Supercroc

Supercroc is the sixth and final episode of Prehistoric Park.

Summary
Nigel Marven heads to prehistoric Texas to find a Deinosuchus, the largest crocodile of all time. The park will continue to have trouble with some of its residents.

Full Synopsis
The episode starts in the park near the Time Portal site, where there is a crocodile enclosure. Bob walks across a suspension bridge to feed the Nile crocodiles in the lake. Nigel plans to add a Deinosuchus, an ancient species of giant crocodilian which weighs up to 9 tons, to the park. Bob mutters that Nigel may have bitten off more than he can chew this time.

In a jeep, Nigel goes through the Time Portal to the Cretaceous in Texas, where Dallas is now. At this time North America is divided into three land areas by a Y-shaped internal epicontinental sea. The land around the Time Portal exit point is dry, gravelly sand with patches of trees and bushes. A pair of half-size juvenile Parasaurolophus go by and stop about 10 meters away. Nigel chases them towards the jeep. Then a pair of Albertosaurus appear. The Parasaurolophus honk and run away. Nigel revs his jeep's diesel engine, causing the Albertosaurus to back off until they grow accustomed to the noise. He drives away. They chase him, at speed up to 30-38 mph, but eventually tire and turn away.

In the park, Bob is planting young trees to help feed the titanosaurs. He says that they will have to plant 2000 trees each year in order to keep the titanosaurs well fed. The titanosaurs, of course, are no help whatsoever, and keep trampling trees down.

The Smilodon have bred and now have two cubs. Suzanne sees that their mother is not making enough milk for the cubs, so she has to take the cubs and bottle-feed them, thus breaking the natural mother-cub link. If she were to put them back into their mother's enclosure, they would probably be killed.

On-site, Nigel drives onto a sea beach and looks out to sea for signs of Deinosuchus which could survive in salt water like modern saltwater crocodiles. A herd of Parasaurolophus runs past. Each adult is roughly ten meters long. Nigel shouts at them to clear off in case they damage his jeep's paintwork. He finds a conch-sized gastropod shell and makes a hole in it and blows it to try to have an exchange of vocalizations: they make noises using their hollow crests.

Nigel, with binoculars, sees five Nyctosaurus fly in from the sea. They fish by skimming their lower jaws through the water surface. Nigel has brought a microlight with him. He uses it to fly with the Nyctosaurus. A Deinosuchus reaches its head out of the sea and grabs one of the Nyctosaurus. Nigel sees another Deinosuchus swimming from the sea up to a river and decides to head in that direction.

In the park, Susanne visits Martha the mammoth. Martha tries to look after the elephant herd's matriarch's calf. The frightened matriarch drives Martha away. Martha is becoming isolated again, and there is fear that she will again stop eating.

On-site, Nigel paddles in a red inflatable boat on the river. A Deinosuchus bites the boat's stern, does not like the taste of rubber, and let's go. It snaps out of the water again by the boat, then disappears. Nigel paddles two miles upstream to a freshwater lake, where he sees some Deinosuchus on a sandbank, and a herd of Parasaurolophus forced by thirst to come to the lake to drink. Nigel paddles to the other side of the lake. He mentions that Deinosuchus will (geologically) soon be wiped out when sea floods the area, as they have a specialized lifestyle, so he must rescue one. An unwary young Parasaurolophus goes to the lake to drink. A Deinosuchus rockets out of the lake and grabs it by the chest. The two roll over and over in the lake. More Deinosuchus swim in. They take turns to hold the kill while another tears at it.

In the park, the Phorusrhacos has developed a habit of dust bathing near its enclosure's fence, undermining it. Each time, Bob fills the resulting hole with big stones. He realizes that this tactic is only "firefighting" and that he will have to make a new fence with the bottom ends of all its posts buried four feet deep.

On site, Nigel has made a long double row of wooden posts ending in a blind end. He plans to entice a Deinosuchus with meat up the fenced route to the blind end. To get back to the jeep, he walks through a dense forest, but he is worried about dangerous predators. Something is following him. He feels relieved when a Troodon sticks its head up out of bushes and shows that it is much smaller than an Albertosaurus. When he reaches the jeep, he sees that three Troodon are eating the meat that he had brought as bait. He chases them away using a portable aerosol-like horn.

In the park Bob is shoveling up Elasmotherium dung when he sees the Phorusrhacos looking at him through a fence. He calls on his walkie talkie that the Phorusrhacos has escaped again. A keeper comes in a jeep, and by towing some meat behind the jeep leads the Phorusrhacos back to its enclosure.

On site, Nigel plans to use the rest of his meat to bait a Deinosuchus up the stockade. He sets the bait at the stockade's end. They rig hammocks. It gets dark. With his helmet headlights, he sees that some Troodon was pulling away his bait. When Nigel chased after it, another came and ran off with the rest. The meat that was left was not enough to lure a Deinosuchus. They go to bed.

They are woken in the morning by the noise when three Albertosaurus kill a Parasaurolophus. Three Deinosuchus come out of the lake to steal the kill. There is noisy confrontation and some biting, and tugs-of-war over the flesh. The Albertosaurus admit defeat and back off.

In the park, Martha the mammoth is still isolated from the elephant herd.

On site, Nigel must use himself as bait. He wades into the water and splashes it hard with a paddle until a Deinosuchus investigates. He backs off too soon; the Deinosuchus backs off. He splashes again. The Deinosuchus charges out of the sea and chases Nigel, who runs up the stockade path and at its blind end squeezes between two of its posts. He and 4 men with him struggle to hold the stockade posts upright, until the Deinosuchus tires, as cold-blooded reptiles tire quickly. They set up the time portal close outside the blind end of the stockade. Nigel in the jeep tows three of the end stockade posts out and through the Time Portal; the Deinosuchus is confined too closely to turn round, so it must follow him through the portal. It is enticed with a piece of meat to its pond (made close by the time portal), which it goes into.

Mass Break-Out
The Mass Break-out took place in at the end of the episode, serving as the "grand finale" of the Prehistoric Park series.

Following Nigel's rescue of the Deinosuchus, as usual, Bob has to clear up. He drives the jeep to his next job, and mutters that Prehistoric Park needs more keepers, as they have so many problems to address. The Terror Bird escaped its enclosure again, the two Smilodon cubs have kept Suzanne up half the night, the Titanosaurs eat too much, and, to make matters worse, Nigel continues to constantly bring back more creatures, which is not helping the workload.

Suddenly, a Troodon emerges from the kit on the back of the Jeep, having stowed away back to the present after being enticed by the meat intended to lure the Deinosuchus. It frightens Bob, and the swerving Jeep runs straight at the Titanosaurs, scaring one of them and causing it to stampede off. Bob manages to stop the jeep, and the Troodon leaps out and escapes into the undergrowth nearby. Bob runs off to try and capture the escapees.

The Titanosaur causes massive destruction as it tramples over enclosure fences. The sauropod's antics allows the Ornithomimus flock, the Terror Bird, and the Elasmotherium to flee through the broken fences and run freely through the park. Worst of all, Matilda the Tyrannosaurus also has her enclosure breached, and paying no attention to the Titanosaur lumbering by, Matilda walks right out into freedom.

Nigel watches the chaos on the park's security cameras, spotting the Troodon chasing a keeper and Bob trying to corral the group of escaped Ornithomimus. Nigel then spots Matilda on the feed, and warns Bob to flee as he tries to herd some of the Ornithomimus. Nigel rushes over to Bob's location, and almost gets trampled by the Elasmotherium and three of the Ornithomimus as they flee away from the T. rex. Bob alerts Nigel that Matilda is heading for the elephants' enclosure, and so Nigel rushes over, only for Matilda to get there first.

Matilda manages to separate the elephant calf from the rest of the herd and quickly runs it down. Suddenly, Martha, in spite of the herd's matriarch driving her away earlier, instinctively defends the calf, and with some trumpeting, growels, roars, and waving of tusks, she prevents Matilda from chasing after the calf. Nigel then arrives and shouts and waves his arms, trying to lure Matilda away to follow him. Matilda, seeing the prospect of an easy meal, turns away from Martha and starts chasing Nigel.

Nigel leads Matilda on a chase through the park, passing Theo the Triceratops, who is still secure in his paddock, and then through the Nile Crocodile Lake, across an open area, and along a path near the Deinosuchus Dip, all while Matilda continues to close the gap. The Deinosuchus, accustomed to fighting giant theropods, surges out of the lake to attack Matilda, who swings around just in time to dodge the attack.

This delay buys time for Nigel, who runs into the holding pens by the Time Portal's entry and climbs out of it by a ladder. Matilda's jaws are nearly reach one of his feet as he reaches safety. Nigel hurries across the platform to shut the enclosure gate, and with that Matilda is finally contained.

A few weeks later, extra keepers have been hired. The escaped animals are soon back in their newly repaired enclosures. Despite not showing visible saber-teeth, Suzanne has managed to wean the Smilodon cubs onto meat. The elephant herd lets Martha rejoin them as a true member, as she rescued the matriarch's calf from Matilda. Bob was also able to capture the stowaway Troodon in a trap, and, presumably, a new enclosure was made for it.

Creatures that escaped in the Mass Break-out

 * One Elasmotherium
 * Ornithomimus flock
 * One Titanosaur
 * One Troodon
 * One Tyrannosaurus rex (Matilda)

Creatures that played a role in the event but are not seen leaving their enclosure

 * One Deinosuchus
 * Elephant herd
 * Elephant Matriarch's calf
 * One Terror Bird
 * One Woolly Mammoth (Martha)





At the end of the episode we see Nigel at his HQ planning his next mission before travelling through the time portal.

Cast

 * Nigel Marven as himself
 * Rod Arthur as Head Keeper Bob
 * Suzanne McNabb as Head Veterinarian Suzanne
 * David Jason as Narrator

Characters

 * Nigel Marven
 * Head Keeper Bob
 * Head Veterinarian Suzanne
 * Martha
 * Elephant Matriarch
 * Elephant Matriarch's calf
 * Henry the Crocodile
 * Stowaway Troodon
 * Matilda
 * Theo

Creatures

 * Nile crocodile
 * Deinosuchus
 * Titanosaur
 * Smilodon
 * Woolly Mammoth
 * African elephant
 * Parasaurolophus
 * Albertosaurus
 * Nyctosaurus
 * Troodon
 * Phorusrhacos
 * Elasmotherium
 * Ornithomimus
 * Triceratops

Locations

 * Prehistoric Park
 * Crocodile Lake
 * Big Cat Climb
 * Mammoth Mount
 * Observation pen
 * Deinosuchus Dip
 * Ornithomimus Pond
 * Terror Bird Paddock
 * Elasmotherium Paddock
 * Main Complex
 * Control Room
 * Triceratops Creek
 * T-Rex Hill
 * Nigel's Base
 * Texas (only appearance)

Objects & technology

 * Time Portal
 * Microlight

Errors

 * A Deinosuchus attacks Nigel in the raft on the river, Nigel is barefoot one minute and has shoes on the next.
 * A panicking Titanosaur broke through the fence to Terrence's side of T. rex Hill, but Matilda was the Tyrannosaurus who escaped. It is possible that Terence may have broke out but was never featured or mentioned.

Trivia

 * While the subject of Nigel's "next adventure" was never revealed, on his Twitter, Nigel indicated Spinosaurus would be the next dinosaur he would want to save.
 * The Woolly Mammoth/Tyrannosaurus rex scene was likely inspired by many dinosaur film battles, even though Martha and Matilda never actually attack each other. However, during production, Matilda was originally going to be smaller and climb onto Martha's head, but that was scrapped before the final release.