By now I have seen 10 of the TV episodes, though I did not write about each one yet. The episodes I have seen include the “infamous” episode that includes Ali’s return (I will write about that one in the episode discussion section one of these days) and though I have not even seen half of the episodes I hope it is not to early to give a first overall impression.
So far the huge majority of posts about the TV series gave it negative feedback.
There seems to be almost something like a general agreement that the TV series is to be considered bad. If indeed there is such an “unspoken agreement” I certainly was part of it myself. From the moment we first learned about the comming of the TV series in August 2005 it was anticipated with “mixed” feelings at best. It took me a year and heteronomy I mentioned elsewhere to watch the episodes. Much of what I had read about the episodes till then (I avoided reading spoilers) had been negative or unimpressed.
From what I have seen so far I don’t share this negative sentiment about the TV series anymore. Looking at the facts I can’t help thinking that many of the things land before time fans like us have been calling for for years were included in the TV series. I would not be surprised if some of the aspects of the TV series were influenced by people who read some of the messages that had been written about earlier LBT movies. I don’t know it, but just in case that a member (or several) of the production team are reading this, I want to thank you for taking into account what LBT fans wrote.
Here are some of the things which I think may well have been influenced by what fans wrote in the GOF and other forums.
We see characters from earlier sequels again. There had been many calls for the characters not to be shown in one movie only and then be forgotten. Mr. Thicknose had guest appearances in two of the episodes I have seen, Ali of course made her return (the details about this are for another topic), Pterano was at least referred to (more than was done about the “lost” characters in the sequels), and from what I heard characters like Hyp, Nod, Mutt, Doc, Guido, and Bron will reappear too.
The sharpteeth and dangerous situations in general are not as harmless in the TV episodes as they have been in some of the later sequels. Many of us pointed out how silly sharpteeth have become in later episodes and how almost every dangerous moment in the later sequels is suggarcoated so there is hardly any perceived threat. The same is not true for the TV-episodes. There are many scenes where danger or predators are really presented as potential threads to the characters’ lives. Of course we know they will make it and sometimes they make some easy getaways, but altogether I feel that if we want a land before time that is not so much for a younger audience only the TV series made a big step in the right direction. Also there is no longer this “everything turns red in case of danger effect” which had been used excessively in some of the sequels.
There had often been calls for the focus of the LBT stories not to rest too much on one character but give everyone something to do. Some of the sequels shifted the focus from the traditional maincharacter (Littlefoot) a bit more to the others. In case of the TV series episodes I have seen so far I really find they did a very good job in distributing the action among the different characters. One of my misgivings about the TV-series was that with two more permanent characters some of the old characters would be even more obliterated. Meanwhile I think this fear didn’t turn out to be justified. The makers of the TV series did an extremely good job in including all of the characters. Of course there are some episodes in which one or a few characters feature a bit more than the others, but altogether every character has a function in the stories.
The makers of the TV series also did a good job when it comes to keeping the characters “in character”. They really behave like we expect them to based on the previous movies. This is not meant to be criticism as in characters being “predictable” but as praise as in characters being “familiar”, “recognisable”, you name it. Some of the characters features are particularly stressed in the TV series helping to intensify the image of them being individuals rather than a group of dinosaurs led by a longneck. I’m overdrawing here. None of the sequels was really that extreme in neglecting Ducky, Petrie, and Spike, but in any case I think their individuality is well stressed in the TV-series.
Most of the stories I have seen so far are quite solid. Some of the stories are very simple, but this does not necessarily make them bad stories. But these stories are not meant to be told in the “epic” length of a sequel. The short length of the episodes has been raised in another thread as a point of criticism of the episodes. I guess some stories just don’t need an hour or more to be told, but by itself that does not make a story any worse. At least one of the sequels has been criticized as it was perceived that nothing was happening in the whole time. Perhaps that sequel would have been better if it had been shortened a little? So long the story does not come across as crammed, or incomplete I don’t really think the length is a good point of criticism.
Maybe many of us (including myself of course) react to the TV series with a kind of reflex being skeptical about it, saying so, and sticking to this view no matter what. Some fans say that they are not interested in anything but the original land before time movie and don’t care the least about the sequels or the episodes or anything but the original. Maybe the initial reaction of some of us to the sequels was similar to the initial reaction of many of us to the TV series. Anyway, looking at what I have seen so far, I cannot held up my previous reservations against the TV series.
Credit where credit is due; I thank the makers of the episodes I have seen so far for what I consider a good job at land before time story telling.
