Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous Season 4 has arrived – and it brings with it some exciting revels and new animals, but also some moments which perhaps embrace the more child-friendly nature of this show a little too much for adult fans. This review is non-spoiler, but there will be some reference to the trailers we have already seen for the show – so it may be worth skipping this one if you want to go in entirely fresh!
The biggest thing for those of us who are huge fans of the Jurassic franchise will be the overarching story which we get to explore in the fourth season, and I have to admit that I really enjoyed the overarching themes which are present throughout the story in this season. Sure, some moments of the story feel a little overshadowed by some more grandiose moments which the fourth season perhaps indulges in too much, but the core bones of the story are really solid – and really build on some of the core themes which we’ve been exploring since the first Jurassic Park film. If you watch this series with the context of Jurassic World Dominion in mind, then I think you’ll get a lot of enjoyment from where the story goes, as it certainly got me excited for the upcoming sequel in 2022.
The next most important thing after story, for me at least, is the tone which that story takes – and I was pleasantly surprised by the tone in this season. Don’t get me wrong, the tone of this season can feel a little goofy and on-the-nose at some points, but for the most part it explores some really interesting territory and has some really dark moments. The themes explored within this season really do encapsulate some of the darker corners of the Jurassic franchise when you begin to think about their broader context, and how they may mimic how events are unfolding in a world where dinosaurs now co-exist with our ecosystem. Tone is something I’m very excited to talk about with you all more after the show debuts and you have the opportunity to see it, as there is a lot of cool stuff here to think about.
Characters are important in driving the tone and the story forward in meaningful ways – and it feels like the kids once again get some really solid development in the fourth season. Without going into detail, I found it particularly poignant to see how much this fourth season built upon the experiences which the kids had during their time on Isla Nublar. There is a lot of hard work put in here to really ensure that the characters resonate with us in meaningful ways and I was pretty impressed with how well this was handled by the writers of the fourth season. This season really made me much more curious about how Camp Cretaceous as a whole will end, as with the wealth of experience and knowledge these characters have accumulated, you would definitely expect them to cross paths with the Dinosaur Protection Group or the Depart of Wildlife & Fisheries eventually.
The Animals in the fourth season also stood out to me – with some interesting steps taken to expand the roster of the show for another more unique outing. As you’ve already seen in the promotional material, we have the triumphant return of the Spinosaurus – a dinosaur which we haven’t seen since Jurassic Park III. This animal is well realized within the show and feels like an awesome natural evolution to the dinosaur threats which we have seen in previous seasons. We also get the addition of a sabretooth tiger here, a brand-new kind of threat which injects some welcome new variety into the types of animals which have seen across the franchise up until this point. There are a couple of other treats packed into the show when it comes to the dinosaur department – with one particular addition which I think will get a lot of the Jurassic community incredibly excited when they see it revealed.
I want to keep this review brief so we can afford ourselves the luxury of going more in-depth with our spoiler writeup when we release it, so I wanted to end this article by really thinking about the wider picture in the Jurassic universe currently. As we saw at the end of Season 3, the events which we are experiencing through Camp Cretaceous currently are concurrent with the opening moments of Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom. This poses some really interesting questions about how the events which have occurred during this show will impact on events in Jurassic World Dominion, as the time between these two provides plenty of scope to build and expand upon the background occurrences which may affect Dominion’s plot. We’re excited to see how future seasons of Camp Cretaceous may build up to the events in Dominion, as there is some really interesting groundwork laid here which could have some interesting consequences in the ‘modern day’ version of the Jurassic World universe as we know it.
So, where does that leave us? Well, Camp Cretaceous Season 4 can be a little bombastic at times, but the storytelling and tone here kept pulling me back. I think that some fans will find this season a little too extreme for their liking, but if you keep the context of the show in mind, and really approach it with the thought of this being something which impacts on the Jurassic universe more broadly, then I think you’ll get a lot of enjoyment from this season.
Camp Cretaceous Season 4 Premieres on December the 3rd 2021 exclusively on Netflix. Thanks to Netflix, Dreamworks Animation & Universal Pictures for giving us advanced access to screeners for the fourth season.
Written by: Tom Jurassic