

Season 1 • Episode 4
LatestA focus on a group of Homo heidelbergensis, advanced tool users who lived in family units but who were incapable of imagination, and their descendents the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, who came to conquer the world.
Professor Robert Winston meets Lucy, the first upright ape, and follows her ancestors on the three-million-year journey to civilisation.
Practical Effects
Grotesque prosthetics that haunt your dreams
Cinematography
Sahara as alien planet, gorgeous and hostile
Score
Bombastic BBC nature drama energy
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Robert Winston performed his own stunts in extreme heat, passing out twice in the Sahara. Method acting for science.
This was the last Walking with... series to use entirely practical effects before the franchise went full CGI. The grotesque prosthetics were deliberately unsettling to avoid 'noble savage' romanticism.