decline of quality dinosaur documentaries and series

[dyno77]

Iv mentioned this before but even in the last year i cant remember any dinosaur documentaries or features at all in the last year,apart from fossil hunters...
Its sad that there simply isnt any more good dinosaur series or documentaries,its almost if the makers of them forgot how to make interesting features on dinosaurs . Other topics such as egypt and the natural world ,and alot of historical documentaries still get made that are of quality,and even the occasional feature about prehistoric life in the ice age or mega fauna,but when it comes to dinosaurs ,i simply dont know why they cannot seem to make any quality or interesting features anymore...
And youtube has some good features about dinosaurs and their history and discovery updates,but it just not the same as high quality 2 hour feature...
I simply cannot name any dinosaur documentary being released this entire year...or even in the last 5 years..

[Carnoking]

Wasn't Jon Favreau working on some dinosaur related documentary? I'm sure it's fallen to the wayside in favor of The Mandolorian, but here's hoping.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Lots of reasons for it. Cable tv has been dropping as a format, netflix, prime, ect...want more drama and a quick turn around, the science can change before a documentary is even released, I mean pick your poison really.  The days of a sweeping big time high end documentary is probably gone as they just aren't really viable.

[stargatedalek]

I think there is also the issue of the market being over-saturated with low quality cheap documentaries not particularly long ago.

Walking With Dinosaurs(/Beasts/Monsters) and Dinosaur Planet were a very successful formula but most programs that followed (IE When Dinosaurs Roamed America) leaned far less into the "nature documentary with dinosaurs" element and instead used a lot of explanation segments to pad out run time and give the program project a "more traditional" entertainment program formula.

Everything was downhill from there it didn't take long before Discover Channel realized they could use talking head segments to squeeze twenty odd minutes of CGI into an entire series of cheap documentaries. This was quickly followed by everyone's absolute favourite and in totally no way blight on the concept of the documentary itself; Jurassic Fight Club.

Even later programs that used more CGI like Planet Dinosaur (not to be confused with Dinosaur Planet, no relation) completely did away with the idea of the documentary resembling the way modern animals are sometimes depicted and instead opt for generic explanatory voice overs with brief constantly changing CGI backdrops. For that to have been the genres (as of now) last hurrah, leaving as bad a taste and having so little of an impact as it did, I don't think we will be seeing big name dinosaur documentaries coming back anytime soon.

Outside of Japan, anyway...

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

I agree that it's disappointing we haven't gotten a good documentary in a while. Dinosaur Revolution and Planet Dinosaur were the last dinosaur documentaries that I was excited for, and DR never got a proper home release or even re-runs. There was also Flying Monsters 3D and Ice Age Giants (the latter of which I haven't seen yet).

I would certainly like to see an updated rendition of When Dinosaurs Roamed America, but I feel it would not live up to expectations unless it gets the kind of treatment that Dinosaur Revolution did.

[Georassic]

I find myself rewatching all the old ones on YouTube. Much of it outdated, some badly, but better than nothing.

[Subduction]

I agree! But I think good, non-biased/scientifically accurate documentaries are hard to come by in general. Especially nowadays when people want drama and tension over facts. Although, I'd highly recommend Curiosity streaming. They have lots of good documentaries and even a couple of dino documentaries and series, such as Ancient Earth, Amazing Dinoworld, Leaps in Evolution, and Ice Age Giants.

[GojiraGuy1954]

I've heard we'll get a trailer for the BBC's Prehistoric Planet later in the year