YMMV / Walking with Cavemen

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The beetle in "First Ancestors" appears out of nowhere, looks weird, is never commented on, and it is eaten by Lucy after it lands on her.
  • The H. rudolfensis appear out of nowhere, try to dispute the carcass to the H. habilis, and are driven away. They never appear, nor are they referenced ever again. This is notably averted in the Andrew Sachs cut where they are mentioned earlier, making their appearance less of a case of appearing out of nowhere.
• Narm: Even if you buy the creatures' makeup, there is something comical about the way Lucy moves when she tries to walk faster.
• One-Scene Wonder: The Gigantopithecus only appears a single scene, but its quite imposing.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • The more derived hominids (H. ergaster and onward) look pretty good, but the ape-men…not so much. While hardly the worst example of makeup and prosthetics, they still very much scream “actors in makeup and prosthetics” instead of looking like the real deal, especially to those who will notice their disproportionately Homo sapiens-esque body proportions.
  • The Gigantopithecus is in a league of its own, as it looks like a guy in a cheap ape costume with a face that barely articulates, and it’s rather obvious that it’s shot against a green screen to make it look more massive.
  • The lion that kills the H. habilis leader is obviously played by two different cats, an adolescent with a scruffy mane and a mature adult with a fully formed mane.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The depiction of H. heidelbergensis had a lot of missed potential:
  • The show makes no mention of H. heidelbergensis being the largest hominid ever.
  • Instead of showing the "caring" with a recently injured who dies in under 12 hours, they could have shown them caring for an individual in need of attention for several years, like a toothless senior or a mentally challenged child (in their defense, both examples were published after the documentary was produced).
  • Showing H. heidelbergensis as the first hominid with some kind of burial, however crude. Instead of another hominid with no burials.
  • If inspired by H. antecessor, showing that compassion did not extend beyond one's family until much later, and people outside it were fair game. Literally.

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