YMMV / Sea Monsters

• Adaptation Displacement: Not many are aware that Sea Monsters is technically its own thing, due to it being widely available in the Chased by Dinosaurs DVD compilation released in 2004, wherein it was referred to as Chased By Sea Monsters.
• Aluminium Christmas Trees:
  • No, the idea that Tanystropheus was capable of caudal autonomy (amputating its own tail like a modern lizard) was not invented by the show. That theory was actually proposed by German paleontologist Rupert Wild, a major figure in Tanystropheus research during the 20th century, who considered the animal to be part of the lepidosauromorphs (closer to lizards than archosaurs) ^note  Most 21st-century studies recovered it as an archosauromorph , and in a 1973 paper, Wild even cited one specimen from Ticino as allegedly sporting an autotomized tail, with textures on the 14th vertebra supposedly showing evidence of fractures. However, subsequent studies have rejected Wild’s interpretation of the specimen.
  • T. rex showing up 75 mya might have been inspired by CM 9401, an alleged giant tyrannosaurid lacrimal from the upper Campanian Judith River Formation, originally attributed to Deinosuchus, before being tentatively referred to Tyrannosaurus by Dale Russel in 1981 and then again in a 2006 study (though they didn't argue that it was T. rex itself).
• Fanon:
  • The unnamed whale hunted by the Megalodon is never identified in the franchise, but fans have basically agreed that it is Cetotherium.
  • Although there is nothing to directly confirm it, most viewers think of Chased by Dinosaurs, this series and Prehistoric Park as being in the same continuity ^note It’s heavily implied Chased by Dinosaurs at least do happens in the same continuity, as during the opening of Sea Monsters the narration mentions how Nigel had dangerous encounters with dinosaurs before and the Velociraptor, Giganotosaurus and Tarbosaurus of Chased by Dinosaurs do appear briefly in the intro..
• Narm: While on the whole the production values hold up very well for a straight to TV documentary from the early 2000s, every episode features Marven consulting a "time map" that looks like a long sheet of paper someone printed out about five minutes before shooting started. You can even see it curling up at the end. It really doesn't help that Marven keeps looking at it like it's some kind of profound document about to reveal the secrets of the cosmos to him. Of course, it’s somewhat hinted that the time map is the object Nigel uses to time travel, so him being so engrossed in it at the time to move to the next sea does at least make sense.
• Nightmare Fuel: has its own page.
• Realism-Induced Horror: While the prehistoric predators Nigel faces through the documentary are obviously long dead in our time, the main horror element of the show with a person being outside his element alone in the water with dangerous sea creatures surrounding them is something that can happen in real life and make someone scared, especially if they suffer from thalassophobia
• Signature Scene: Nigel nearly getting eaten by the Megalodon.
• Squick: Nigel plucks out one of the Isotelus's eyes to put the camera. He even warns the cameraman and advices him to turn away.
• Stock Footage Failure: Like in Walking with Beasts, a shot of a modern whale raising its tail over the surface is used in one scene. Unlike in Beasts, you can see not just the fluke but also the dorsal fin of the modern whale, revealing that it has a much shorter tail than Basilosaurus. In addition, you can tell the land in the background is not a tropical floodplain at all, but a mountain ranger complete with snow on it.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Megalodon was distributed worldwide and existed for 20 million years, which means any giant Miocene marine predator could have been featured alongside it. Candidates include killer whale-sized dolphin Macrodelphinus, true killer whale Orcinus citoniensis, four-tusked walruses Pontolis and Gomphotaria, giant alligator Purussaurus, seagoing gharial Piscogavialis, and Giant Flyer Toothy Bird Pelagornis. Monster sperm whale Livyatan only gets left out because it wasn't discovered until 2010.
  • The first location being a South American Pacific kelp forest and their mention in the book almost confirms that the seagoing ground sloth Thalassocnus was going to be featured but was cut. Alternatively, a setting in the northern Pacific during the Miocene (which also had kelp forests) could have included desmostylians like Paleoparadoxia, a.k.a. the lovechildren of manatees and hippopotamuses.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The series features prehistoric creatures underwater and interacting with Nigel.

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