SURVIVING EARTH DOCUSERIES EXPLORES EIGHT MASS EXTINCTION EVENTS

Surviving Earth, a new docuseries produced by Tim Haines, premieres on NBC on Thursday. The series examines eight mass extinction events stretching back 450 million years. It traces the lives and deaths of creatures that existed before and alongside the dinosaurs. Volcanic eruptions, flooding, and drought feature among the catastrophic forces explored across the episodes.

Haines, who co-created Walking with Dinosaurs, spent three and a half years developing Surviving Earth. He consulted more than 300 scientists, including palaeontologists and palaeoclimatologists from around the world. The production used CGI and animatronics, the same techniques employed on Walking with Dinosaurs, which premiered on the BBC in 1999. Filming locations include a forest in Chile featuring monkey puzzle trees, a site Haines also used in Walking with Dinosaurs. A palaeo artist designed the creatures, while separate film crews selected and shot the background locations.

Haines describes the series as fundamentally a programme about the resilience of life rather than its destruction. He states that the Earth is an "incredibly changeable place" and that life has repeatedly adapted to survive it. The central theme, in his words, is "how life bounced back" from events that wiped out nearly all lifeforms. CGI animation technology has advanced since 1999, though Haines notes the overall production process remained broadly similar to that used on Walking with Dinosaurs.