Dinosaur -With Stephen Fry is a 2023 documentary miniseries on Channel 5. It features actor Stephen Fry going back in time and observing and learning about dinosaurs, intercut with talking head interviews ands mechanical tests in the present.
This documentary provides examples of:
- Artistic License Palaeontology:
- The documentary asserts a hypothesis about Allosaurus using its jaw as a hatchet to kill prey, presenting it as a "new and controversial" idea. This idea has been proposed over a decade before the documentary aired and has since been dismissed by more up to date research, instead suggesting it bit down before pulling back on its prey.
- At different points, Fry and palaeontologist Sussanah Maidment inconsistently list off the weights of Allosaurus and Diplodocus: the former is said at separate points to weigh either 2.5 tons and 15 tons (it weighed 1.9 in truth and thus is overweighed), the latter is stated to be 15 tons in one scene and 30 or 40 tons in another.
- The Stegosaurus' rows of plates on its back have smaller plates growing besides the larger ones. Their heads are also much more boxy than the real animal. This is because the animal model is actually taken from the video game ARK: Survival Evolved (as are several other models in the documentary).
- Carnivores Are Mean: Averted. While the show's theropods note are dangerous carnivores and are treated that way, they don't attack let alone notice Stephen even when he's metres from them.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: It's a show about dinosaurs, and Stephen Fry hosts it.
- Gentle Giant Sauropod: Diplodocus is treated as docile and harmless, not minding Fry's presence. It still defends itself against an attacking Allosaurus though by crushing it.
- Giant Flyer: Quetzalcoatlus is featured in the series.
- Insistent Terminology: The ornithopod dinosaur Iguanacolossus that appears in episode two is only referrd to such when it’s introduced, instead being called an Iguanodontid, the family it belongs to.
- Minimalist Cast: Only two genera of dinosaurs physically appear in each episode, less then the average doc.
- Raptor Attack: Averted with the show's Utahraptor, which aside from having feathers too small for its wings, is well-researched and accurate to the real thing.
- That said, a small raptor shows up beforehand is implied to be Velociraptor but reuses the Utahraptor’s model but scaled down, retaining an overly bulky frame it would have lacked in life.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The dinosaurs barely seem to notice the humans that are often right next to them, even though this is the first time they've been in the Mesozoic.
