My Thoughts On Prehistoric Planet Season 2 Episode 2

Episode 2 is all about the Badlands and is currently one of the best episodes of the season so far, maybe even one of the best episodes in the series. It's that good.

First of all, this episode is very well focused, with only 2 areas of the world being in this episode. Don't get me wrong, I also like episodes that jump around the world, but having an episode with focus means better world-building. It gives the viewers a broader sense of the environment and the animals that lived there. In Badlands, we only get to see India and Mongolia. The former is rarely, if ever, featured in a paleo documentary. The bulk of the episode still focuses on the deserts of Mongolia, with the India sections rounding out the beginning and end of the episode. Between season 1 and now season 2, I think Mongolia is the most fleshed-out area in the story.

What makes the 2 areas in this episode special is that when you look at a lot of paleo media depicting the age of dinosaurs, you'll see more lush environments full of trees and water and not harsh environments like deserts and volcanic fields. Yeah, I know a lot of old-school dinosaur art likes to have a volcano in the background, but this episode goes deep into the volcanic fields showing the Deccan Traps of India. This is also why I keep talking about icy/polar environments as well. These environments are rarer when it comes to dinosaur media. These stories are all about survival, and we know dinosaurs survived in some really extreme biomes, just like modern animals. We know dinosaurs have adapted to life in these environments somehow. They make the best stories even if we don't know exactly how they manage in these biomes.

There are a lot of new dinosaurs in this episode, with the first Pachycephalosaur in the series, Prenocephale. My personal favorite is the Tarchia, an armored ankylosaur. We only got to see an ankylosaur for less than a minute in season 1, so I appreciate them getting some screen time here. The India section features Isisaurus and Rajasaurus, two rather obscure dinosaurs in pop culture. Special mention to the Rajasaurus skin textures. It just looks super realistic with a beautiful red and black color scheme.

One thing I don't talk about enough is the sound. The main theme is beautiful as always, and we also get music that fits the mood brilliantly for all the moments in the show. The dinosaur sounds are so rich and varied. I love the Kuru kulla's low purr when it calls its babies. All the Titanosaurs honking and echoing from the valley walls in panic was just perfection. Making realistic-sounding sounds can't be easy for animals that are long extinct. The sound team deserves more love.

I didn't know how I felt about the new talking head segments inserted at the end of yesterday's episode, and that segment returns this episode... with a twist. This is the longest episode so far. The length of the animal documentary segment was just as long as any of the other episodes in the last season, then they added the extra science segment at the end making it the longest episode so far. So much for my worry about these science segments being used to pad out the episodes. Maybe the last episode was just shorter due to the stories they had not being very long, so it ended up being one of the shorter episodes. I am so happy this episode was lengthy with some good science talk at the end.