I signed up to Apple TV Plus for this one series — and the streamer just surprised fans by announcing third season

A climbing sloth in Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age.
(Image credit: Apple TV Plus)

The first series that convinced me to pick up an Apple TV Plus free trial and test out the streamer back in 2022 wasn't actually a drama but a docuseries, and in a surprising move, the streamer has announced the return of this show: Prehistoric Planet is coming back.

Prehistoric Planet ran on Apple TV Plus for two seasons, one in 2022 and another in 2023, and it was a dinosaur nature show made with cutting-edge technology and narrated by Sir David Attenborough. It sits comfortably on our list of the best Apple TV Plus shows due to its fantastic visuals which put the new Walking with Dinosaurs to shame.

Over two and a half years from the final batch of episodes, long after fans thought the show was done, we've learned that Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age will be coming later in the year.

This new five-part series, part spin-off and part continuation, is set to release on Wednesday, November 26, and it puts Marvel and The Night Manager actor Tom Hiddleston behind the microphone.

As you can tell from the title, this docuseries looks at creatures which roamed the world millions of years after the dinosaurs, seemingly during the Younger Dryas period although Apple hasn't actually stated a time scale just yet.

A baby woolly rhino in Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age.

(Image credit: Apple TV Plus)

We do know some of the creatures we'll see though. In the image above you can see some rock-climbing sloths and we'll also see the likes of saber-toothed tigers, scimitar cats, woolly rhinos, glyptotherium, woolly mammoths and dwarf elephants. The episodes will deal with how these creatures struggled to survive in the stark landscapes of the time and then how they tried (and sometimes failed) to adapt when the world warmed back up.

Like with the well-received first two seasons, Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age was made by the BBC Studios Natural History Unit, which makes plenty of the most popular nature docs around, and was scored by Hans Zimmer.

Apple TV Plus has begun to embrace spin-offs to its shows, and Ice Age probably counts as one of these (not that I'm complaining, I asked for this over a year ago!). But however you define it, it's great to see one of Apple TV Plus' best series, and by far its best docuseries, getting a comeback.

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Tom Bedford
Streaming and Ecommerce Editor

Tom is the streaming and ecommerce editor at What to Watch, covering streaming services in the US and UK.

As the site's streaming expert he covers new additions, hidden gems, round-ups and big news for the biggest VOD platforms like Netflix, Apple TV Plus, Disney Plus, Prime Video and Tubi. He also handles the site's articles on how to watch various movies, TV shows, sports, live events and classic box sets, and coverage on hardware like TVs, soundbars and streaming sticks.

You can commonly find him at film festivals, seeing classic movies shown on the big screen, or going to Q&As from his favorite film-makers and stars.

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