What kind of dinosaur was on Doctor Who last night?

[Paleogene Pals]

Whatever it was, it was almost as big as Big Ben, and the Doctor could clearly observe it above the city skyline from a long distance away. Plus, it easily swallowed the TARDIS. Too bad that half-faced man torched it. Is there a new super gigantic theropod I don't know about yet?

[stargatedalek]

its called; BBC doesn't give a *cuss* about accuracy -asaurus

I haven't seen it yet, but it seems to have been intended to be a tyrannosaur of some sort, and if they didn't explicitly state otherwise the average person who doesn't already know better are just going to think it was a tyrannosaurus

I read at one point in an interview/press release of some sort that BBC were claiming their Primeval depictions were accurate

[Paleogene Pals]

I take it accuracy wasn't important to the plot. But, it was just so dang big!

[SBell]

It's Doctor Who. Their dinosaurs are always more monster than science. It's not supposed to be real, it's supposed to be fiction. This isn't WwD (the original anyway). And I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a T.rex.

Also, the weird thing about the BBC claiming that Primeval was based on accurate descriptions is odd, given that the show was on ITV and produced by Impossible Pictures, neither of which are the BBC.

[stargatedalek]

it aired on BBC originally, and they have ownership of the title (well, I suppose Space-Canada technically co-owns it now?)
and AFAIK Impossible Pictures is a subsidiary of BBC, since they also made the WWD spin-offs

I have nothing against inaccurate dinosaurs in media per-se, just against companies not admitting their dinosaurs are inaccurate which only leads to misleading public perception and emphasizing stereotypes about dinosaurs

after having seen the episode I can say the dinosaur itself was disappointing, but I'm very pleased in the new darker direction the show is going

[Paleogene Pals]

Yeah, the "science" in science fiction is always creative. Overall, this episode definitely shows a darker side to the Doctor. When he 'left' Clara trapped with the robots, I thought he really did leave her. This is definitely going to keep the suspense factor going. And, I think Peter Capaldi is gonna make a fine Doctor indeed.

[SBell]

I just watched the episode, and they brush off the size issue--Lady Vastra mentions, despite her wife's insistence that the bones she's seen are smaller, that dinosaurs were that big when she was around them.

So once again, Doctor Who is messing with us on all counts. As it should.

[DinoLord]

Well if one considers the general rarity for an animal to be fossilized, it becomes unlikely for the very largest individuals of a species to become fossilized to their being very rare already (I feel like this has been talked about somewhere else on the forum too). Under this logic the size discrepancy is excusable (though the length of the arms is not).

[stargatedalek]

Big Ben is 96m tall, the dinosaur was taller than Big Ben when standing upright so its height was somewhere around 70m, divide 70m by 4 (average height of Tyrannosaurus) and then times it by 12.3 (average length of Tyrannosaurus) then we'd get its length...

215.25m long

thats not a reasonable size discrepancy, thats a kaiju...

[DinoLord]

Hm... I had assumed the shot in the beginning with Big Ben was due to some sort of weirdly angled perspective. Probably should have looked more carefully at the later shots of the dinosaur in the night. 

[Paleogene Pals]

That is exactly what I thought, Godzilla-sized! Unless going through a time vortex outside the TARDIS increases one size and mass. I guess when you calculate the interdimensional shift factor, 200 meters is about right. Which brings up another point, Lady Vastra is over 65 million years old? Or is she a time traveler too?

[stargatedalek]

she was presumably in stasis for much of that time

[Blackdanter]

it aired on BBC originally, and they have ownership of the title (well, I suppose Space-Canada technically co-owns it now?)
and AFAIK Impossible Pictures is a subsidiary of BBC, since they also made the WWD spin-offs

I have nothing against inaccurate dinosaurs in media per-se, just against companies not admitting their dinosaurs are inaccurate which only leads to misleading public perception and emphasizing stereotypes about dinosaurs

after having seen the episode I can say the dinosaur itself was disappointing, but I'm very pleased in the new darker direction the show is going

Primeval was an ITV series and was never produced by or broadcast by BBC television. Impossible Pictures is a private production company co owned by one of the creators of WWD. WWD was comissioned by the BBC, they own the franchise only and have no ownership of Impossible Pictures.

[stargatedalek]

than why is BBC in the opening credits of the show and on all of the media for it?
even the cover; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808096/

[Ultimatedinoking]

Big Ben is 96m tall, the dinosaur was taller than Big Ben when standing upright so its height was somewhere around 70m, divide 70m by 4 (average height of Tyrannosaurus) and then times it by 12.3 (average length of Tyrannosaurus) then we'd get its length...

215.25m long

thats not a reasonable size discrepancy, thats a kaiju...

Not sure what a "kaiju" is, but that would be an impossibly large theropod, no, that would be impossibly large for any animal!

[tyrantqueen]

Big Ben is 96m tall, the dinosaur was taller than Big Ben when standing upright so its height was somewhere around 70m, divide 70m by 4 (average height of Tyrannosaurus) and then times it by 12.3 (average length of Tyrannosaurus) then we'd get its length...

215.25m long

thats not a reasonable size discrepancy, thats a kaiju...

Not sure what a "kaiju" is, but that would be an impossibly large theropod, no, that would be impossibly large for any animal!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiju

[Ultimatedinoking]

Big Ben is 96m tall, the dinosaur was taller than Big Ben when standing upright so its height was somewhere around 70m, divide 70m by 4 (average height of Tyrannosaurus) and then times it by 12.3 (average length of Tyrannosaurus) then we'd get its length...

215.25m long

thats not a reasonable size discrepancy, thats a kaiju...

Not sure what a "kaiju" is, but that would be an impossibly large theropod, no, that would be impossibly large for any animal!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiju

Oh, I thought it was some type of Japanese food.

[brandem]

So it's larger than any terran creature could be, the real question is how did it survive naked exposure to the time vortex? Come on Steven Moffat.

[stargatedalek]

^perhaps that explains where all the poor things feathers went, why its limbs were stretched and deformed, and why its skin was burnt into resembling crocodile scutes

[Paleogene Pals]

Yes of course! I remember now, the Silurians were in stasis. Clara Oswald survived a trip in the time vortex outside the TARDIS, that is why the TARDIS was so late getting back the Eleventh Doctor on Trenzalore. The TARDIS engulfed her in a protective shield slowing it down. Perhaps, the same happened with the dino.

UDK, kaiju is not a type of Japanese food, but you would be considered food to a kaiju.

OK, another question, on "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship", the dinos were more or less "normal" size, yet Vastra recalls them being much larger. What gives?