||SPOILERS|| Credit where credit's due, at least Primeval's third season isn't retreading old ground entirely. By expanding the mythology to explain beasts from cryptozoology and myth, we've also seen a bit more imagination behind the plots themselves. Of course, it's still absurd and poorly-conceived a lot of the time, but at least the show's trying to do something different...This week, an anomaly appears in the plush apartment of Sir Richard William (William Scott-Masson) and one of his aides wanders through after mistaking it for modern art(!), to find himself in a future woodland where he's infected with a fungus-like contagion. Before dying, the aide vomits on the apartment floor in the present-day, before the anomaly imprisons him in the future, and Sir Richard is infected upon returning home and touching the curious black stain he discovers.
The ARC team are soon on the case (after a curiously late anomaly alert), and Connor (Andrew-Lee Potts) takes a sample of the floor mildew and realizes it's a virulent contagion. So, the search is on for Sir Richard before he can infect other people. And, wouldn't you know it, the upper-class dullard's currently stumbling around the heavily-populated St. Pancras station, hiding an arm covered in mossy swellings.
Danny Quinn (Jason Flemyng) is also back, refusing to take no for an answer in his quest to become ARC's new team leader, following the death of Cutter. It's an ambition we're certain he'll achieve, but the series still has to jump through some hoops. Primeval doesn't make it easy for itself, either -– pretty much every character has no watertight reason to be on the team. Connor began life as a dinosaur nerd with a laptop (and now he's a catch-all boy genius), Abby (Hannah Spearritt) is just a zookeeper (but now a gifted botanist and action-sprite to boot), and Jenny (Lucy Brown) was supposed to be the face of boring public relations, but has mysteriously assumed authority. Newcomer Sarah (Laila Rouass) has a half-decent reason to be there, but it's one that sadly confines her to the ARC, to scratch dirt away on The Artifiact.
While it seemed likely we were in for a different kind of threat this week; something biological, instead of monstrous... Primeval just couldn't resist indulging the FX team. So, it's not long before we realize that people infected by the fungus are slowly transforming into rampaging "mushroom men" –- necessitating our heroes to suit up with flame-throwers in the London sewers to try to incinerate patient-zero Sir Fungus, while Sarah and Connor work on a cure...
For all its ridiculousness, Catherine Linstrum and Paul Mousley's script kept things enjoyable and brisk, even if character's reactions were maddeningly illogical. Wouldn't you call for an ambulance if your hand suddenly started mutating into mold, rather than try desperately to catch your train? And the aide in the teaser was amusingly blasé about finding himself in another era; he even checked his phone signal before commenting on his surroundings!
Overall, this was silly... but fun. Primeval's never going to be much more than that. Flemyng's boyish heroics are blessed relief from stern-faced Cutter's joylessness, and the episode gave everyone something to do (again, splitting the cast into two groups, each with different problems to solve.) It was also a mild surprise to see Lucy Brown leave the show (although I suspected she'd be going, thanks to promo photos that didn't feature her), but clearly the door's been left open for a return, or some guest appearances. It's actually quite unusual to have a TV show adjust its cast so radically as it coasts along -- and, while I'm certain Flemyng will be an improvement on Douglas Henshall, it remains to be seen if Primeval can utilize Laila Rouass properly.
As a final, random addendum: whatever happened to Rex? That green flying reptile, so beloved of Abby and Connor, appears to have been replaced by a podgy Diictodon they've called Sid. Did Rex fly out the window, or did they squash him and cover it up?
25 April 2009
ITV1, 7pm
Writers: Catherine Linstrum & Paul Mousley
Director: Mark Everest
Cast: Jason Flemyng (Danny), Andrew-Lee Potts (Connor), Lucy Brown (Jenny), Hannah Spearritt (Abby), Juliet Aubrey (Helen), Ben Miller (James Lester), Ben Mansfield (Becker), Laila Rouass (Sarah), Belinda Stewart-Wilson (Christine Johnson), Alex McSweeney (Captain Wilder), William Scott-Masson (Sir Richard William), Theo Cross (Lloyd), Mark Leadbetter (Mark Baker) & Terence Maynard (Chauffeur)
