Prehistoric Park was an old documentary about Nigel Marven using a time portal to go back and rescue extinct animals. Sadly, BBC canceled it after one six-episode season in favor of Primeval, which did nothing but contribute to Jurassic Park's unfortunate "Prehistoric animals are monsters" craze. I, amongst others, wish they continued it as a zoo with extinct animals sounds like an awesome if done right. So, what would you have wanted them to rescue if they didn't cancel it? My biggest wish was that Nigel went back to Cretaceous Egypt to rescue Spinosaurus, while also bringing back other animals as well. They also mentioned building an aquarium that, again, never materialized. My favorite aquatic suggestion would be either Megalodon in Miocene Peru or Liopleurodon in Jurassic England. And of course, Stegosaurus or Dimetrodon would have been amazing to see. Link to Prehistoric Park on Wikipedia: (Prehistoric Park - Wikipedia)
I, like many other, wrote six episodes for a sequel series. I must admit that while some of the features you wish to see show up, I focused on other creatures. I could share the idea, should you be interested.
Was there ever a satisfying explanation offered as to why Nigel went scratching around looking for Smilodon at a time when they were about to die out (and time consuming to find) versus transporting himself back to a time when there were large prides of them?
I mean, in the show they say they want to "save them from extinction", plus rescuing them in their direst time adds drama. You could also argue some space-time continuum technobabble.
Looking through the plots of other episodes, I see last minute rescues are a reoccurring theme. I had wondered if it was because of the reasoning that removing the last of something wouldn’t effect the continuum in that there would never be more; but then again - How do they know there weren’t more two forests over? How do they know the absence of that ‘last’ animal’s rotting carcass wouldn’t have fed something scavenger like that was vital to the evolution of the world as we know it? I suppose the answer is that I shouldn’t read too much into a fictional show, but plot holes always bug the hell out of me. I could similarly wonder how the park passed work safety audits or why Nigel didn’t use the time machine to go forward in time and learn the results of major sporting games that he could put a bet on back in the present.
There have been many fan-fiction stories written that expands upon the series. I grew up reading Prehistoric Park: Extinction World, but now there is a new reimagined version of the series which far more interesting as it introduces many other extinct animals including many obscured ones and some are named after animal and human characters in popular culture. Here is the link and be sure to share to your friends. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13551751/1/Prehistoric-Park-Reimagined
I'm a huge fan & I really wished he could've brought back more mammals, particularly more extinct felines & ungulates (a ground sloth would've been awesome). I also would've loved to see an aviary with pterosaurs & a sea pen with megalodon & basilosaurus (as well as other cetaceans).
Interestingly, Nigel Marven and his film crew show up in one of the Primeval episodes (Season 3, Episode 4). He presumably goes through an anomaly and some people suggest this is how Prehistoric Park got started. By perfecting the time travel technology which exists in the Primeval universe, Nigel Marven is able to travel back to the past and bring back species threatened by extinction. Since the time-space continuum was a pretty big theme in Primeval, you could argue that the same rules apply to Prehistoric Park. So to limit the effect of taking away an animal from its spot in the timeline, Nigel Marven and his team go to a moment in time with the lowest chance of having a major butterfly effect, so right before major extinction events or when there's only a few individual members of a species left. It's a shame the show got cancelled after one season. I personally would have loved an episode on extinct Australian megafauna.
