We know the end of the story. We know that most - nearly all - dinosaurs perished 66 million years ago. The beaked birds flapping and screeching around us today are the only dinosaurs left. The conclusion could only come as a shock to a literal dinosaur under a rock. No wonder the Episode 4 finale of The Dinosaurs brings in the swelling strings, the panoramic views, and catastrophic views fit for a mid-90s disaster film.

It’s a little funny to have literally written the book on the K/Pg extinction and see some cues potentially borrowed from my narrative. It wouldn’t be the first time. And it’s not like I can claim the real story’s my own. (If I had my way, the non-avian dinosaurs would have lived.) But the common introduction to both The Last Days of the Dinosaurs and The Dinosaurs only highlights where the narratives depart. In the case of the Netflix show, the previous three episodes have been insistence on dominance only to set up a crushing downfall.

Now, simply in terms of visuals and story elements, there’s a great deal of E4 that still catches the eye. I loved that the show almost becomes self-aware, claiming its about to introduce us to North America’s answer to Spinosaurus only to reveal a small, waddling toothed bird, Hesperornis, even though we’re soon back to nature red in tooth and claw with a MEG 2 conclusion. The Ankylosaurus vs Tyrannosaurus fight is also tense, its dark, thunderstorm setting owing more than a little to suspense of Phil Tippett’s iconic Prehistoric Beast. And, of course, we get more nesting behaviors, a reminder that many dinosaurs not only laid clutches of eggs but looked after their offspring for a time. Silly as the victory of T. rex over Ankylosaurus is, delivering a decisive headbutt due to “intelligence” as the gravelly and never-should-have-been-cast Freeman intones, at least the bloated Ankylosaurus acts as a transition to the nest and the point that predators eat as part of ecosystems and not simply bloodthirsty monsters. The final sequence, directly comparing stock footage of modern birds with the show’s dinosaurs, does an admirable job of highlighting similarities between living and extinct dinosaurs - how the study of one helps us understand the other.