Changing Nature (Dinosaurs) (1994)
"Changing Nature" is the seventh episode of the fourth season of the ABC sitcom Dinosaurs as well as the final episode of the series before its apparent cancellation. It originally aired on ABC on July 20, 1994, as the network series finale. The episode had an unexpectedly dark, somber tone, surprising its audience.
For context: Dinosaurs was a puppet-based sitcom created by Michael Jacobs and Bob Young, and produced by The Jim Henson Company, which aired on ABC from 1990-94. At its core, it has the aesthetic of The Flintstones (only the family consists of dinosaurs, not prehistoric humans) and a more family-friendly brand of the kind of social satire seen on All in the Family and The Simpsons. The series was the final project to be overseen by Jim Henson, who died when the series was in development. The pilot is dedicated to his memory.
The show followed the adventures of the Sinclair family: Earl, the not-too-bright blue-collar dad who works as a tree pusher for the WESAYSO Corporation; his long-suffering wife Fran; his grouchy mother-in-law Ethyl; and their three kids: rebellious teenager Robbie; naïve middle daughter Charlene; and annoying younger sibling Baby (Yes, the baby was literally called Baby).
So in what way did they decided was the best way to end such a lovely sitcom about a family of dinosaurs? With the extinction of dinosaurs, of course! A new ice age is forming, the dinosaurs are doomed, and everyone from the series is going to die. But what really drives it home is when Baby asks what's going to happen to them. Earl and Fran don't say anything, but from the way they look at each other, it's clear that they know they're not going to make it.
This also comes with the unfortunate implication that the reason all along for the anachronic level of tech that the dinos have is that said technology is now going to be set back millions of years, as the cave people won't become intelligent enough in time to save it, thus forcing them to reinvent it all from scratch over hundreds of thousands of years.
"Hey, I'm sure it will all work out okay. After all, dinosaurs have been on this Earth for 150 million years! And it's not like we're going to just… disappear."
Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
One day in the midst of the Cold War, US Air Force Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper goes a little funny in the head and does a silly thing: he orders all the B-52 bombers under his command to carry out a surprise nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union, then places his entire air base into lockdown, ordering all outside communications cut; all radios confiscated (so that Communist infiltrators can't receive outside commands); and all troops to immediately fire upon anyone who tries to enter the base, even if they appear to be fellow Americans (because they will surely be those wily Communists in disguise). Ripper's aide, British Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, tries to talk sense into him but quickly perceives that the general has gone right out of his pointy little head, believing that only he stands in the way of a Communist plot to contaminate Americans' "precious bodily fluids" via fluoridated water.
At the Pentagon, US President Merkin Muffley calls an emergency meeting in the War Room with his top advisors. Although the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, General Buck Turgidson, views the crisis as an opportunity to hit the Russkies where they live once and for good, both the President's wheelchair-bound, ex-Nazi science advisor Dr. Strangelove and the Soviet ambassador to the US warn Muffley that any attack upon the Soviet Union will trigger the Doomsday Machine: a computer programmed to automatically detonate buried cobalt bombs, which will eradicate nearly all life on the Earth's surface with their radiation over the course of months, should the USSR be attacked by outside nuclear forces, or if any attempt is made to disable the Doomsday Machine itself. So the President gets on the hotline and desperately tries to convince the inebriated Premier Kissov that the imminent attack is merely a silly mistake, while the military tries to call the bombers back. But if there is one thing we learned about fate, it's that anything that can go wrong with something as serious as preventing the apocalypse does and will.
Extinction Films Round 2 Bout 4
Changing Nature (Dinosaurs) (1994)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Voting ended onFeb 3
