So hobbling together a cast for a paleodocumentary, especially a mini-series with multiple episodes is very much like bringing together a cast for a movie or tv show. It needs a diverse assemblage of characters, each unique and interesting in their own way. A lot of people totally miss that, often putting together a cast of extinct animals thats very random and lopsided, often featuring two or more taxa that are way too similar to each other, and other times having very similar ones between episodes (though thats a different topic), and its often done by hypocrites who preach about the importance of speculation while simultaneously being horrified of the mere thought of looking outside one specific fossil formation, even if there are more than one within the same general area from the same time period (ala myopic know-it-all wagging their finger at the thought of putting Alamosaurus, known from Texas to Wyoming, in Hell Creek XD)

But is there a formula you can follow when putting together a cast list of dinosaurs for one particular instalment that would produce the most satisfying result? I think there is, at least if youre dealing with a conventional Jurassic or Cretaceous dinosaur-dominated ecosystem. Its more of a rule of thumb, not a hard-set one, as there are plenty of variable to consider, but your average dinosaur ecosystem will be like todays Serengeti (note how most ecosystems during the Pleistocene across the globe were also similar to Africa prior to experiencing mass extinctions) and should have the following archetypes:

a) A big sauropod: The simultaneous elephant/giraffe analog of your setting. Usually reserved for super-sized taxa, but smaller sauropod like Saltasaurus can also fill this role in the absence of the former. The big part is relative.

b) A big predator: The apex predator of the region, the lion equivalent. Usually an allosaur, megalosaur or tyrannosaur, though smaller types like abelisaurids or megraptorans also serve that role in the absence of the former. Again, the big part is relative.

c) The dangerous herbivore: The rhino or bovine equivalent, a plant-eater thats visually well-armed to ward off predators with horns, spikes, clubs and/or armor. Generally a ceratopsid or thyreophoran, with ankylosaurs being the most common choice, due to having the widest temporal and geographical distribution.

d) The ornithopod: The unassuming large, gregarious herbivore, the zebra or wildebeest analog of the environment. Typically an iguanodont or hadrosaur.

e) The small predator: The jackal or wild dog, or maybe serval or caracal of its environment. Predator biomasses in both modern and ancient times usually have carnivores of many different sizes, but the simplest and most economic pairing is a big predator/little predator combo. The size of the little predator depends on how large the big predator is. In the most extreme cases, when you have 40-foot apex predator, the little predator can be as big as 20 feet, ala T. rex/Dakotaraptor. In Late Cretaceous settings, its almost always a dromaeosaur, or less commonly a troodontid, though the latter was more like an opportunistic fox than a straightforward carnivore.

f) The small non-predator: This one is the most flexible archetype, very much a catch-all term that can encompass a wide range of dinosaurs; pachycephalosaurs, ornithomimids, oviraptorids, alvarezsaurs, doesnt matter if they are herbivores or omnivores, just as long as they arent very active hunters and can be interpreted as a common prey source for the aforementioned small predator.

g) The pterosaur: After all, the Mesozoic wasnt just the age of dinosaurs, but the age of pterosaurs as well. Much like any modern ecosystem has plenty of flying birds, you should have one mandatory token pterosaur in most of the episodes, usually one that reflects the time setting the best (ornithocheirids for the Lower Cretaceous, azhdarchids for the Upper Cretaceous, rhamphorhynchids for the Late Jurassic, etc.)

Now that I have established a rough formula, lets see how much it applies to the cast lists for my Updated with Dinosaurs? At least for the conventional dinosaur-dominated episodes?

www.deviantart.com/wdghk/journ…

Those would be Time of Titans, Spirits of the Ice Forest, Death of a Dynasty/Ballad of Stan, The Terrible Hand, The Land of Giants, March of the Dinosaurs and The Southern Hunter

Big Sauropod: Mamenchisaurus, Saltasaurus, Alamosaurus, X, Argentinosaurus, X, Diamantinasaurus

Big Raptorial Theropod: Yangchuanosaurus, Carnotaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Tarbosaurus, Mapusaurus, Gorgosaurus, Australovenator

Dangerous Herbivore: Tuojiangosaurus, Antarctopelta, Torosaurus/Ankylosaurus, X, X, Styracosaurus/Edmontonia, X

Large Ornithopod: X, X, Edmontosaurus, Saurolophus, Ouranosaur, Parasaurolophus, Muttaburrasaur

Small Predatory Theropod: Guanlong, Imperobator, Dakotaraptor, Zanabazar, Skorpiovenator, Latenivenatrix

Small Non-Predator: Yinlong, Trinisaura, Pachycephalosaurus/Ornithomimus/ Thescelosaurus/ Trierarchuncus, Mononykus/Nemegtomaia, Huinculsaurus, Struthiomimus, Weewarrasaurus

Pterosaur: Jeholopterus, X, Quetzalcoatlus, Azhdarchid, Nicorhynchus, Cryodrakon, Ferrodraco

Defiantly has some gaps, but overall fits rather nicely, doesnt it? In quite a few spost, I could have easily included the missing archetypes, like Camptosaurus in Time of Titans, or Aerotitan in Spirits of the Ice Forest and Nemegtosaurus, Tarchia and the Nemegt Azhdarchid in The Terrible Hand, and only excluded them due to having a general character limit with each episode, and in some cases, more than one dinosaur filled the same archetype by virtue of being very different from each other respectively.

Worth mentioning that a great complementary bonus for any cast would be the well&.complementary bonus dinosaur or other reptile. An animal thats very unique and doesnt fit any of these archetypes. Examples would include spinosaurs, therizinosaurs and giant crocodiles (like Deinosuchus and Sarcosuchus) or a stray marine reptile that can inhabit fresh or brackish waters, not to mention some unique and highly derived Mesozoic mammals.

https://www.deviantart.com/wdghk/art/How-to-Cast-a-Dino-Documentary-872605994