Critique: Dinotopia Night Two (Channel 4)

David, Karl, Marion and Zipeau are taken to the Earth Farm where they meet Rosemary, Marion’s mother and the Earth Farm’s Matriarch. She sends David to become a Skybax rider. Meanwhile Karl is given a dinosaur egg to raises; it was orphaned by the same t-rex group that attacked David and Karl at the start of their Dinotopia journey.

 

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

Clever

 

Matriarch Rosemary is very negative about both Karl and David, lumping them together and saying they aren’t partaking in Dinotopian life.

Yet David has been very good and obedient, gleefully engaging with Dinotopian way of life. So treating them both as problematic is not logical. However, Crabbe is banned from the library due to his ancestor’s actions. Hence, in Dinotopia, if one person does a crime then their whole family is tainted.

Whilst this isn’t fair, this system was how the Chinese justice system worked for centuries. As the Earth Farmers have conical hats from Vietnam/south China, it’s not unreasonable that the Chinese justice system was passed on, too. (Or it could have developed independently.)

 

Many times, characters’ words and behaviours were thought through very carefully.

Mayor stops Crabbe from speaking by saying, “In the interest of democracy, we must let others speak.” But it’s antidemocratic to stop Crabbe from keeping the government to account. It just really shows the Mayor’s paranoia and lack of control over the sunstone situation.

Marion tells Marion that she needs to loosen up, relax, break the rules, lie. Basically, all the things David won’t do. Characters thinking others need to improve with the very things they themselves need to do is always funny. Mind you, David thinks things through, so maybe he recognises these perceived faults in himself; as such, he might be the perfect person to point this out to others.

Crabbe agrees to give Karl a sea-chart to escape the island if Karl gets the Hatchery’s sunstone. Crabbe says Dinotopia has loads of spare sunstones to persuade Karl, even though Crabbe just revealed to the Senate that there are no sunstones. Crafty. When they make the exchange, Karl checks the sea-chart is correct; Crabbe, to look better, makes a point of not checking the sunstone in the bag. Once Karl is gone, Crabbe does check it, finding that it was just a rock. Crafty.

Following Karl’s boat, 26 jumps into the water. Karl manages to save her from the sea which is nice, considering he couldn’t save his dad from the sea.

 

 

Humour

 

Appropriate for the serious tone of this episode, its amount of humour is lower than the first.

When Crabbe kidnaps Zipeau, Zipeau begs, “Why can’t we live in harmony?” So funny.

When David goes back to the pedestal on the edge of the cliff to call a Skybax, Karl’s first thought is that David’s going to jump. It’s morbid but funny.

Karl tells Marion about the story of ‘Karl and Goliath’. Him changing the name of the hero to make himself look better by association would be funny by itself. Yet considering the true name in the story is ‘David’, his brother’s name, by changing the hero’s name Karl makes sure David won’t look good to Marion. Crafty.

 

Captain Oonu gives his cadets saddles apart from David, saying he must spend the night in a Skybax nest first.

Marion goes with him and we find out she’s jealous of David’s fellow cadet Ramona. Yet when David says he loves her, all she says is, “I’m flattered.” So funny.

Then a messenger bird gives Marion a singogram. So Karl, to David’s outrage, manages to interfere even though David’s in the middle of nowhere. Considering Marion just slapped David down, Karl’s message definitely didn’t make anything worse, which just makes David’s outrage hilarious. Which is even funnier because Marion just slapped David down so really Karl isn’t making anything worse.

 

 

Problems

 

When the students graduate, Rosemary assigns them a habitat.

Someone’s sent to study dolphins, another the weather. David is sent to Canyon City and Karl to the Hatchery.

Marion, in front of the whole class, is told she isn’t being given a habitat. Everyone would assume that meant she failed, so saying that in public isn’t good.

Also, Rosemary unilaterally decides what everyone in Dinotopia will do for the rest of their lives? This is a highly problematic situation.

 

Rosemary sometimes speaks nonsense.

Marion said she went after the boys because that’s what she thought her mum would do. Rosemary dismisses this by saying, “They’re outsiders. They don’t know our ways.” So what, people only deserve help once they are accepted as Dinotopian? That doesn’t seem to align with Dinotopian values.

Rosemary says to David, “You’re clever but unhappy. Will you always stay outside of life, watching it go by.” David’s thrown himself into Dinotopian life, learning the language and speaking to the natives. That’s hardly watching life from the outside.

 

Some things were just wrong.

Samantha tells Karl that 26 (what he names his dinosaur) is a chasmisaur, part of the hadrosaur family. However, chasmisaurs are in the same family as triceratops, a group to which hadrosaurs aren’t a member. Seeing as Samantha lives with dinosaurs, how could she make that mistake?

Marion’s sunstone drives off the Pteranodons. It’s very bright so it should shine through her clothes, which it doesn’t.

The sounds of voices were noticeably wrong at times. Marion, despite having an English accent, says, ‘albino’ like an American. Also, the English-speaking voice of 26 does not match her dinosaur noises. There should be continuity.

 

Some behaviours don’t make sense.

            Samantha, Marion’s sister, tells Karl that cold eggs become female and warm eggs male. Yet when Rosemary calls Karl’s egg a girl, Karl is surprised Rosemary knows. If temperature determines the sex, all one has to do is feel the temperature and you’ll know. Also, Rosemary’s in charge of the Hatchery, so she’s the one that would be deciding what temperature each egg is.

David and his fellow cadets are climbing the canyon walls. David’s struggling so his solution? Turn around to face outwards. The ledge is tiny so turning would only increase his chance of falling. Plus it’s harder to cling onto the wall when facing out. Also, it meant he was visually reminded that he was high up, which he didn’t like. So it makes no sense whatsoever for someone in David’s position with his fears to turn around on that ledge.

Karl puts 26 to sleep on David’s bed. There’s no door on the building and it’s right on the edge of a cliff lacking barriers. This isn’t safe for any baby unsupervised! Also, Karl’s already had to rescue 26 from following him: he knows she follows so this sleeping space is especially not safe for her!

Karl and Marion broke student rules by leaving their rooms. So Marion’s a student? She was travelling when the boys met her and she taught the beginner’s class in Waterfall City. Why would a student do those things?

 

There are a few things that are convenient at best and lazy at worst.

Karl swings into the girls’ dormitory. The rope conveniently hanging outside the boys’ dormitory also happened to be long enough to reach the girls’ dormitory.

The back pattern of the Skybax’s is the exact same shape as the saddles they wear. Was this done for CGI convenience, or was this pattern the inspiration for the saddle in the first place? Their backs even have the 3D shape of a saddle, not just the outline, so unfortunately the answer is the bad one.

 

 

 

Night Two focuses on the boys becoming Dinotopian with further integration into the island’s way of life. David and Karl’s characters develop a lot in this episode, something that was handled really well.