History Main / TheCretaceousIsAlwaysDoomed

** Averted in ''Series/PrehistoricPlanet''; while the series takes place at the end of the Cretaceous Period, the focus is placed on the evolutionary success of dinosaurs and the series ends on a hopeful note with a ''Hatzegopteryx'' flying off into the sunset.

** ''Series/WalkingWithDinosaurs'' itself naturally concludes with an episode about the asteroid and the mass extinction that followed, but it begins a few months before the strike so the narrative can follow some of the doomed creatures. Perhaps uniquely, it also emphasises how the Cretaceous really ''was'' doomed; thanks to climate change and volcanic activity, dinosaurs are dying out and likely would have become extinct even without the asteroid.

* Invoked in the ''[[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague Justice League Unlimited]]'' episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueUnlimitedS1E13TimeWarped The Once and Future Thing: Time, Warped]]". Lord Chronos punishes his goon Chucko by stranding him in the Cretaceous at the moment of the meteor's landing. ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill At the site]]'' [[ColonyDrop of the meteor's landing]]. Leads to some hilarious [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVn-G3Ky2pg last words.]] Chronos, back in the present, then asks the rest of his goons, "Do you know what killed the dinosaurs? Well, ''Chucko does.''"

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

* {{Averted}} in ''Series/TerraNova''. The temporal conduit does take people to the Cretaceous, but roughly 20 million years before the K-Pg extinction. (For context, 20 million years is longer than hominids of any kind have existed, much less human civilization.)

--->'''UsefulNotes/TyrannosaurusRex:''' ''[roars]''\\
'''Chucko''': You think I'm scared? ''[ignites dual-bladed lightsaber]'' I'll be running this dump in a few yea... ''[turns and sees asteroid]'' [[ThisIsGonnaSuck Oh, phooey...]]

-->-- '''The Doctor''', ''Series/DoctorWho'', [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E2TheFiresOfPompeii "The Fires of Pompeii"]]

[[folder:Films — Animated]]
* Subverted in Disney's ''WesternAnimation/{{Dinosaur}}''. Since it's a dinosaur movie, we get the obligatory asteroid strike to kick off the plot, but it's not ''the'' asteroid strike — its damage appears to be confined to a relatively small area, and the dinosaurs in the cast manage to survive by migrating ''en masse'' to the nearest fertile area.

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': While no dinosaurs (aside from a few fossilised bones) actually appear in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E6Earthshock "Earthshock"]], the final episode has Adric trying to prevent a space freighter from crashing into the prehistoric Earth, unaware that the freighter is destined to become the "asteroid" which caused the K-Pg extinction. Not only does he fail to stop the impact, he ends up dying in the resulting explosion. (Depending on your view of [[TimeyWimeyBall how time travel works in the Whoniverse]], this is arguably justified: it's not that the freighter "happened" to arrive on Extinction Day; Extinction Day was going to be ''whatever day the freighter arrived on''.)

[[folder:Web Video]]

* ''[[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague Justice League Unlimited]]'':
** Invoked in "The Once and Future Thing." Lord Chronos punishes his goon Chucko by stranding him in the Cretaceous at the moment of the meteor's landing. ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill At the site]]'' [[ColonyDrop of the meteor's landing]]. Leads to some hilarious [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVn-G3Ky2pg last words.]]
--->'''UsefulNotes/TyrannosaurusRex''': *roars*\\
'''Chucko''': You think I'm scared? *ignites dual-bladed lightsaber* I'll be running this dump in a few yea... *turns and sees asteroid* [[ThisIsGonnaSuck Oh, phooey...]]
** Chronos, back in the present, then asks the rest of his goons, "Do you know what killed the dinosaurs? Well, ''Chucko does.''"

* The 2003 ''Westernanimation/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|2003}}'' zigags this trope. At a point in the Cretaceous Period, the turtles travel back to prevent a plan by a villain that would cause the asteroid in the K-Pg extinction to narrowly miss the Earth, temporarily lose MacGuffin that would allow them to return to the present for a few days before finding it at the end of the episode. During the episode, we see a bright red dot in the sky that Donatello assumes is the asteroid in the distance, but he admits that he doesn't know when its going to hit and when he doesn't know if they'll get back to the present, he guesses it could be anywhere from weeks to years.

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

* ''Series/RedDwarf:'' When Lister insists on using a time machine to go back to 21st century Earth and order a few thousand curries, the time machine misses, and winds up depositing them in Dallas, on the day of JFK's assassination. Right in the book depository as Lee Harvey Oswald's lining up his shot.
* ''Series/TheTimeTunnel''. If the protagonists ended up in a place where a historic event took place, they always arrived just before said event occurred. Indeed, the very first episode sends them to the ''Titanic''.
* In ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "There's No Time Like the Past" this was being done intentionally at first, as a man goes back in time to attempt to warn the people of Hiroshima about a nuclear bomb in 1945 (hours before it hit), prevent the sinking of the RMS Lusitania (hours before it was torpedoed), and kill UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler before UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. But when he decides to stop trying to change the past and go live in 1881, this trope still comes into play. He arrives the day before President UsefulNotes/JamesGarfield is assassinated, but decides to let it happen. Then it turns out he arrived a few days before a huge fire killed some children at the local schoolhouse, and he struggles with whether or not to prevent it, only to end up causing it when he does try to intervene.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "Road to Germany", Brian and Stewie travel back in time to Warsaw, Poland (though how they got to Poland from Rhode Island is never explained), September 1st, 1939. The date that Germany invades Poland and kicks off UsefulNotes/WorldWarII (the Germans did not reach Warsaw until a week later). They have time for one Jewish wedding before tanks start rolling in.

* In Creator/{{Swing 123}}'s ''Triassic Park: Into the Past'', Calvin and Hobbes end up in the late Cretaceous Period, three days before the K-Pg Extinction Event.

[[folder:Film — Animated]]

[[folder:Film - Live-Action]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

* Inverted in ''Series/Primeval''. Abby and Connor are trapped in the Cretaceous for a year and have to fight to survive there. None of them are worried about the comet hitting Earth. They are much more worried about the [[SavageSpinosaurus Spinosaurus]], which has his territory right next to them.

* With all the dinosaurs either being of AmbiguousSpecies or Jurassic and Cretaceous dinosaurs, living in a [[OneMillionBC generic stereotypical prehistory]], ''{{Series/Dinosaurs}}'' could theoretically take place at any time during the Mesozoic, right? Nope. The last episode shows the start of the K-Pg extinction. (That was a deliberate choice of TorchTheFranchiseAndRun on the showrunners' part, but ''still''.)

* ''Film/SixtyFive'': No time travel is involved but it's otherwise played incredibly straight. Two HumanAlien survivors of a spaceship crash find themselves on prehistoric Earth during the time of dinosaurs. But not just ''any'' time, they have the incredible misfortune to land on the planet less than ''one day'' before the cataclysmic ColonyDrop. It's partly justified; they only got stranded on the planet when smaller asteroids, debris surrounding the big one, impacted their ship in outer space.

** Averted by ''Series/DinosaurPlanet''. All four stories are set in the ''Middle'' Cretaceous with nary an asteroid in sight. The only story showing the [[spoiler:death of the main characters (Little Das' Hunt)]] is but a ''localized'' disaster.
* Averted in ''Series/PrehistoricPlanet''; while the series takes place at the end of the Cretaceous Period, the focus is placed on the evolutionary success of dinosaurs and the series ends on a hopeful note with a ''Hatzegopteryx'' flying off into the sunset.

* Averted in ''Series/PrehistoricPlanet''; while the series takes place at the end of the Cretaceous Period, the focus is placed on the dinosaurs and the series ends on a hopeful note with a ''Hatzegopteryx'' flying off into the sunset.

This is when TheThemeParkVersion of prehistory reveals its dark side for time travelers. No matter how sophisticated the method of time travel used, the arrivers will always have to complete their tasks before the asteroid arrives. There is no way around it, sometimes even if you're observing [[ArtisticLicensePaleontology Jurassic or Triassic dinosaurs]]. And if the TimeTravel in question was random, it's even more astounding that EVERY protagonist gets sent back to the exact same date. [[note]]If arriving at any random point during the existence of non-avian dinosaurs, there is a 1 out of 64.6 billion chance to land on a specific date.[[/note]] Considering the margin of error in the date of the impact, even if you went to exactly (or roughly) 65 million years ago on purpose, the odds that the impact is going to happen while you're there must be minuscule even if you stayed there for the rest of your life.

* {{Averted}} in ''Series/TerraNova''. The temporal conduit does take people to the Cretaceous, but roughly 20 million years before the K-Pg extinction.

* Justified in ''TabletopGame/Predation'', where the choice of just before the asteroid impact was intentional so as to minimize the risk of a butterfly effect (the mass extinction "washing out" any changes the humans might make). It would have been a good plan [[OhCrap had time travel not abruptly stopped working]].

* Non-time travel example: In the DistantPrologue ("distant" meaning "prehistory") to ''Series/PowerRangersDinoCharge'', Sledge chases the Keeper to Earth and shoots him down. The Keeper is able to retaliate by sneaking a bomb aboard Sledge's ship, which then drops the load of asteroids it was carrying, and I think you can see where this is going...

* ''VideoGame/EVOSearchForEden'' ends the dinosaur era with a massive meteor bombardment, and makes a point of showing the stegosaurus mother, who's child you saved in an earlier level, [[PlayerPunch laying dead together huddled in fear]].

* ''Fanfic/PrehistoricEarth'': In the t. rex rescue mission, ''A Continent of Blight'', the rescue team for the titular park travel to the late Cretaceous period just in time to rescue the KingOfTheDinosaurs and various other late Cretaceous Hell Creek fauna from the infamous meteor impact[[spoiler:...with team leader Drew ending up temporarily marooned in the past ''after'' said meteor impact]].

* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': In ''Megamorphs 2'', a hole in space-time causes the Animorphs to accidentally arrive one day before the asteroid hit. They get into a tussle with several warring AncientAstronauts trying to colonize Earth, the losing species attempting revenge by diverting the path of a passing comet. The meteor's strike creates another hole that lets the kids return to the present. It was one of the weirder books.

* {{Averted}} in ''Literature/TheNewDinosaurs'' by Dougal Dixon, which speculates on how dinosaurs and pterosaurs may have evolved if the K-Pg extinction ''hadn't'' happened.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': While no dinosaurs (aside from a few fossilised bones) actually appear in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E6Earthshock "Earthshock"]], the final episode has Adric trying to prevent a space freighter from crashing into the prehistoric Earth, unaware that the freighter is destined to become the "asteroid" which caused the K-Pg extinction. Not only does he fail to stop the impact, he ends up dying in the resulting explosion.

* With all the dinosaurs either being of AmbiguousSpecies or Jurassic and Cretaceous StockDinosaurs, living in a [[OneMillionBC generic stereotypical prehistory]], ''{{Series/Dinosaurs}}'' could theoretically take place at any time during the Mesozoic, right? Nope. The last episode shows the start of the K-Pg extinction. (That was a deliberate choice of TorchTheFranchiseAndRun on the showrunners' part, but ''still''.)

* While they don't often involve time travel (with [[Series/PrehistoricPark maybe one exception]]), many dinosaur documentaries which follow the life of an individual dinosaur are fond of ending their stories [[KillEmAll by having the asteroid impact]]. (If said documentaries are made by Creator/TheBBC it's a pretty safe bet that they'll use StockFootage from ''Series/WalkingWithDinosaurs'' to save money.)

* The 1998 UsefulNotes/AppleMacintosh game ''VideoGame/{{Nanosaur}}'' takes this trope UpToEleven: by the year 4122, humanity is extinct and genetically engineered, intelligent dinosaurs rule the Earth. Problem is, due to their small genetic pool, inbreeding becomes a serious problem and they decide to send [[PlayerCharacter a velociraptor]] back to the Cretaceous era to collect various dinosaur eggs. You'll never play this game for more than 20 minutes, ''because that's all the time you have to complete your mission before the asteroid hits''.

This need not apply only to the K-Pg extinction. Fiction loves to [[{{Flanderization}} flanderize]] history into simple compact events and travelers headed to other periods may find themselves in the midst of other disasters, like arriving in Manassas only to find [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar a civil war is breaking out]], or visiting Pompeii only for a volcano to erupt. Such a visitor is not looking to change history or see said famous event, they just want to take a stroll and breathe in the surroundings only to realize: "OhCrap This 20th century ship I'm on is called the [[UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic Titanic]]!"

* With all the dinosaurs either being of AmbiguousSpecies or Jurassic and Cretaceous StockDinosaurs, living in a [[OneMillionBC generic stereotypical prehistory]], ''{{Series/Dinosaurs}}'' could take place anywhere within the Mesozoic, right? Nope. The last episode shows the start of the K-Pg extinction. (That was a deliberate choice of TorchTheFranchiseAndRun on the showrunners' part, but ''still''.)

* The 1998 UsefulNotes/AppleMacintosh game ''VideoGame/{{Nanosaur}}'' takes this trope UpToEleven: by the year 4122, humanity is extinct and genetically-engineered, intelligent dinosaurs rule the Earth. Problem is, due to their small genetic pool, inbreeding becomes a serious problem and they decide to send [[PlayerCharacter a velociraptor]] back to the Cretaceous era to collect various dinosaur eggs. You'll never play this game for more than 20 minutes, ''because that's all the time you have to complete your mission before the asteroid hits.''

* In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "Road to Germany", Brian and Stewie travel back in time to Warsaw, Poland (though how they got to Poland from Rhode Island is never explained), September 1st, 1939. The date that Germany invades Poland and kicks off World War II (the Germans did not reach Warsaw until a week later). They have time for one Jewish wedding before tanks start rolling in.