"Director: Kate Bartlett"

• Walking with Dinosaurs Box Set (repack) | DVD | (26/08/2013) from £7.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (62.58%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Walking with DinosaursIn 1999 the BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs TV series changed the way we saw dinosaurs forever. This revolutionary show takes viewers right into the dinosaurs' world showing them as if they were alive and filmed in the wild. Since then the series has been seen by millions of people around the world and has won three Emmy awards. It brings to life the mystery and excitement of the age when these reptiles roamed our planet. The makers of Walking with Dinosaurs returned to make two specials The Ballad of Big Al and Land of Giants and The Giant Claw to continue to delight fans of the original series. Special Features: Enhanced Picture-in-Picture Sequences The Making of Walking with Dinosaurs The Ballad of Big AlYears ago an amazing fossil was unearthed in Wyoming USA. Not only were the bones they found those of a dinosaur 'Big Al' but the skeleton of this creature was very nearly complete. The first programme follows his life – a 15-year story of a lone battle against formidable prey and voracious predators whilst the second programme traces the scientific evidence of Big Al. Special Features: Photo Gallery Storyboard Comparison Land of Giants and The Giant ClawIn Land of Giants we join the adventuring zoologist Nigel Marven as he visits the Argentinean landscape of 100 million years ago to attempt to see the biggest land predator bring down the biggest land prey but will he succeed? In The Giant Claw Nigel travels back 75 million years to Mongolia to track down the owner of the largest claws ever discovered. Negotiating the hazards of the Cretaceous is no walk in the park - will he live to discover the true nature of his quarry? Special Features: Fact Files Interviews with Tim Haines Jasper James and Nigel Marven

• Darwin's Dangerous Idea | DVD | (27/04/2009) from £8.93   |  Saving you £11.06 (123.85%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In this three-part landmark series Andrew Marr explores the legacy and contemporary influence of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. He travels to Argentina Chile and Brazil to reveal key moments in Darwin's life-changing voyage on HMS Beagle. He also visits places in the United States Turkey Belgium Germany and the Caribbean that are central to the epic story of Darwin's revolutionary idea. Each programme explores how Darwin's idea broke out from the world of science and took on a life of its own. Darwin's Dangerous Idea still has the power to inspire challenge and disturb us.

• Walking With Dinosaurs - Ballad Of Big Al | DVD | (04/06/2001) from £6.95   |  Saving you £6.04 (86.91%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Ballad of Big Al manages the tricky feat of making the viewer feel concern--even sympathy--for a 10m-long, razor-fanged carnivorous predator, an Allosaurus from 145,000,000 years ago. That it does so without resorting to Disney tactics makes its achievement all the more admirable--despite the title, these creatures thankfully don't even speak, let alone sing. In fact, Big Al scores precisely because it takes a resolutely low-key, restrained and intelligent approach to a subject that can all too often end up being sentimentalised. The programme contains two separate half-hour segments originally transmitted as Walking With Dinosaurs "specials" The first is a biopic of Big Al, the allosaurus whose remarkably complete skeleton, found in Wyoming in 1991, allowed scientists to piece together an accurate picture of the creature's life. We follow Al from his hatching out of an egg, then at regular stages through his development into an almost fully grown adult. Almost being the operative word since, since after suffering a series of injuries Al becomes too ill to hunt and suffers an arbitrary, unspectacular demise (all the more believable and touching for it) in late adolescence. The second programme is a "making of" documentary, showing how scientists analysed Al's bones and came up with a plausible series of adventures for him. It's easy to forget that these recreations can only be educated supposition--the camerawork and narration (by Kenneth Branagh) exactly mimic actual wildlife documentaries about living species, while the computer-generated depiction of the dinosaurs is never less than utterly convincing. We're in danger of taking this kind of dazzling FX work for granted, but Big Al freshens it up by putting it at the service of a well-structured, very specific narrative. The programme doesn't hold back on realities of the Jurassic period's harsh, kill-or-be-killed ecosystem, but while it carries an official warning about "mild wildlife horror", Big Al sensibly never dwells on the gory stuff. The most graphic section is also, strangely, the most alluring, as a hungry pack of Allosaurs patiently stalk a herd of colossal Diplodocus across a dry salt lake. The images of these enormous creatures trotting and lumbering along against a stark white background have a surreal, dreamy beauty--the spell abruptly broken when an ailing Diplodocus collapses, exhausted, and the ravenous Allosaurs quickly move in for their bloody feast. --Neil Young