Rating: 
Summary: Factually very accurate, but production lets it down.
Review: Walking with dinsosaurs was a masterpiece and shouldn't be missed by anyone. This series however lacks on two key points. The first is that the animation and animatronics looks much more fake than they ever did previously. Even some of the CGI is very jerky, whales shifting unrealistically mid-jump, other creatures doing the same. Then when we get to certain 'rubber' puppets, they shake and vibrate in a way that just screams PUPPET!If this were the UK region 2 version, there my criticism would end and the show would get a solid 4 stars. However this is the US version and the shameful editing is to be deplored. A couple of austrolipithicus (gasp) have sex. Like creatures have been doing for hundreds of millions of years. But in the US edition this scene is blurred out. Are Americans so pitifully prudish that they can stomach to see thousands of unnnatural acts of people shooting and killing each other in myriads of ways, but can't stomach 2 seconds of the most natural act in the world, sex, which if it wasn't blurred out, people would see was masked my grass anyway? Shame on the censors, shame on the BBC for allowing it, and shame on the narrow-minded who won't allow others to make up their own minds about the scene. For that, the US edition gets 3 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, visually stunning, mediocre narration.
Review: Walking with Prehistoric Beasts is an interesting series for lovers of natural history. One would think that someone who does Shakespeare well should be able to get a nature show narration right, but it's obvious that paleozoology isn't Kenneth Branagh's passion, and both here and in Walking with Dinosaurs one sometimes hears that he is reading a badly-rehearsed (and occasionally poorly-written) script. Sir David Attenborough with his authority and enthusiasm would have been perfect for the job, and I was a bit surprised that such a major BBC fronting didn't feature his legendary voice and employed his singular talent in writing nature show narrations. That aside, I enjoyed it both visually and from the educational point of view, even more so than Walking with Dinosaurs as this is a period of time that we, due to the dino craze, have heard far too little about in the major public channels before (would a film called Eocene Park be a great hit?). I particularly enjoyed learning more about the origin of whales with the incorporation of the recent fossil findings of the ambulocetus. Recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: BBC king of nature documentries!!!
Review: What can i say, this is one of the best follow up's with Walking With Dinosaurs and not to mention the DVD version is the BBC version.I ordered mine on the 12th from australia and have not received it yet.But a friend of mine recently got a copy from the US and i viewed it on his DVD player and what a treat it was.The score in this series aint as good as Walking With Dinosaurs but i find this series more interesting and more compelling.
Good work BBC and keep it up.
Rating:
Summary: Great Follow-Up to a Great Series
Review: With the enormous success of "Walking with Dinosaurs", it was only natural that Framestore and the BBC would follow-up that series with the age after the dinosaurs. "Walking with Prehistoric Beasts" is that series. In fact, this is the series that Executive Producer Tim Haines wanted to do, even more than "Walking with Dinosaurs". My first experience with this series was in London with the episode "Whale Killer". I knew then that this was something I wanted to see when it came across the "pond", and it was something I wanted to buy. It was a little disappointing that Stockard Channing, not Avery Brooks, narrated the Discovery Channel version, but she does a fair job. However, one would be better off buying the video version than taping the series off Discovery. The video version is the original version that aired in the UK, with Kenneth Branagh's original narration. As with "Walking with Dinosaurs", Branagh's narration is greatly superior to Channing or Brooks', though one has to remember that Branagh isn't working with a script written for a version that is chopped up to accomidate the slighty stricter US censors and commercial time. And the video has the *complete*, uncut episodes from the original BBC airing. The animation continues from "Dinosaurs" and appears just as realistic, despite the added difficulty of rendering fur and feathers! Although this is a excellent series, there are certain flaws that prevent the series from getting five stars. The animatronics continue to be, IMHO, of a lesser quality than the animation; they still look like rubber puppets. This is perhaps at it's most glaring in the fourth episode, with the early humans. The humans in that episode, despite more than adequate animation, just don't "feel" real, either animated or animatrionic. In fact, in my opinion, the primates featured in this series look more like animated characters than real animals. Only the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon humans have any semblance of realism, and only because they are portrayed by actors. The extras featured in the DVD make this series even more worthwhile. Included on the second disc are the two "Making of..." hour-long episodes. Also on the disc are interviews with the creators of the series, stats on the animals featured in the series, and various images of the animals. All in all, "Walking with Prehistoric Beasts" is an excellent follow-up to "Dinosaurs", despite the technical flaws. Once again, Tim Haines proves why Framestore is to televison what Industrial Light and Magic is to movies. I hope that Haines and company will follow up this series with episodes of the animals from *before* the age of dinosaurs, though, from the previews I've seen, I hold no hope for "Walking with Cavemen"!
Rating:
Summary: Great Follow-Up to a Great Series
Review: With the enormous success of "Walking with Dinosaurs", it was only natural that Framestore and the BBC would follow-up that series with the age after the dinosaurs. "Walking with Prehistoric Beasts" is that series. In fact, this is the series that Executive Producer Tim Haines wanted to do, even more than "Walking with Dinosaurs". My first experience with this series was in London with the episode "Whale Killer". I knew then that this was something I wanted to see when it came across the "pond", and it was something I wanted to buy. It was a little disappointing that Stockard Channing, not Avery Brooks, narrated the Discovery Channel version, but she does a fair job. However, one would be better off buying the video version than taping the series off Discovery. The video version is the original version that aired in the UK, with Kenneth Branagh's original narration. As with "Walking with Dinosaurs", Branagh's narration is greatly superior to Channing or Brooks', though one has to remember that Branagh isn't working with a script written for a version that is chopped up to accomidate the slighty stricter US censors and commercial time. And the video has the *complete*, uncut episodes from the original BBC airing. The animation continues from "Dinosaurs" and appears just as realistic, despite the added difficulty of rendering fur and feathers! Although this is a excellent series, there are certain flaws that prevent the series from getting five stars. The animatronics continue to be, IMHO, of a lesser quality than the animation; they still look like rubber puppets. This is perhaps at it's most glaring in the fourth episode, with the early humans. The humans in that episode, despite more than adequate animation, just don't "feel" real, either animated or animatrionic. In fact, in my opinion, the primates featured in this series look more like animated characters than real animals. Only the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon humans have any semblance of realism, and only because they are portrayed by actors. The extras featured in the DVD make this series even more worthwhile. Included on the second disc are the two "Making of..." hour-long episodes. Also on the disc are interviews with the creators of the series, stats on the animals featured in the series, and various images of the animals. All in all, "Walking with Prehistoric Beasts" is an excellent follow-up to "Dinosaurs", despite the technical flaws. Once again, Tim Haines proves why Framestore is to televison what Industrial Light and Magic is to movies. I hope that Haines and company will follow up this series with episodes of the animals from *before* the age of dinosaurs, though, from the previews I've seen, I hold no hope for "Walking with Cavemen"!
Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Documentary!!!
Review: WOW!! This is one of the most amazing documentaries on prehistoric life I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot of documentaries on prehistoric life)! Walking With Prehistoric Beasts starts off 50 million years ago, just a few million years after the extincion of the dinosaurs. In the beginning of the show, the narrator introduces the small mammal called Leptictidium, a swift six foot tall bird called Gastronis, and other beasts. after on, the documentary shows a primitive whale that was 30 tons and four times the length of a great white shark, the planet's largest predatory land mammal (which is interestingly enough related to ungulates like sheep and goats), a two story tall rhino which was the largest land mammal ever on earth, a nasty scavenging hog (one of the most fearsome and ugly creatures in the show), and several other weird, fearsome, and magnificent beasts that once ruled the earth. Later in the documentary, the ice age comes, as well as an amazing and somewhat hairless ape... Man. I could go on and on talking about this show, but I won't :-). Let me sumarise this amazing five star documentary to you, the reader, in three words: BUY IT NOW!!
Rating:
Summary: Very weel done.
Review: Yeah, BBC still know how to make a killer prehistoric animal documentary. I found this show to be very interesting and for the most part very well researched. The CGI effects are amazing, but at times you can still tell it's artificial. Not enough to effect the rating, though. The animals are awesome. I loved the basilosaurus. They also did a good job telling the story of our early ancestors. My dad's a christian, and I almost luaghed ou loud at the look on his face when they went into detail about the man-apes. I took a star off the rating for something that will probably only bother me. The terror birds, a subject I happen to be very interested in, could have been done better. The gastornis was alright except for it's lacking of arms, which is a fairly recent discovery, but the titanis birds near the end were very poorly portrayed. The neck was far too long and the body too small. Also, the birds are shown as pitiful scavengers being terrorized by the sabretooths. Hahaha. Don't hold your breath. Again, these birds were lacking their arms. But if you're like most people and don't know a terror bird from a tweety bird, then this show is the perfect documentary on ice-age animals and men.
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