Young dinosaur fanatic Darius wins the trip of a lifetime to Camp Cretaceous, the new children’s camp experience at Jurassic World’s Isla Nublar.

There’s something absolutely remarkable about John Williams’ movie scores. His themes for Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Superman are all iconic and easily recognisable, sure. But perhaps the most heartstring-tugging of the lot – for this dinosaur enthusiast at least – is Jurassic Park. There’s something about that familiar refrain that just gets me every time, and it’s one of the reasons I couldn’t help but be taken in by this opening episode.

You could argue, I suppose, that Jurassic Park is a franchise that’s already been thoroughly milked. The original trilogy delivered diminishing returns after an unparalleled opening chapter, and the current Jurassic World part of the cinematic franchise – the opening chapter of which apparently runs parallel with this new show – has posted one decent nostalgia kick and one more cynical, somewhat nastier-feeling sequel. But there’s never been an actual kids TV show aimed at this most kid-friendly of franchises and that’s likely because someone calculated that a live-action show would be too costly and an animation would somewhat miss the majesty of the dinosaurs – the only reason to turn up.

But Camp Cretaceous really works, and not just because of that score. The key draw of Jurassic Park all those years ago was that it revelled in the amazement, the sheer exhilarating experience of seeing creatures long-since dead alive and kicking on the screen. It appealed to the child in all of us – for who among us was not fascinated in our early childhood by the very concept of giant lizards who had once ruled the Earth? Later entries in the series grew increasingly cynical – indeed by the point of Jurassic World itself, the park is creating new, ‘more exciting’ dinosaurs like the Indominus Rex because the world is ‘bored’ of dinosaurs by then!

This show, however, remembers that magic, and brings it to life through the character of Darius, an earnest enthusiast of all things dino who can’t believe his luck at being able to get to the island. His companions are a mixed bag of kids there because of family wealth, connections to the park or being famous in their own right. There’s also one kid whose main distinguishing feature is that he’s constantly terrified and/or being sick. Refreshingly, it seems that they have avoided too many cliches as well with the different characters, at least from this opening episode.

There’s a fair bit of setup meaning that, at just under twenty-five minutes not an awful lot happens here but the cliffhanger it leaves as the credits roll suggest that it should be a fluid, well-paced show perfect for binging. With an absence of the sort of blood and gore the movies occasionally revelled in and none of the more ‘adult’ themes they tacked in, this is a great show for keeping young kids entertained as well as bringing enough that older fans of the franchise specifically and dinosaurs generally (like myself) will enjoy it too.

Verdict: A strong start to what promises to be a great show for fans of the franchise of all ages. 9/10

Greg D. Smith