store food for later. 

• Anchiornis, a small feathered dinosaur, could glide between trees and catch prey in midair, representing an early step toward powered flight. 

• In the Cretaceous, many plants evolved spines and toxins that herbivores like Stegosaurus could not handle, contributing to their extinction. 

• On the Isle of Hațeg, sauropods such as Magyarosaurus evolved to pony size due to limited island space and resources, an example of extreme dwarfism in giant dinosaurs. This evolutionary track reminds me a bit of the way Homo floresiensis evolved on the island of Flores, as portrayed in the documentary series Human (2025). 

• Hatzegopteryx, a giraffe-tall pterosaur, hunted these dwarf sauropods on Hațeg, effectively acting as a top terrestrial predator despite being a flier. 

• Spinosaurus, larger than a school bus, evolved as a semi-aquatic predator that hunted in oceans during record-high sea levels and specialized in ambushing large prey with extreme, and deadly, patience. 

• Some Cretaceous marine-adapted dinosaurs like Hesperornis swam with powerful feet, had rows of sharp teeth for catching fish, and were, as a result, clumsy when moving on land. 

• Ankylosaurs sang–I believe this claim remains potentially controversial from a strict scientific viewpoint–and displayed their armor to attract a mate. We see a male using resonating hollows in his snout to amplify his calls and then showing off his elaborate body armor during a courtship ritual.

While the earlier series Life on Our Planet received a splendid supporting book penned by Tom Fletcher, which I highly recommend, I’m not sure if the new show will get its own accompanying coffee-table volume. This is, after all, a more crowded field. But fret not. Steve Brusatte has you covered with his brilliant tome, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World (2019), which, save for a few recent discoveries, could easily be this show’s unofficial companion. That same year saw the publication of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual Guide to Prehistoric Animals in the DK series. For a slightly more niche but still spectacularly engrossing adventure, I point you to Ocean Life in the Time of Dinosaurs (2023), written by Nathalie Bardet, Alexandra Houssaye, Stéphane Jouve, Peggy Vincent, and richly illustrated by Alain Bénéteau. 

A word on this show’s music. I mentioned Lorne Balfe as the composer. He’s always been talented at bombast without loss of texture and has contributed countless uplifting, soaring, and anthemic melodies for film and television. The Dinosaurs is an eloquent showcase for his talents in this direction. But I tend to prefer him when he evokes awe more finely, as in “Dawn of the Giants,” and more dreamily, as in “Rise of Anky,” and it’s wonderful to see him explore these quieter modes throughout these four episodes as well. His music, refreshingly prominent in a way that most narrative feature films these days tend to eschew, certainly elevates the material on hand and also makes for a rewarding standalone listen.

Part of the filmmakers’ focus here seems to be on sleek cinematic moments and demo-style special effects beats. While on the whole the approach effectively channels the subject matter, it actually tends to dampen the emotional impact of the more mundane moments, which become smaller, rather than larger, when portrayed with these heightened, blockbuster-style techniques. For me the ultimate benchmark of this type of show remains the truly jaw-dropping, staggeringly realized Prehistoric Planet (2022-2025), which may yet, fingers crossed, hatch more episodes. And while The Dinosaurs doesn’t quite reach those geologic depths or storytelling heights, I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

What do the “giant sauropods, laid to rest in the cinders of the very trees that made them so tall” teach us? It’s hard not to regard the colossal rise and precipitous fall of all these magnificent creatures with an air of parabolic contemplation and selfish perplexity, wondering when we, in turn, shall join the cinders of the technological feats that once made us so tall.

Beneath time’s relentless cosmic sweep, when will humanity itself be brushed aside and become the future’s lost world?