The Future Is Wild — Season 1, Episode 11: The Global Ocean
Documentary • 25 min • 1 season, 13 episodes • ★ 7.6/10
Episode synopsis
The episode is set in 1 massive super ocean in the world, 200 million years into the future. At this point in the future, there are no mammals, birds, reptiles or amphibians. The episode focusses on four species: (1) Rainbow Squid, a massive squid which changes colour to hide and which did not take to the land unlike some cephalopods; (2) Flish, descendants of cod which have evolved to breathe out of water and have developed wings; (3) Sharkopath, a descendant of sharks that have bioluminescent patches on their sides to communicate with one another; (4) Silverswimmer, descendants of crustaceans that have grown in size and evolved to fill the roles that fish previously held. There are many different species and they have different ways of life. Some are predators, some are prey and some are scavengers. Since all the land is joined together, much like Pangea, there is only one ocean now as well. Some views from space show the Earth as just a blue circle now.
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.