Monster hit

IN the Nineties, as the cost of producing expensive effects dropped, the BBC responded to Jurassic Park fever by making Walking with Dinosaurs.

The format was brilliantly simple – make a naturalist documentary such as Life on Earth, but with photo-realistic dinos.

The result was educational, informative and entertaining. That 1999 series won three Emmy awards and paved the way for several spin-off shows, Walking with Beasts and 2005’s Walking with Monsters.

Beeb bosses have given such Jurassicera shenanigans a wide berth for the past six years, but now they’re hoping new series Planet Dinosaur will be the tyrannosaurus- sized hit of the autumn.

One reason for the popularity of shows such as this could be the fact that we now know more about those gargantuan creatures than ever. In fact, more types of dinosaurs have been discovered in the past 20 years than in the two centuries before.

Last year alone, scientists discovered new information about the flying pterosaur, which lived 95 million years ago in the Sahara.

While tyrannosaurus rex may have been the daddy of all dinos for years, here we get to meet far bigger and badder characters that roamed the Earth around the same time as the pterosaur.

The series features “vicious ‘new’ killers that towered over the T-Rex,” as the ads proudly boast, as well as “South American giants six times heavier than the diplodocus”. And if they weren’t enough to tickle your fancy, we can also expect “skybound beasts that terrified the pterodactyl”.

The series begins in North Africa, where two of the world’s largest predators once battled it out for supremacy. The carcharodontosaurus was a gigantic lizardlike carnivore with shark-like teeth more than six inches long. It would slash at its prey until it bled to death.

We also get to meet a spinosaurus, which was four metres longer than tyrannosaurus rex. Unlike the meat-eating carcharodontosaurus, spinosaurus hankered for fish and mainly lived in water.

Upcoming episodes look at the new, bizarre and extraordinary feathered dinosaurs – many of which have only just been discovered – and the last generation of killer dinosaurs. These carnivores took killing to a new level.

The featured beasts themselves may have been extinct for millions of years, but it seems mankind has never before been so fascinated with these extraordinary creatures.

THE Beeb seems to be indulging itself in a bit of a theme tonight, so after watching Planet Dinosaur, you need not even move from the comfort of your armchair in flicking between the channels.

We’ve long been fascinated with the nature and history of these beasts that once ruled the land and of course, there’s been no end of documentaries hitting the telly schedules in a bid to reconstruct their stories.

Dinosaurs, Myths and Monsters proves to be something a little different, as Tom Holland charts how mankind’s interpretation of prehistoric remains and fossils has changed so vastly over the centuries, exploring ancient stories developed to explain the discoveries.

Holland also looks into how certain myths have influenced the work of modern paleontology, and finds out about how traditional Native American stories led to one of the most important discoveries of the 19th Century.

FOR those addicted to troubleshooting makeover shows, losing Kitchen Nightmares USA left a gaping hole in the schedule. Thankfully, Kevin Mc- Cloud is back for a new run of one of C4’s biggest hits, Grand Designs.

Yes, if you’ve been tiding yourself over with the endless repeats on More4, here’s a fresh batch of new builds and renovations to leave you either glad you didn’t attempt anything so daring yourself, or green with envy at the finished result.

Okay, this first episode is a bit of a cheat as it’s one of those revised repeats, but it’s still well worth a look.

In the first of 11 shows, McCloud revisits the transformation of a derelict Georgian watermill cottage in Northumberland into a contemporary family home, the longest-running project ever featured on the programme.