[SPOILERS] The penultimate episode is once again a mixed bag: a largely perfunctory story involving prehistoric rhinos tormenting quad bikers and campers in some woods, distracting us from the marginally more interesting subplot of Danny (Jason Flemyng) infiltrating evil Christine's (Belinda Stewart-Wilson1) building to smuggle future-girl Eve (Kate Magowan) out from her clutches...The rhino action could have been thrilling, but it was played mostly for laughs. The big problem for Abby (Hannah Spearritt), Connor (Andrew-Lee Potts) and Sarah (Laila Rouass) was trying to save a half-naked man called Joe (Tom McKay) from danger. Joe had been tied to a tree and forced to wear a bra by his friends as a joke, and now had to face giant rhinos like a Fay Wray being offered to King Kong.
Primeval has always been unbelievably clumbsy and awkward with its family-friendly humour, and the sight of a half-naked man provided a stream of unfunny comments and coy reactions from his rescuers Abby and Sarah. Meanwhile, Connor got to whizz around the forest in a buggy, chased by a rhino that never really convinced when asked to stampede. There just wasn't much sense of weight to these creatures, sadly. And, despite being told they're vegetarian grazers, they seemed awfully keen to chase people and generally act in a threatening manner!
Anyway, enough of that. Slightly more interesting was Danny's covert mission into Christine's HQ, where he eventually manages to rescue Eve (who is being interrogated for answers about a device she's carrying by Christine), and rejoins the rest of the ARC team to help solve the rhino crisis. When the anomaly closes, its disappearance triggers an unlikely stampede of the beasts towards a nearby campsite, but fortunately Eve uses her future gizmo to open a new anomaly and the rhinos all rush through to safety. I hope she chose the right era and they didn't all just materialize in 1966 or something.
Later, back at the ARC, Eve claims she needs to talk to Lester (Ben Miller) and inspect the team's recovered artifact – then, when Christine arrives to take her back into custody, Eve takes Christine hostage and reveals her true identity: she's actually Helen Cutter (Juliet Aubrey), using future technology to masks her real features.
It was about time something significant happened considering this was the penultimate episode, so the Eve/Helen reveal was nicely done and not totally obvious until, perhaps, a few minutes before it happened. Seconds later, Helen takes Christine back to her HQ with the artifact and they both disappear through Christine's own anomaly to the dystopian future visisted in last week's episode. According to Helen, Christine was instrumental in humanity's downfall and for letting the world be overrun by Future Predators, so Helen's merely trying to change the future to spare everyone that grim fate.
Overall, the rhino storyline was the usual mix of lax action and broad, stupid, unfunny comedy. It was also a terrible mistake to let Abby take a leadership role, as she's blatantly ill-equipped and you can't really take her character seriously ordering people around. Abby's the feisty sidekick type, nothing more. Ironically, the best moments were devoid of CGI and focused on the mytharc and the characters.
This storyline worked better and at least felt important to the series as a whole. Plus, I like the idea that Helen Cutter (the show's buxom nemesis from the beginning) has just been trying to save us from disaster all this time – even going so far as to kill her husband. I'm not sure how well it will all hang together, but it was a welcome shade of grey to introduce. Still, I doubt she's just misunderstood, otherwise why didn't she just talk to the ARC team about what she's seen in the future like a reasonable, concerned human being? Oh, y'know, most of it doesn't make a lick of sense, but next week's finale looks to be stuffed with creatures to take your mind off things...
23 May 2009
ITV1, 7.20pm
Writer: Paul Farrell
Director: Matthew Thompson
Cast: Jason Flemyng (Danny), Andrew-Lee Potts (Connor), Hannah Spearritt (Abby), Juliet Aubrey (Helen), Ben Miller (Lester), Ben Mansfield (Capt. Becker), Laila Rouass (Sarah), Belinda Stewart-Wilson (Christine Johnson), Kate Magowan (Eve), Tom McKay (Joe), Alex McSweeney (Capt. Wilder) & Marcus Onilude (Randy)
1. I can never find a good place to mention this bit of trivia, but did you know that Belinda Stewart-Wilson is married to co-star Ben Miller?
