The Future Is Wild

This is an educational series telling the history of life on earth as it might be based on what scientists know of past history.

Told like one of the better nature programs with a view to speculating on the future. The creatures are imaginative and well explained. Each of them is presented as a potential descendant of today's species and how they came about. Biology, geography and environmental conditions are scientifically evolved by extending what we know of the past into the distant future. And this is all set to life with the use of some of the most incredible computer generated animations yet All of this makes the presentation lifelike and believable.

If you have ever read any of Dugal Dixon's "speculative zoology" books, you'll love this show(and if you haven't, you should). The series has the same basic theme as his book After Man; what will animals be like far in the future? The series looks at three time periods, each in which life is given a different challenge. 5 million years from now, and the Earth is in the grip of a new ice age. 100 million years from now, and it's the opposite, the whole world is very hot and wet. My favorite part is 200 million years from now, in which a mass extinction has wiped out all familiar forms of life. I don't want to give away too much about the creatures that inhabit these future worlds. Go see it for yourself, because If this show is in any way correct in its speculation, the future is truly going to be wild!

The process of evolution is well enough understood at this point to speculate about future directions and not seem totally ridiculous.

In his book, "AFTER MAN", Dougal Dixon attempts to model a possible world some 50 million years hence and does so reasonably convincingly. He also worked on the series "The Future is Wild" some twenty something years later and the scope is much more ambitious. I would have given it more time and attempted to show greater depth than the makers of the series did. Much of it seemed glossed over and the rational for many of the various creatures was sketched out a little too loosely. If anything I would have liked to see it projected still farther into the future as changes in the sun cause the Earth to become very different.

While I don't think comparisons with Walking with Dinosaurs are totally fair, the difference in production values between the two is evident, but so far as depicting the habits of animals that have never been seen alive, their intent is pretty much the same. The future shown here is plausible.

This series is better viewed on DVD than broadcast because a lot of little points go by quite quickly and many of the comments from scientists are somewhat subtle and deserve closer scrutiny. One will realize that many of them are in disagreement with several of the models presented in the series.

I can still count the days when I watched this documentary series by Discovery Channel, from its pilot episode to the separate ones. Okay, I haven't watched them all yet, but I love this series. Although completely fantasy, "The Future is Wild" is can give as a glimpse of what may happen many years from now. The documentary series is also fresh with ideas. The idea of man sent to another planet, and send space probes to Earth to view life, is complex, if not science fiction, genius. The animals that are supposed to live on Earth during our departure are somewhat bizarre, but very memorable to me. I manage to draw them on paper when I'm bored, and label them by their names. Sometimes I even create my own "future beasts". This series may be based on Dougal Dixon's book "After Man", since they both give us a view of the future.

This is a really memorable series to me. I would recommend this to anyone, if it is still running on the Discovery Channel.

Excellent.

This is an interesting program. I've never seen anything quite like it, but I like it.

The best thing about this program is that it provides a look into the future of our planet in a way that is both creative and realistic. The show and featured scientists give reasonable scientific explanations for all of the weird fictional creatures that appear, and their abilities. It honestly makes me sad that I will never get to see if this show was right or not.

However, this program is not perfect. There are some things I do not like. First of all, the creature animations are constantly reused over and over, and it becomes annoying. Also, the CGI doesn't always blend well with the photo-realistic environments, making it look fake.

Despite that, this is very unique and interesting fake documentary, that not enough people have seen and need to see. It provides an intriguing look into what our planet may look like from 5-200 million years from now. I highly recommend it.