The Future Is Wild — Season 1, Episode 10: The Endless Desert
Documentary • 25 min • 1 season, 13 episodes • ★ 7.6/10
Episode synopsis
The episode is set in the central desert of the new Pangea, 200 million years into the future. At this point in the future, there are no mammals, birds, reptiles or amphibians. The episode focuses on four species: (1) Terabyte, descendants of termites that live in massive air-conditioned underground cities where they farm algae. Each termite is built for a specific role. There are transporters, glue-spitters, diggers and other types too, which form a caste system. (2) Gloomworm, a simple worm that is descended from a single type of bristleworm which survived the mass extinction. (3) Slickribbon, a transparent creature with pincer jaws and a nasty sting. It appears to be descended from the same bristleworm as the Gloomworm. (4) Garden Worm, a descendant of the convoluta worm, the garden worm houses green algae in fleshy lobes that stick out like leaves from their backs. The algae convert sunlight into food to feed their host
About The Future Is Wild
The Future Is Wild was a 2002 thirteen-part documentary television miniseries. Based on research and interviews with several scientists, the miniseries shows how life could evolve in the future if Homo sapiens left the earth. The version broadcast on the Discovery Channel modified this premise, supposing instead that the human race had completely abandoned the Earth and had sent back probes to examine the progress of life on the planet. The show took the form of a nature documentary. The miniseries was released with a companion book written by geologist Dougal Dixon, the author of several "anthropologies and zoologies of the future", in conjunction with natural history television producer John Adams. For a time in 2005, a theme park based on this program was opened in Japan. In 2008 a special on the Discovery Channel about the development of the video game Spore was combined with airings of The Future Is Wild. A film version of the series was picked up by Warner Bros.