'PRIMEVAL' 4.1

Stomp over to Obsessed With Film, where I've reviewed the series 4 premiere of ITV1's dinosaur action series PRIMEVAL, brought to you by the makers of foil survival blankets:

The opening titles of Primeval involve triangular shards of light with various dinosaurs and monsters emblazoned on them, synchronized with the appearance of each cast member’s credit. This speaks volumes about the show itself, which has always placed an emphasis on CGI beasties over characterization and acting. Continue reading...

'Primeval' - Series 4 Trailer

Primeval returns in January for a fourth series, having survived the axe in summer 2009 thanks to a unique co-financing deal struck between ITV, Watch, Pro7 and BBC Worldwide. The official trailer has just been released, featuring an introduction from star Andrew-Lee Potts, which you can see embedded above. My reaction? Same old, same old. An impressive special effects showrell, and not much sense of anything else. But 80% of Primeval's enjoyment is gawping at the dinosaur/monster action sequences, so that's no big surprise. What do you make of it?

'Primeval' goes Canadian

The creators of Primeval, Impossible Pictures, have agreed a franchising deal with Canadian independent company Omni Film Productions. This means a Canadian version of the series will now be made, with Judy and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (Star Trek Enterprise) expected to deliver scripts.

Jonathan Drake, Managing Director of Impossible Pictures:

"We won't be replacing the UK show in the international market but complementing it. It will provide a positive glow for our catalogue of existing Primeval shows. And if something were to happen to the UK version, the brand still survives."

Impossible Pictures and Omni Film Productions previously worked together on Defying Gravity.

The original UK version of Primeval is currently filming its fifth series, having already wrapped on the fourth, in preparation for a 2011 return to ITV and Watch. The rights to a movie are still owned by Warner Bros, having been sold in May 2009, but there's been no firm movement on that separate project.

Primeval: series 4 cast photo

Primeval returns next January to ITV1/HD, and a photo of the cast has been released (above). From left to right; Hannah Spearritt as Abby, Andrew Lee Potts as Connor, Ciarán McMenamin as Matt, Ben Mansfield as Becker, and Ruth Kearney as Jess.

Primeval series 4 wraps filming

Filming on Primeval's fourth series has finished, ready for broadcast on ITV1 in early-2011 after post-production's completed. The cast/crew have moved on to film the fifth series, which will premiere on digital channel Watch in late-2011. The split is part of the show's unique co-financing deal with ITV, UKTV, BBC America and Germany's ProSieben.

Tim Haines, executive-producer:

"The cast and crew have been brilliant and they have put in a huge effort over the past four months to deliver some amazing work. We have also been very lucky in that Dublin has afforded us some fantastic new locations and the fact that we've filmed in HD for the first time means that the production values are higher than ever. The rough cuts I've seen are very exciting and I think we are going to deliver a show that will really please and delight the fans."

The confirmed cast for series 4 are: Hannah Spearritt, Andrew Lee-Potts, Ben Miller, Jason Flemyng, Lucy Brown, and Ben Mansfield. Newcomers include Alexander Siddig, Ciarán McMenamin, Ruth Bradley, Jonathan Byrne, Anton Lesser and Ruth Kearney. Laila Rouass did not return for filming, and it's unknown how the show will handle her character's absence.

Primeval series 4 & 5 starts filming

Production has begun on the fourth and fifth series of Primeval in Ireland, with filming scheduled to conclude in early-November. Primeval was spared the axe last year, thanks to a deal where ITV will co-finance the show with UKTV, enabling the production of a seven-episode fourth series and a six-episode fifth series to air in 2011.

Hannah Spearritt (Abby), Andrew-Lee Potts (Connor), Ben Miller (Lester) and Ben Mansfield (Becker) are known to be returning, although it's believed Jason Flemyng (Danny) has turned down the chance to reprise his role. I would assume he'll still film some scenes to explain his character's absence or loss, but we'll have to see. Likewise, Laila Rouass (Sarah) hasn't been confirmed as returning either. The new series will apparently continue the story several months after series 3's cliffhanger finale, where Connor and Abby found themselves trapped in the past.

Irish actors Ciarán McMenamin (Jericho, Silent Witness) and Ruth Kearney have also joined the series, playing characters called Matt and Jess.

What do you make of this news? Are you excited Primeval's coming back next year? I know it's a divisive TV show (some enjoy its unpretentious fun aimed at young kids, others hate the reliance on special-effects and often stupid storylines), but isn't this a promising sign for expensive British sci-fi during a recession? I assume the reason they're filming in Ireland is to take advantage of tax breaks, too.

Primeval: back from extinction!

I didn't see this coming! After axing Primeval for budgetary reasons after its third series in June, ITV1 have agreed to greenlight two new series for 2011, thanks to a unique co-production deal with UKTV...

Under the agreed terms, Primeval will return to ITV1 in early-2011 for a fourth series, to be shown on digital channel Watch shortly after. Then, in late-2011, Watch will get the UK premiere of series 5, with ITV1 showing it afterwards. Both series will comprise a standard 13 episodes, meaning each series is effectively half the normal length.

This new deal actually makes BBC Worldwide the show's biggest co-producer, along with BBC America and ProSeiben (a broadcaster in Germany, where the show is very popular), who have both greed to contribute funding.

It's an extraordinary reversal from ITV, but a solution that's not a million miles away from Impossible Pictures' idea to finance a fourth series by co-producing with The Sci-Fi Channel, which fell through.

Tim Haines, Impossible Pictures founder and Primeval producer:

"I am thrilled that ITV has agreed to this new deal which will allow Impossible Pictures to produce another 13 episodes of Primeval. The confidence demonstrated in the programme’s continued success here and abroad will help us bring more big screen action and a whole host of new creatures roaring back into people’s living rooms."

Helen Jackson, BBC Worldwide's Director of Independents:

"There was a real desire between all partners to make this project succeed and to bring Primeval back from the brink of extinction. BBC Worldwide’s increased investment in the title is a reflection of our belief in the quality of the whole production and its international appeal."

Laua Mackie, ITV Director of Drama:

"The innovative nature of this partnership will allow the show to maintain its high production values and deliver the fantastic programme that our viewers know and love."

FX are Eastbound & Down; Primeval cancellation details

Here in the UK, FX have picked up the rights to the first two seasons of black comedy Eastbound & Down. The series stars Danny McBride as failed baseball player Kenny Powers, who returns to his hometown to work as a PE teacher but can't stop behaving like a celebrity. The first season was shown on HBO a few months ago and another six-episode season has been ordered.

Jason Thorp, Managing Director of FX UK:

"We’re keen to push into comedy and Eastbound & Down represents this. It's an excellent script and we’re very confident our audiences will love it."

It's also been revealed that Impossible Pictures, creators of the now defunct Primeval, had offered to make a fourth series for ITV at a bargain cost of £600,000 per episode. The savings would have been made via a partnership with The Sci-Fi Channel, who would have aired new episodes first.

Tim Haines, Impossible Pictures' founder:

"There was a lot of talk when Primeval was cancelled that it must have been because it is a big show, with lots of CGI and special effects. That’s not the case. ITV wasn’t paying the whole costs anyway but we offered to lower the price further and bring in 50% of the funding with co-pro deals. It would still have been getting a show worth more than £1m for less than £600,000."

Right now, Impossible Pictures are negotiating with a US broadcaster to adapt Primeval. The US version is expected to "start from scratch" with a slightly edgier feel. Haines also hopes that Primeval will be back on ITV one day, but only in the form of the US remake.

ITV cause Primeval's extinction

According to Total Sci-Fi, ITV have decided to axe Primeval, citing budget concerns. An insider elaborated:

"Basically ITV have changed their policy about drama before 9pm in that they've decided they really don't want any, at least not of the quality and cost of Primeval. The show remained as popular this run (in terms of audience share) as ever before but the fact is that everyone knows ITV have money problems and they've decided that whatever drama budget they've got left is better spent after 9pm. It's a great shame as Primeval was bringing new viewers to ITV who will now only be served by the BBC, but there's nothing we can do about that."

"At the point where we finished the third series, we had every reason to believe we would be doing a fourth. Had we known there was any likelihood of cancellation, clearly we wouldn't have left half the cast marooned up a tree in the distant past. We can understand that some fans might be frustrated by this ending and we're sorry for that. It certainly wasn't our plan to leave things so uncertain. That said, some fans may know that there are ongoing talks for both a film and a North American series version of Primeval and if and when those projects come to fruition we will make every effort to carry on the story in a suitable way."

"Obviously we're devastated that things should end this way with ITV. But we're absolutely certain that although this stage of its evolution seems to be over, Primeval isn't dead. We're very proud of what we've achieved over the past three years and we have every intention of keeping Primeval alive in other ways."

I have to say, while I'm not exactly inconsolable over this news, it is unfortunate the show ended on a cliffhanger. And it's always a shame when British sci-fi takes a hit. The show is inexplicably very popular on BBC America. Still, I suspect the proposed US remake/spin-off and big-budget movie will probably improve on what was always a well-intentioned but exasperatingly dumb TV series.

PRIMEVAL 3.10

[SPOILERS] The finale of Primeval's revamped but inconsistent third year tries to distract viewers from its lack of imagination and duff storytelling with foreign location shooting and the usual fallback: plentiful digital beasties.

Not helped by the fortnight wait for this episode, we pick up where we left off in episode 9; Helen (Juliet Aubrey) has returned to steal the Artifact from the ARC, before taking Christine hostage and vanishing through her anomaly. Danny (Jason Flemyng), Connor (Andrew-Lee Potts) and Abby (Hannah Spearritt) follow her through their own anomaly into the decimated future-world, to avoid Future Predators once again. Meanwhile, Becker (Ben Mansfield) and Sarah (Laila Rouass) head to Christine's for a largely pointless tussel with more of those "flying ants" (apparently called Mega-Optera).

The more I think about this finale, the less I like it. A big problem was how it felt extremely repetitive, with a large chunk of the action taking place in that dystopian future already visited mid-season (with its obvious greenscreen backdrops), and the fact most of the creatures being fought were making encore appearances. And as much as I like the design of those CGI bat-like Future Predators (and the flying insects aren't too bad, either) they've overstayed their welcome now.

Eventually, Danny's team find Helen in a future version of the ARC (kidnapped Christine just vanishes from the storyline¹), and realize that she's using the Artifact to locate anomalies and time-hop to Pliocene Africa –- intending to kill the first early ancestor of mankind (Australopithecus) and thus wipeout humanity. See, Helen's convinced that humans are ecologically more trouble than they're worth, so it's best to just erase us from history to give other species a chance. Yeah, that old chestnut. At least they address the idea that Helen herself will cease to exist if her plan succeeds... but they don't tackle the paradox that she won't exist to threaten humanity in the first place, sadly.

I had hoped that Helen's motives would be more complex than this. It would have been interesting if she had sympathetic intentions to prevent the downfall of civilization, but instead the writers just made her into a genocidal nutjob. The previous episode hinted that simply killing Christine would change history to prevent Future Predators pouring through her anomaly and laying waste to the world², but that was entirely forgotten about here. It isn't plausible that Helen would prefer to pursue temporal extinction as a "benevolent" way of sparing us a grizzly end.

Admittedly, for a brief moment in the middle, the finale was entertaining hokum -– with Connor finding a way to track and follow Helen when she vanishes through time, then finding themselves stuck in the Cretaceous with three hungry raptors on their tails. After Danny is forced to leave them to chase Helen to early Africa, we're also treated to some nice CGI "homonids", but then it all falls apart when Helen is unceremoniously knocked off a cliff by a rogue raptor and squashed on the ground below. It was a stupidly adrupt, emotionless demise for a character that's been the series' primary villain from the very beginning. Such a waste.

We end the season on a double-pronged cliffhanger, with an injured Connor and Abby stuck up a tree in the Cretaceous (don't worry, we all saw Helen drop her anomaly-gizmo...), and Danny trapped in ancient Africa with no way to get back. Maybe he'll get friendly with the CGI man-apes and become the Mitocondrial Adam? Heh.

Overall, this finale was brainless fun for a spurt in the middle, but it ultimately felt like reheated leftovers, while Helen's diabolical scheme was drivel. The sad fact is that Primeval often stumbles onto some cool ideas, but never follows them through creatively to surprise the audience. A storyline about someone trying to erase humanity from history should have been five times as exciting as this, and provoke a real edge-of-your-seat response... but it was just another flat, tedious chase with some CGI to ogle along the way. Still, at least it's the last we've seen of Helen -- a character who was only interesting because her motivation and gameplan was kept cloaked in mystery. Only now we know why: that "mystery" just meant the writers had no logical answers.

The fact it ended on a cliffhanger that anyone with half a brain can guess the resolution to, only added to the feeling of deflation. I know Primeval has its fans and it's fundamentally a frivolous series aimed at kids who own the Panini sticker album, but in the age of the regenerated Doctor Who... we have every right to expect more.


6 June 2009
ITV1, 7.30pm

written by: Steve Bailie directed by: Matthew Thompson starring: Jason Flemyng (Danny), Andrew-Lee Potts (Connor), Hannah Spearritt (Abby), Juliet Aubrey (Helen), Ben Mansfield (Becker) & Laila Rouass (Sarah)

1. She was apparently eaten by a Future Predator last week, which begs the question: why did Helen even bother dragging her through that anomaly? She wasn't required to fulfil her plan! Incidentally, did the show just totally forget about Lester (Ben Miller)?

2. Speaking of which, if Helen is in the future-ARC, why aren't any of the surroundings recognizable? This future vista doesn't look anything like where the ARC is built! And I'm still confused about why that derelict area of the city is atop a cliff.

Summer in the Dollhouse; Primeval's partnership plan

Joss Whedon is keen to add Summer Glau to the cast of Dollhouse next year, now that the Firefly actress isn't unavailable because of her commitment to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Speaking to EW's Michael Ausiello, Whedon confirmed his plan:

"If anybody thinks [bringing Summer Glau onto Dollhouse] hasn't occurred to me already then they have not met me. I mentioned it to her before [T:tSCC] was cancelled. I was like, 'You know, we should get you in the 'house.' But first we have to come up with something that works."

"Summer would be perfect to play an active, but she's done that [type of role] a lot. I'd rather see her play someone who talks too much. The most fun I have is when I get somebody who's good and comfortable at doing something, and then I make them do something else. Summer said to me, 'I would like to play a normal girl before I die of extreme old age.'"

The Guardian are reporting that Primeval's creators, Impossible Pictures, are looking for a digital channel partnership to share the expense of their monster hit Primeval. The agreement would see Primeval debut on a digital station before it arrives on terrestrial ITV, and the Sci-Fi Channel are apparently the preferred choice -- particularly now that they've started getting UK premieres like Knight Rider and Dollhouse. A decision is expected in two weeks, so that a fourth season can go ahead.

It sounds like a good idea to me, but I wonder how badly ITV's ratings will be affected if this happens? Fans with access to the Sci-Fi Channel will no doubt prefer to watch it there early, so hopefully ITV won't be too upset if their weekly ratings drop by a million, or so.

PRIMEVAL 3.9

[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?

PRIMEVAL 3.8

[SPOILERS] After the gross disappointment of last week, things pick up a little for episode 8, although you have to struggle through the usual stupidity for the reward of a few decent action sequences...

This week, another anomaly opens near a race track test track and releases flying ant-like creatures from Earth's future. The ARC team are dispatched and manage to contain the insects and seal the anomaly, but things are later complicated when Abby's idiot brother Jack (Robert Lowe) grows curious about his sister's work, steals her anomaly detector, and follows it to the race track. There, he discovers two ARC guards have been killed by a rogue insect left behind, that has used their bodies to incubate its young -- which hatch and attack Jack, who only manages to escape by driving away in a nearby sports car, straight through the anomaly into Earth's future...

From that point it's a straightforward case of the ARC team having to travel through the anomaly to rescue Jack, finding themselves in a barren wasteland where humanity has apparently been decimated by the giant insects and hordes of Future Predators. Meanwhile, Jack has fallen into an underground chamber, so needs rescuing before they're all eaten alive by the various predators...

Once this episode gets to the decaying urban future, this instalment was fairly enjoyable and occasionally tense. It's a shame the build-up was another textbook example of awkwardness and dumb scenes, however. It didn't help that Jack has been one of the worst additions to season 3, and the least sympathetic person needing rescue in living memory. I've also seen more life at Madam Tussaud's after closing time from the actor, too. Still, at least the script comments on Jack's odiousness, when the cretin reacts with a nonplussed shrug at being told someone sacrificed himself during his rescue. I had hoped his sister would slap him, instead of have a brief moan and give him a hug. Me? I'd have gladly fed him to the insects as a distraction, before making my escape...

The acting still leaves much to be desired, although there was a romantic scene with Connor (Andrew-Lee Potts) and Abby (Hannah Spearritt) that just about worked, despite the sickening doowap music to accompany their post-adventure kiss – likely because Potts and Spearritt are an item in real life. Everyone else had little to do, beyond run away from CGI and a few explosions. The effects were nicely handled this week, too – helped by the fact there appeared to be some physical animatronics used in some shots, and I remain impressed by the design of those Future Predators. They really are very nasty creations, so it's little wonder the show reuses them time after time (perhaps too much, really.)

And it made a change to have an episode play out in a future-world, even if the budget only stretched to a rundown industrial estate and some burnt-out cars. But I had to giggle at the inference that the planet being overrun by critters would somehow change the weather to a permanent rumbling thunderstorm -- only there to bludgeon the sense of doom. It was also a shame the episode didn't do more with the climactic appearance of the insect's "mother" (a creature of Godzilla-style proportions), as its arrival was sadly reduced to just one shot, before the team got back home and sealed the anomaly...

Overall, episode 8 was the usual mix of idiocy, clichés, silly stunts, bad dialogue, and decent effects. It only managed to sustain my interest because it took place in a unique environment with more interesting creatures to thwart. It's just a shame there are so many headslapping moments of silliness and laughable moments that arrive with great regularity to take the edge off whatever tension the show manages to build. And I wish to God they'd teach the actors how to handle guns and run around without looking like total novices.

Finally, the mytharc took a babystep forward, with Christine Johnson's (Belinda Stewart-Wilson) rival team having kidnapped a woman from the future, named Eve (Kate Magowan) in the credits, back to the present from that future-world. But one thing puzzled me: I thought Christine had been arrested and defeated when she took over ARC a few episodes ago! Was she released to be of further nuisance? I don't really buy that. But, hey, that's Primeval for you: none of it's logical or very inventive, but it's a decent excuse for some special effects...


16 May 2009
ITV1, 7.20pm

Writer: Cameron McAllister
Director: Richard Curson Smith

Cast: Jason Flemyng (Danny), Andrew-Lee Potts (Connor), Hannah Spearritt (Abby), Ben Miller (Lester), Ben Mansfield (Becker), Laila Rouass (Sarah), Robert Lowe (Jack), Belinda Stewart-Wilson (Christine Johnson), Kate Magowan (Eve) & Alex McSweeney (Captain Wilder)

Primeval movie... and a spin-off?

You may have heard that ITV's Primeval is being developed into a big-budget Hollywood movie. It makes sense, given the high-concept juiciness of time anomalies allowing creatures from Earth's past and future to stumble into our era. With Jurassic Park 4 still stuck in development, I'm sure there's a hungry audience for an extended version of Jurassic Park 2's "T-Rex in the city" finale...

What you probably haven't heard are the rumours Primeval is about to get its own spin-off series, possibly a version set in America. Would this be groundwork for the American movie, in some way? After all, there's no way the film will use the British cast. Sorry, Hannah Spearritt, but Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London is still not forgiven.

I find this all quite amusing, actually. Primeval's one of those shows that has a fantastic concept, but lacks the imagination or budget to do anything special with it. We're halfway through season 3 and they'e only just hit on the idea of a person coming through from the past -- and that ended up being the worst episode so far! For the first two years, it was primarily a way for the Walking With Dinosaurs team to give their CGI dinosaurs a stroll around the hard-drive. This may be a rare instance where Americans can only improve on things.

I'm sure its creators are only too happy to let Hollywood shower them with money for the rights to Primeval. Perhaps this is a good thing for British TV in general? Will production companies be more inclined to make expensive fantasy/sci-fi shows, if they have a longterm plan to sell the concepts to the US for a cash windfall? Recently, we've had a US remake of Life On Mars, a movie version of the BBC's State Of Play, and ITV's Lost In Austen is apparently being remade as a film by Sam Mendes. What next?

PRIMEVAL 3.7

[SPOILERS] Only Primeval could deliver an episode that involved imaginative use of its temporal anomalies, then completely drop the ball. This seventh episode is pure filler, but it could have been so much more than the meandering, badly-acted dross that wasted an hour of my life...

Here, an anomaly opens in a breaker's yard, relinquishing a Cretaceous-era Dracorex. However, there's an added twist (long overdue for a series involving portals to the past and future) when a Knight (Tony Curran) follows the creature through on horseback. The scene is set for a typical monster-hunt episode, stitched to Les Visiteurs-style comedy as the perplexed Knight trots around 21st-century London believing he's in Hell. The episode even makes use of Sarah (Laila Rouass) for once, although she rather oddly decides to buy a medieval costume and hop through the yard's anomaly to visit Ye Olde England and investigate the Knight's identity...

There were some good ideas here, but all were poorly executed. Truly, this was a stinker considering the potential. The most frustrating thing was how I had a parallel adventure running in my own head that was more enjoyable than anything writer Andrew Rattenbury came up with. So, the Knight hacked at a motorbike, stared at himself in a shop window television, visited a medieval theme pub to attack a burly man with '666' tattooed on his neck, and inevitably wouldn't believe Danny (Jason Flemyng) and Connor's (Andrew-Lee Potts) explanation for this strange world, believing them to be deceitful "demons".

The Dracorex itself was out of action once Abby (Hannah Spearritt) and Becker (Ben Mansfield) incapacitate it at a strawberry field, and Abby took the time to tend to a spear wound the creature had suffered. Any chance of a fun subplot for Sarah in the past didn't come to fruition either, as she just found the nearest peasant child, plied him with chocolate, and got some background information on the Knight -– real name Sir William DeMornay.

Oh, and last week's half-baked subplot about Abby's idiot brother Jack (Robert Lowe) unwisely continued, as Connor discovered Abby's treasured lizard Rex had been lost in a poker game and is now being sold on Ebay. Supposedly intended as comic relief (wrongly believing the knight vs. dragon story was conversely hardhitting drama?), this was a means to plug five minutes, spread thinly across the hour.

There's not much more to say, without randomly selecting a scene to highlight how uninteresting, clichéd, or poorly-acted it was. Some choice horrors: Sarah in the changing room trying on fancy dress like a Sex & The City deleted scene, Sarah sharing chocolate with the peasant kid to earn his trust, the magical appearance of a street carnival, Becker's action-hero dive through crates of fruit, Abby disabling a hardened knight with her patented roundhouse kicks, the glib climax of the Knight discovering his own grave, and the fact that breaker's yard employee got back to work seconds after seeing a dragon emerge from a twinkling timehole...

Overall, episode 7 was mostly terrible and wasted the handful of good ideas I've been waiting for Primeval to exploit for a very long time. How can you mess up the idea of a dragon-slaying knight arriving in 2009, and a trip into history for a main character? Well, here's how. The last time Jason Flemyng and Tony Curran appeared together on-screen, it was for the heinous League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, so I guess that was an omen we should never have ignored.


9 May 2009
ITV1, 7.15pm

Writer: Andrew Rattenbury
Director: Richard Curson Smith

Cast: Jason Flemyng (Danny), Andrew-Lee Potts (Connor), Hannah Spearritt (Abby), Ben Miller (Lester), Ben Mansfield (Becker), Laila Rouass (Sarah), Robert Lowe (Jack), Tony Curran (Knight), Jack Gordon (Tony), Jordan Long (Jimmy The Barman), Brad Damon (Mike), Rebecca Calder (Elizabeth), Patrick Romer (Priest) & Jamie Glover (Village Boy)

PRIMEVAL 3.6

[SPOILERS] A good attempt to shake things up, but episode six quickly turned silly and repetitive. We began in media res, with Danny (Jason Flemyng), Connor (Andrew-Lee Potts), Sarah (Laila Rouass) and Abby (Hannah Spearitt) all dressed in '30s-style eveningwear, stuck in the middle of a forest being chased by Phorusrhacids (a.k.a, "terror birds", a.k.a those things from Roland Emmerich's 10,000 B.C), before we zip back in time to see how we arrived at that point...

At the ARC, Danny's on a wire doing a Tom Cruise impression from Mission: Impossible, testing the ARC's security for Becker (Ben Mansfield), just as Connor and Sarah manage to activate The Artifact, which spits out a three-dimensional display that assumedly predicts anomalies. Civil servant Christine Johnson (Belinda Stewart-Wilson) notices their breakthrough from her nearby high-rise building, so sends her team into ARC to takeover Lester's (Ben Miller) operation. Fortunately, the ARC team are alerted to her arrival, so most escape to a nearby "safe house" in the woods -– a few abandoned cabins from the 1930s, full of antiquated equipment. And, wouldn't you know it, it's at that exact moment an anomaly opens in an ancillary building's basement and releases a ravenous group of "terror birds"...

The problem facing Primeval is how to avoid simply retelling the same story, with new creatures, week after week. The first season suffered enormously from that problem, season 2 managed to weave in a mytharc to keep things a bit more interesting, and now season 3 is beginning to get slightly more creative with the plots. I just wish it all made any real sense! I'm still confused about exactly why Christine is a villain; we know she's Lester's boss and is aware of the ARC, so why does she swoop in to steal The Artifact? Isn't she on their side? If she does have her own agenda that isn't compatible with what ARC are doing, we need to be told about that. It just felt too arbitrary having her rush into ARC and assume command from Lester. She's shown her hand too blatantly. As a superior, couldn't she get access to ARC anytime she wanted and just order them to give her The Artifact?

The idea of putting the characters in a wood was also a little strained. Maybe I missed something (as I'll confess I left the room for a few minutes for the little boy's room), but why exactly were two dilapidated huts from WWII considered "safe houses"? And why did everyone suddenly decide to dress up in '30s-era clothing? Don't they have more pressing concerns?! What was their long-term plan, exactly? Live there like hermits forever, surviving on decades-old canned corned beef? Sure, we have to suspend our disbelief that another anomaly would appear where they'd decide to run to, as that's the nature of the show, but together with everything else going on in this episode... that just compounded this episode's silly feel.

But, ignoring all that, I guess it was mild fun seeing everyone run around the woods being chased by giant ostriches. Paul Farrell's story certainly went through the checklist of things to do in that situation: a Jurassic Park-style car chase, catching one of the birds with a wire snare, having Danny suspended from a phone cable between trees with birds leaping up at him from below, hitting the birds with wine bottles flung from a clay-pigeon launcher, luring the killer birds into a minefield(!), etc. It was a shame the budget didn't seem to stretch far enough, though -- with too many shots relying on actor reactions, or just CGI beaks jutting through windows. The direction by Cilla Ware tried to make everything hang together, but it got too incoherent at times, then became rather tiresome. You can put up with 10-minutes of watching people get attacked by monsters, but this episode stretched it out to nearly half the episode!

Back at the ARC, Christine got to trot around, sneer, and take stereotypical delight in sitting at Lester's desk. What is it with Primeval and evil women, incidentally? Like I said, because Christine's intentions are so incredibly vague (we only know she wants The Artifact, like Helen Cutter does), it was difficult to care about anything going on. You need to feel that the good guys are under threat when the villain's around, but I was really just hoping Lester would ask Christine what her game is. Someone needs to!

Overall; okay, you certainly got your action fix if that's why you watch Primeval. And I know most people do. If you just want CGI and people running around being chased by creatures, you can't go wrong. But, if you're quickly bored unless there's the semblance of a coherent story behind it, and characters that make sensible decisions, I found this to be quite lacking. It felt like a rather awkward way to get the characters into old-fashioned clothes to run around the woods avoiding CGI. I kept hoping for some clever reason behind the abandoned cabins (a proto-ARC facility, perhaps?), or why the anomaly had appeared there... but nothing came. And the fuzziness over Christine's motivation meant the ARC-based subplot was just a means to punctuate the story for a breather, and lacked the big developments I was holding out for.

And the less said about the scenes where flying lizard Rex was lost as part of a poker game with Abby's younger brother, the better. Or the unwise decision to set Christine's comeuppance to "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", a music choice that just reminds you of Life On Mars' finale.


2 May 2009
ITV1, 7.20pm

Writer: Paul Farrell
Director: Cilla Ware

Cast: Jason Flemyng (Danny), Andrew-Lee Potts (Connor), Hannah Spearitt (Abby), Ben Miller (Lester), Ben Mansfield (Becker), Laila Rouass (Sarah), Belinda Stewart-Wilson (Christine Johnson), Robert Lowe (Jack Maitland), Jack Gordon (Tony) & Michael Wildman (Captain Ross)

Is Primeval extinct?

The Sun are reporting that Primeval might not be back for a fourth season, because ITV can't afford to make it. While the series gets an average of 5 million viewers every Saturday night (even when it's up against BBC1's Robin Hood), ITV's financial problems may spell the end.

An ITV insider:

"The problem is that we've lost a huge amount of money in advertising because of the credit crunch. So while programmes may be rating well, if they cost too much then we have no way to recoup our expenses. Primeval is a prime example of this."

But, if the show is axed, consolation may come with rumours a big-budget Hollywood movie is in development, following the show's success on BBC America.

PRIMEVAL 3.5

||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)

BBC America: Ashes out, Primeval in

Televisionary are reporting that American fans of timeslip drama Ashes To Ashes will have to wait a bit longer to see season 2, which was scheduled to begin on 2 May (just a few weeks behind the UK.) BBC America have now decided to show season 3 of Primeval instead, starting on 16 May. Incidentally, judging from the promo photo above... are the Lucy Brown fans worried?

PRIMEVAL 3.4

||SPOILERS|| Still grieving the loss of Cutter, the ARC team have to pull themselves together when a giant anomaly appears in a local airstrip's hangar. Unfortunately, investigative journalist Mick Harper (Ramon Tikaram) manages to steal one of their handheld trackers, and takes his cynical editor and a camera crew to film the anomaly and hopefully catch a dinosaur on film...

They get their wish, as a Giganotosaurus ("G-Rex") comes through the timehole, leading to a prolonged battle on the airstrip between Connor (Andrew-Lee Potts) in a truck, the stricken crew of a landed plane, and eventually Danny Quinn (Jason Flemyng) piloting a helicopter to distract the beast. Of course, Danny's not part of the ARC team, so there's some antagonism between him and acting-leader Jenny (Lucy Brown), although Danny ultimately manages to prove his usefulness and save the day, before disappearing on his motorbike. The hero.

I never thought I'd say this, but this episode actually did miss Douglas Henshall, if only because he's more believable as a leader than Jenny or Connor, who both try to take on that responsibility here. Danny is clearly being set-up as Cutter's replacement, and Flemyng is more of an action-man than the academic Cutter ever was, so we'll see how the show gets on when he joins full-time. Really though, episode 4 had a few notable elements (the reporters getting confirmation that these dino-spewing anomalies are real; Connor creating a device to actually seal them¹) that suggest the writers are getting to grips with the series, but it was essentially an excuse for some big special effects. The G-Rex suffered from blurriness (as most of Primeval's creatures do), but I remain impressed that they can get this quality of visual on British television. The attack wasn't exactly thrilling, however; it was mindless and silly, but it looked distracting enough to keep the kids quiet.

As ever, away from the visuals, there's not much going on with the characters to get excited about. The sense of grief over losing Cutter was restricted to solemn words from Jenny and Sarah (Laila Rouass, still underused), and Connor gets a few tearful scenes early on. But it's essentially business as usual, and I remain unmoved by the "love story" between Connor and Abby (Hannah Spearritt), which appears to hit the rocks when Connor gets a call from someone he assumes is Abby's new boyfriend. I am mildly curious about Lester's (Ben Miller) new boss Christine Johnson (Belinda Stewart-Wilson), though -- as her own team can track anomalies and are experimenting on a Future Predator in a lab. I just doubt any of that's going to bear much fruit for awhile yet, or prove to be anything exceptionally imaginative or thrilling.

Overall, this was another episode that's easy to watch, but easier to forget. There's great potential in Primeval, but I feel that the mix of characters isn't very strong, their roles are poorly defined, the mytharc is never entirely convincing, and there are plenty of holes in the concept (why don't these anomalies open up outside London, or in public areas where you can't keep the situation a secret?) It's saving grace is the excellent special effects and occasional amusement -– like casting goofy real-life naturalist Nigel Marvin as a documentary filmmaker who gets eaten by a G-Rex. Well, it beat Steve Irwin's tussle with a stingray.


18 April 2009
ITV1, 6.55pm

Writer: Paul Mousley
Director: Mark Everest

Cast: Jason Flemyng (Danny Quinn), Andrew-Lee Potts (Connor), Lucy Brown (Jenny), Hannah Spearritt (Abby Maitland), Ben Miller (Lester), Ben Mansfield (Becker), Laila Rouass (Sarah), Ruth Gemmell (Katherine Kavanagh), Ramon Tikaram (Mick Harper), Belinda Stewart-Wilson (Christine Johnson), Alex McSweeney (Captain Wilder), Robert Lowe (Jack Maitland), Antony Edridge (Captain) & Nigel Marven (Himself)

1. A steal of Stargate's "iris" shield, really. And you have to worry about any series that seems to be copying Stargate.