I watched ‘prehistoric park’ on Saturday. I seldom watch ITV, and to begin with I dismissed it as crass, but in retrospect I concede it does have some virtues. It’s sort of Walking with Dinosaurs meets Zoo quest, where the presenter goes back in time to capture dinosaurs for a park. Thus it’s a mix of fiction and documentary, with the camera swapping between the notional hand held ‘first person’ and the omni positional third. Thus it’s ambiguous.

Nevertheless, I must say this was quite a fun way to approach the subject, allowing the presenter to handle and examine the dinosaurs. There are quite a few documentaries which purport to re-create history these days. There was one on the Antarctic expedition on bbc2 last night. These programmes may have little to add academically – a re-creation is not an exact replication of the real thing – but they are very good for illustrating it and fleshing out the textbooks. Recreations can never substitute proper academic research, but it complements it very well indeed.