Prehistoric America
Functioning as a natural-history time machine,Prehistoric Americafollows the successful example of the BBC's previous documentary seriesWalking with Dinosaurs, employing digital imagery to explore North America's distant past. Each 50-minute episode focuses on a specific region of the continent: the northern "Land of the Mammoth" once known as Beringia (including the Canadian Yukon and Alaska); the southwestern "Canyonlands," including what is now Las Vegas; the "Ice Age Oasis" of Florida; and the "Edge of the Ice" in the Pacific Northwest. Bones and fossils are revived by the magic of CGI, illuminating the lives and behaviors of mammoths, mastodons, sabre-toothed cats, and other unusual wildlife that flourished in these regions 14,000 years ago, just as humans were making their first footprints on the continent. While the CGI creatures become slightly redundant and fall short of Hollywood quality, they're still convincing enough to transport viewers into a richly informative and visually captivating journey to the end of Earth's final Ice Age. Matching the high standards of all BBC documentaries,Prehistoric Americabuilds a digital bridge to this most remarkable epoch, never compromising its fascinating scientific inquiry.--Jeff Shannon