Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I did not have high hopes for this series. I assumed it would be rather silly and was looking to be entertained by the strange and the bizarre. I did find those aspects but I found more as well.
These programs look at the possible evolution of life in the future without humans and in radically different environments. These speculative life forms are interesting but I expected nothing beyond wild, "artists' conceptions". The results are wild but they are based on informed speculation. However bizarre the hypothetical creature presented is, it is compared to current fauna with similar or analogous features. Those features are just taken further and the results are interesting to watch.
This program could be looked upon as a way to teach the fundamental ideas of natural selection in a new and different manner; looking to the future instead of the past.
Episode synopses appear below:
Disc One: 5 Million Years - Ice Age World
Welcome to the Future - This first episode sets out the suppositions. It postulates a world without humans in which natural selection has had free reign to produce bizarre new life forms. Three time periods are posited. The first is about 5 million years from now. The earth is in the grip of a terrible ice age and the life forms are adapted accordingly. The next scenario takes the opposite extreme. It takes place 100 million years in the future and is a hothouse world. To change things even more dramatically, the third epoch conceived is 200 million years in the future and takes place after a mass extinction event in which most species are killed and the few survivors adapt and radiate into the strangest life forms of all. Each period provides brief glances at some to the imaginary life forms of the future but none is examined in any real depth. This episode serves to set the stage for what is to come by giving the background.
Return of the Ice - This episode concentrate on an arctic environment about 5 million years in the future. Some of the life forms presented include a large rodent which travels in herds, a bird evolved to take the place of toothed whales and a large carnivore that preys on both of them.
The Vanished Sea - Taking place in the same ice age of the previous episode, this episode examines a completely different environment. The locus is the Mediterranean Sea with a big difference from the present day. It is all dried up and is now a salt desert supporting only specifically adapted animals. The ones examined closely in this episode are a large frilled lizard living on the salt flats, a descendant of the martin which is now a major predator and a highly evolved pig.
The Prairies of Amazonia - In this episode we visit yet another biome of the ice age of the future. This one is the vast grassland that occupies most of the continent of South America. It has replaced the Amazon and there are some new and different creatures but, by and large, these creatures face the same challenges that confront today's inhabitants of savannahs. We are introduced to a tool making monkey that bears some resemblance to a baboon, a large flightless bird which has become a top predator and a large rodent which has evolved defensive armor.
Cold Kansas Desert - The climate this time is the great desert of the North American Midwest. This desert, though, is frigid owing to the great ice fields. Here, we encounter a large rodent related to the ones of the grasslands of the previous episode. They feed on the same tubers as a small, burrowing descendant of the quail; one with a hive oriented social structure. These flightless birds are the principal prey of gigantic, carnivorous bats which roam the skies looking for easy pickings; they are the evolutionary successors to the buzzards.
Disc Two: 100 Million Years - Hothouse World
Waterland - An additional 95 million years has passed since the time of the previous disk and the world has changed a lot. It is a very hot and very moist world and life has had to adapt. This first episode takes place in a swamp environment. Huge descendants of turtles, the largest land animal ever to walk the earth, stalk the swamps looking for vegetation to eat. Trying to keep out of the way are terrestrial (amphibious) octopi. These mollusks have colonized the land seeking safety from large, predatory fish which use electricity on a scale not envisioned by our modern eels.
Flooded World - I like coelenterates as much as the next guy but this episode didn't do much for me. It focuses on the shallow seas of the hothouse earth. The major critters are a huge jellyfish that actually consists of a variety of creatures working together for the common good, a sea slug that has become as mobile as your average fish and a sea spider that exists to protect the big jellyfish.
Tropical Antarctica - Antarctica has migrated from its position over the southern pole and has become a lush, tropical jungle. Many of the depicted life forms are evolved from petrels. Some take the role of a hummingbird and another has evolved a noxious chemical weapon system. Very large insects are a major predator but smaller insects get their licks in as well. This was a pretty good episode.
The Great Plateau - This episode takes place on a mountain plateau that makes the Himalayas look like minor foothills. Its inhabitants include giant, blue birds with four wings, large spiders that build webs across canyons and which farm mammals and these curious mammals which are the last ones left on earth. It's another really good episode.
Disc Three: 200 Million Years - New World
The Endless Desert - It's a new world. Vulcanism and an asteroid strike have changed the planet immensely. The continents coming together to form a super-continent has also had an effect. Most of the earth is a vast desert. The wiping out of most species has provided new opportunities for a few. A termite has evolved to be adapted to hunting, agriculture and mining. Worms have it good as well and demonstrate both agrarian and hunting varieties.
The Global Ocean - One continent means that there is once ocean as well and this ocean has seen some major changes. Fish are virtually gone. Their multitudinous places in the ecosystems have been taken over by arthropods. Fish are not completely gone, however. Some have become real flying creatures that can breath air. Cephalopods are around as well and they have evolved. Their intelligence is greater and their camouflage is more effective. They can also get huge. Some things remain the same, however. Sharks are still efficient killers; they have just further refined their methods.
Graveyard Desert - More troubles in the desert are the theme of this one as we learn about scavenging beetles, scavenging worms, hopping snails and some carnivorous plants that feed on larger life forms than small bugs. This has been the only episode thus far where a plant is a significant part of the show.
The Tentacled Forest - Although most of the land is a great desert, there is a magnificent rainforest along the coast. In this environment there are more fish turned to land dwelling flying creatures, giant lichens which resemble trees, slime molds that hunt and a gigantic, walking terrestrial squid. To top things off, there is another squid which dwells in the trees and swings around like an ape. These are intelligent squids and the possibility is left open that they will further involve and become...civilized.
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Item Name: The Future Is Wild; Studio:Image Entertainment
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