Jurassic World: Chaos Theory – TV Review

Woah, what an upgrade from CC!

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Chaos Theory is a sequel to Camp Cretaceous, a spin-off to the Jurassic World films. It centers around new characters, known as “The Nublar Six” or “Camp Fam” among each other. Six teenagers, stranded on Isla Nublar, after the lockdown in the first Jurassic World movie. 5 seasons later, they manage to finally go home. Chaos Theory is set 5 years after the events of Camp Cretaceous, and mainly aligns with the 3rd film, Dominion.

Acronyms used in this review:
JW = Jurassic World ; CC = Camp Cretaceous ; CT = Chaos Theory
MC(s) = main character(s) ; VA(s) = voice actor(s)/actress(es)

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PS: I have only seen Jurassic Park 1-3 and the 1st movie of Jurassic World. I’ve watched some clips from Dominion, but other than that, don’t ask me how accurate the spin-off is. There are videos on youtube, though, where people post side-by-side comparisons.

Slight spoilers ahead:
This review covers all seasons (1-4) of Chaos Theory and also mentions parts of Camp Cretaceous. I suggest you to first watch CC before reading this, and perhaps also the first season of CT. Although I tried to keep it as spoiler-free as possible, it’s difficult to cover everything I liked and disliked, without giving away a few things.

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CC already was part of my favorite cartoons, and I wasn’t at first a fan of the trailer of CT season 1. So I didn’t start it when it released. On one hand, I’m glad I did, because I binged CT in one day, and probably wouldn’t have “survived” waiting half a year for the next season. On the other hand, I definitely missed out.

The show quite surprised me.

Adult characters, kids show, mature

While still being marketed for kids, it feels like the writers grew up with the main characters. Also knowing that the main audience are the fans from CC, who are now at least 3-4 years older. Season 3 of CC was, in my opinion, the darkest and creepiest season of CC. Still, they managed to make CT even scarier. Scarier in a more mature way. Not as gory and creepy as the films, but more eerie.

Probably thanks to “the handler” – a human or maybe not human (isn’t revealed), who never blinks, only has like 3 lines throughout 3 seasons and only whistles, while being surrounded by 3-4 raptors, who she can control via the whistle. And camp fam is being hunted by her.
(That might be personal horror preference/fears. I, at least, find it creepier to see young adults being hunted in their home cities by a human who controls killing machines via a whistle – compared to dangerous carnivore animals attacking campers on a lone island.)

There was only a few times where blood was shown, albeit dried one. Other than that, dead bodies continue to be “teased” with unmoving limbs or being dragged into the bushes by a Dino. You still get near-death shots and lots of drama and suspense. And shadow play with electrocuted shots.

What also makes it more mature is the added realism.

Disability Representation

CC had quite some injuries, for example Yaz’s injury in season 1, that stretched throughout the whole show, particularly in season 1 and 2 she was mostly disabled during walking and running. The others too had some injuries here and there, but nothing that lasted long. They were afraid, yet the adrenaline kept them in survival mode the whole time, apparently.

Here, however, they showed intense anxiety and panic attacks, especially Yaz with her PTSD, lots of crying and breaking down, and some injuries that can’t easily be healed. For example,

• an MC loses a limb (+ gets a prosthesis) (+ the VA has the same disability! Love the rep!!)
• another character gets injured really badly that stretches for 4 episodes, with them ending up in a wheelchair.
• they actually tell each other that they’re scared.
• they cry together, a lot. (And have break-downs, even in the middle of running away.)
• they scream to let their fear/anger out.
• they have to tell one another that they’re strong and have to keep going. Not just, “we have to go! Now!”, but more like, “I know you’re hurt and scared. It’s okay. But you got this. We need to leave.”

“No shame in being scared.”
“Good, cause this is terrifying.”

“Friendship is magic”

That vibe to Camp Fam here too was going strong like in CC, but even more so.

• Kenji and Darius are in a sort of love triangle again like in CC 3, but they don’t let that influence their bromance and talk about it. (It’s not a classic romantic love triangle!)
• Yaz and Ben verbally confirm they’re each other’s rock, even have a kiss on the forehead, and tell each other their platonic/amical love for another.
• Sammy says some things about everyone she was bottling up since CC, but as she felt better after letting it out, she realizes she’s wrong and they can make amends genuinely. Although, as Yaz put it, it’s not the same, but it’s going to be.
• Ben and Kenji have a needed talk about their awkwardness, Ben’s self-confidence and a subtle love confession that is left open for the viewer to interpret. (It’s definitely (at least) tutelary and platonic attraction.)
• Brooklynn and Ben also have quite some bonding. In CC, they never interacted much, and when they did, it was rather awkward or during action scenes. They are both sort of outsiders that the rest of the group adopted – Ben was the outsider at first in CC, with Brooklynn being the center, but with his development after s2 and especially s3, managed to integrate. Whereas Brooklynn became the outsider in CT, with Ben being sorta the center in CT (at least s1 and s4), but then also managed to find back at the end. Quite interesting dynamic actually. Glad they had some scenes in CT that showed they are friends too, not just get along because they’re in the same friend group. (Although they do still feel like they’re these cousins who are only befriended because of their family, and wouldn’t have ever interacted without them. But I like it. Makes it realistic.)
• All of them tell each other that they love one another. Sometimes as a group, sometimes just among few people.

They’re all very close to each other – as their own name suggests, a found family. But unlike the typical “friendship is magic” shows (such as My little pony), each camper has a different bond to another, a different type of love portrayed. (As listed above for some.)

For CC, when they were young teenagers, it was expected for them to have these “innocent friendships”, lots of hugs, a sort of naivety to the world when it came to helping each other and the world, and their fears.
In CT, when they are 19-22 years old, you’d expect it to be more like the films. More romance-centered, less comedic, more seriousness, less skinship (unless sexual), etc. But with their established closeness in CC, and the amount of things they’ve gone through that lead to their anxieties, it can never be like the films. There is more romance here, sure, but it’s still very friendship-focused. To find a platonic-centered show is rare, and even rarer with adult characters.

There are some communication problems still in some areas, as expected, but in other areas they were mature too.

Romance

• A couple broke up earlier and afterwards they realize that they don’t have to keep things going when it doesn’t work, cause maybe they weren’t meant to be.
• Another couple can’t agree about something, and as to not put the mission at risk, they decide to take a break. Agree to disagree, basically.
• And another couple is just completely healthy and sweet without any complications – albeit they had only little screen-time.

I also like the epilogue which is sort of open-ended about one shipping, and is also heavily polycule-coded! Disappointed they couldn’t do more than that (and have more scenes with them in the previous seasons), but that was still handled very well. Makes all shippers happy. (No spoilers, but it’s not the obvious one.)

Feminism

6 main characters – 3 female, and 3 male, so it’s already balanced when it comes to the screen-time of men and women. The feminism particularly comes to show in the dynamics among the genders.

• The 3 women are close, but actually not as close as the 3 men.
  • Kenji and Darius have a bromance,
  • Darius and Ben confessed their platonic love in CC season 3,
  • and Ben and Kenji always were a little awkward but in the end just want to protect each other.
• Whereas it’s expected for the gals to be soft with each other, they aren’t as much (actually have more tension), while the boys defy (almost) every toxic-masculine expectation and are very feminine among each other. They cried and hugged the most.
• The boys were also much more involved with the dino egg and Smoothie. They had much more baby talk with Smoothie. Especially Kenji was more of a mom character. Whereas the women were “the cool aunts”. There was zero expectancy for them to take care of the babies; Ben of course made sense as he’s already adopted Bumpy as his daughter in CC, but Kenji jumped into the caretaker role in CT as if it were his paid job. (Also amazing character development for him.)
• Also: the women save the men a lot of times, even telling them to stay behind while they deal with the danger.
• On top of that, the scariest villains/antagonists in CT were two women.

If the social expectations of how genders and age groups should act didn’t exist, then CC and CT barely would have any differences. But as these do exist, CT is more mature because it breaks a lot of stereotypes.

I think the writers/creators might’ve tried to give some hope for the “not all men” thing. I mean, Ben, Darius and Kenji set the bar extremely high for boyfriend material. They respect women / treat women the same way as every other gender, they‘re emotional, vulnerable and open with their feelings, they don’t hide their tears, they communicate, they don’t practice toxic masculinity among their (same-gender) friends, they take their friendships as serious as other relationships, they’re more romantic than sexual minded, … and most importantly: they wash their hands after been to the bathroom (it has to be mentioned, because unfortunately it’s not just a meme irl).

Other diversity

• The Nublar Six consist of: a black, a japanese, an arab, a mestiza, a white jew, and a white (possibly) british/australian. They all live in the usa, so they’re all half-american. (Apart from the japanese character and the obvious black person, the nationalities are based on the VAs + a bit from the show, ie skin tone and last names.)
• Lesbian romance among the main characters (started in CC, continued in CT with 3 on-screen kisses (not censored))
• Confirmed bi/pan character, another teased bi/pan character
• One hetero main character has 2 dads
• Ben and Kenji both being the “dads” to Smoothie, even though Ben is technically the grandfather. While the other campers refer to themselves as aunts/uncles. (Ben makes sense to be the dad/grandpa, but Kenji could’ve easily just been the “cool uncle”, yet they referred to him as the second dad!)
• Unknown people to the main characters are referred to as they/them, until their pronouns are confirmed. This was shown with particularly 3 characters: a gas station cashier (in s1), a villain (known as The Broker) and a supporting journalist character in season 3.
• Season 2 plays in Senegal, which features a native family that supports the MCs on their mission (the voice actors are also native, they speak a bit wolof). Zayna and Aminata were wonderful characters!
• Italian supporting characters with native italian-speaking VAs
• Exploring different types of love/attraction, other than the “main” ones (romance, sexual, friendly/platonic, familial, social). One character is set up thinking they’re romantically in love with someone, but they end up concluding it’s adifferent type of emotional + physical love, that doesn’t include romantic and sexual activities. (Character is also implied to be aromantic/aroace.) That’s beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that done before in a tv show or movie (– only books), let alone a kids show.
• Camp Fam is hinted to be in a kitchen table polyamory at the end. There are also some polycule hints for other ships.

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Spin-Off > Main story

What I also love about the show, or why the show has always intrigued me more than the movies, was that you get to see how the rest of the world is suffering from what the MCs have done in the films. While camp fam is sorta directly involved with the causes sometimes (i.e., Brooklynn in CT season 4 apparently has accidentally killed an antagonist from Dominion), they are mostly the “background characters”. I’ve always been a fan of that. Hero stories are the same, so it’s much more interesting to see how the rest of the world is doing, while the ones with plot armor survive and cause destruction. (Although camp fam has a LOT of plot armor, too. The universe pretty much got their back many times.)

Apart from that, the films do focus a lot on the violence and gore of what big carnivores can do when they roam free and do what nature intended them to do. Whereas CC and CT can’t do that, because it’s a kids show. So they focus much more on intensity in other ways: characters.

• The films are plot-driven, the show is more character-driven. Emotional intensity between the characters, without it being melodramatic. Interesting characters (even more interesting than the dinosaurs) and their dynamics. And their shared passion of helping dinosaurs.
• The films focus on destruction, the show focuses on rebuild. Get along, co-exist, be one with nature. Help those in need, even when they’re your enemies. Even when you’re not friends. CC was more naive in that regards, CT gives more trust issues, but in the end it comes down to the same: helping. And that’s just quite beautiful.

Actually being a jurassic world

Nublar and the other island in CC was nice, probably nostalgic for the movie fans, but a bit boring. Having different environments and seasons is what I loved about Dreamworks’ Spy Racers spin-off from Fast & Furious already, and CT reminded me of that show. (And season 2 reminded me of Iwaju!! Great show.) With the alps, Camp Fam has now covered all weather conditions to survive in from dinos!

I loved the traveling in CT a lot!!

It’s also great they used native VAs for the foreign languages (wolof and italian), and for the italian that there were no subtitles! So we have the pov from the campers and not a god-like perspective!! That was awesome! (There are videos on yt that translate the italian, so if you are curious, you can always look it up later on.)

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It’s not a perfect show.

There were things that annoyed me a lot, things that could’ve been made better. Things that would change nothing in the plot/storyline, yet would make more sense.

• For example, they’re diet. (Of course, not a matter in CC when they were stranded on an island, and also in CT on the ship when they had to eat whatever they could find. But CT mostly featured them at home, in cities or among civilization that had markets/shops with every kinds of food.)
  • How are they not vegan? Apparently only one of them is vegetarian, but other than that … how? They’re literally sacrificing their own lives to save dinos, they can’t watch them being tortured and do everything to stop people from hurting them, no matter big or small.
  • Replace the dinos with any other ‘farm’ animal, and this would be seen as a vegan activism advertisement. Technically could even be an analogy for veganism, and the DLN basically an ‘impersonification’ of vegan activists.
  • Though I guess I can’t expect much from writers who likely aren’t aware of the cruelties by the farm (meat, milk and egg mostly) industry themselves.
• The writing isn’t the best either. (I was amazed by everything at first, but after re-watching everything and spending time on tumblr with the fandom, I’ve come to see some issues that others expressed.) Camp Cretaceous did a much better job with the characters. Sure, they also had more episodes, but the CT team was given 39 episodes from the start – they knew how much time they were gonna get.
  • Some storylines and character obstacles were thrown into without being explored ever again, and the N6 didn’t feel as equally fleshed out like in CC (Ben and Brooklynn had the most screen-time in CT).
    I can’t complain that much, cause I tend to do that as a writer too sometimes. As a slice of life fan, that type of writing also feels realistic.
  • CT is also much more plot-driven (though less than the movies), with the characters being constantly pulled to locations, rather than having time to breathe and rest. And when they were resting, side characters did something that made them get into action again.
  • I loved Brooklynn’s storyline (especially cause I wasn’t much a fan of her in CC), but as Ben and Brooklynn are the only white characters … that does feel a bit icky.

But all in all it was wonderful. I’m very happy they depicted all the mature scenes with the disabilities and the communication with their feelings. It hurt to see sometimes (particularly the ptsd), nevertheless it was important to depict.

And the comedy, Camp Fam’s humor, was still the same at least. Especially Kenji’s jokes got even better. That’s another great thing. Despite all they’re going through and have lost, they manage to make each other laugh and have happy moments amidst the storm.

Conclusion: Which is better, CC or CT?

CC has objectively better writing, better character equality and, of course, CT wouldn’t exist without it … But I’m biased. Having adult characters with the “friendship is magic” vibe is just so much more satisfying and comforting than among kids.

I really hope I can see Camp Fam again! With the new movie, Rebirth, it’s possible we might see Camp Fam and how they’re doing during the events of that movie. But whatever the creators choose, I just wanna see The Nublar Six! Even if it’s just as background characters. Literally all I want and the reason i keep engaging with the Jurassic franchise. :3

(I only hope they choose a different streaming service than Netflix. Both Universal’s and Netflix’s queerphobia is just brutal. If it weren’t for them, a BL ship would have had become canon in CC already; they only changed it because Universal and/or Netflix wasn’t brave enough! Ugh.)

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Finished 8th Feb 2026, re-watched 20th February 2026
~A. S.

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