Dinosaur with Stephen FryEpisodes Guide

The actor and writer is magically transported back in time to chart the 180-million-year story of the prehistoric creatures, beginning by going back 155 million years to the Jurassic period. He explores the conifer forests and fern prairies that were their home, encountering a monstrous plant-eating diplodocus and deadly predator the allosaurus. Expert Susie Maidment arrives to decode these dinosaurs' remarkable behaviour, including the diplodocus

The actor examines the early Cretaceous period, an era that saw an explosion in dinosaur diversity 125 million years ago. In a vast and sandy virtual river valley, he sets off in search of the fearsome velociraptor, only to find that this dreaded dinosaur made famous in the Jurassic Park films was in reality no bigger than a turkey. Stephen is joined by expert Dr Dean Lomax to observe the remarkable behaviour of this highly intelligent predator, before heading to the US to meet the dinosaur hunter who first discovered the Utahraptor.

The actor finds himself transported back to a huge forest 68 million years ago in the late Cretaceous period, home to deadly predator Tyrannosaurus rex. With the help of expert Dr David Hone, Stephen observes a T-rex on the rampage, crunching up huge corpses and stalking a herd of triceratops, and they also encounter a giant flying reptile known as quetzalcoatlus. which stood taller than a giraffe and had the wingspan of a light aircraft.

Stephen Fry heads 66 million years into the past to the fateful last days of the dinosaurs to see how the plant-eaters fought back against deadly predators, and witnesses how a light in the sky became an extraordinary extra-terrestrial threat that signalled the end of the dinosaur's reign on earth.