Apocalypse then

Series highlights past catastrophes to warn about the future.

- RUSSELL BROWN

EARTH 

BBC Earth, Thursdays, 9.20pm

The four and a half billion years of Earth's existence is an unfathomably long time to hold in our heads. So, we compress it, mentally eliding the epochs between life emerging from the oceans and the rise of the dinosaurs, who have become familiar characters on our screens. The new BBC series Earth takes a different approach: it starts just before the dinosaurs and heads backwards in time.

Its landmarks are catastrophes. The first episode, Inferno, tells the story of the late Permian extinction event, also known as the Great Dying. About 250 million years ago, a series of convulsions set off by volcanic eruptions in Siberia wiped out nearly all life in the oceans and perhaps two-thirds of land vertebrates, including the impressive proto-mammalian synapsids.

But, as Earth's presenter, naturalist Chris Packham observes early in the episode, "Extinction is a vital part of evolution. If nothing ever went extinct, there would be no room for new species to evolve."