PRIMEVAL TV SERIES

Latest post on Primeval 

(12th June 2011)

As I have said in an earlier post, I loved Primeval when it first aired.

Seasons 1, 2 and 3 were groundbreaking.

But I have posted comments about season 4 (see below) and now (deep sigh) I have to make several observations about season 5.

Ep 1 was a cracker, a really good opener. Ep 2 was equally as good. Lester was on top form with his acerbic remarks, the plots were excellent, especially in the  claustrophobic and confined space in the submarine. Connor and Abby were, as always without fail, excellent.

But now we come to Ep 3. 

Oh dear,  oh dear,  oh dear!!

Do the producers think we're all cretins?

Let us examine the ep..........

In the first place of course, the producers have always opted for the lazy and cheap option of generic titles. Sometimes, various actors don't appear in an ep here and there. Ben Mansfield wasn't in ep 2. Ben Miller wasn't in ep  3, and Alexander Siddig hasn't been in ep 2 or 3. Personally, (having worked in the industry) I find it irritating that their names appear in the pre-title credits but the actors don't appear. 

 Producers should tighten up their negotiations with actors' agents.

So ep 3 opens in 1868.  Why this constant reference to that era? If we had already been given, in previous eps or a previous series, why the past and Emily is even remotely important, it would help us to understand why the past keeps cropping up. But anyway,  they send the raptor back to 1868 by mistake, and the writers pick up the Spring Heeled Jack legend on which to base that part of the story.  All well and good.

Except that the writers and producers have evidently forgotten one of the original precepts of the anomalies;- and that is that they close without warning. So Matt goes off to correct the mistake without a word of caution anywhere that this could trap him back in the past, and apparently sublimely confident that he can return, no matter how long it may take to find the raptor and catch or kill it. They also seem to have forgotten that in the previous season, Emily came to the present from 1876, eight years later. (We all saw that on Connor's hand-held widget. Remember?) And yet, although she'd met Matt for the first time in season 4, she didn't know him, but now she's meeting him eight years earlier than before the first time........

Erm.....um...that must mean....oh, I give up !!!

Bad mistakes !!!!

No suspense there, then.

And from this point, Primeval lapsed into the same pitfall that almost every repeat season of every intrigue/action/adventure TV series, falls into.

(With one notable exception.)

And that is, the subplots of personal relationships overwhelm the main storyline of the show.

So now we have Matt and Emily, eight years earlier,  trying to rekindle whatever feelings they had for each other in season 4, (which, of  course, was never actually explained (and was eight years later)) and we have Connor and Abby becoming suspicious of each other with their relationship  apparently beginning to crumble.

Why do producers issue a brief like this and let the writers do it ????

Primeval isn't about personal relationships. It's about anomalies and creatures appearing in the present day from the past or the future. The series became popular because of that storyline, not because Matt fancied Emily (unnecessary padding)  and Connor and Abby might or might not become an item, and eventually did.

Next, I have to say that it was obvious from the first glimpse in a previous ep, of what appeared to be some sort of two layer miniature Hadron Collider, what it was that Philip and Connor were trying to achieve and that was to create anomalies at will, presumably to allow the human populace to travel from era to era as they choose.

(Not, of course, with any control over who else and what else might come through!)

So if the end of ep 3 was supposed to be a surprising cliffhanger, it wasn't !!

But what made ep 3 so utterly ridiculous and laughable was the incredibly glaring errors near the end. The raptor comes back to the present day and slumps just in front of the anomaly, which is just visible in the background. Got it? The raptor is lying immediately in front of the anomaly.

Then Matt comes through the anomaly.

Er....where is the raptor?

Oh, Becker must have hauled it away.

Um....no! 

It took two people, Matt and Emily, to manhandle the thing back into the anomaly so how did Becker manage on his own?

Then Emily comes through.

Becker's off to get a first aid kit. 

Then Henry comes through. 

Whether or not the camera angle shows it, 

how come none of these three have fallen flat on their faces over the raptor ?

Not one of them even glanced in it's direction !

Especially Henry, who hadn't seen it up to this point.

Now we have a bit of a stand-off as Henry threatens Emily. All good but old-hat stuff except sharpshooter Becker returns, not carrying a first aid kit, but his gun,  and dithers about not using his initiative, not a situation he's usually renowned for. 

Done to add suspense as the stand-off continued?

Er....no, it didn't.

And now what have we here? Why, we have the raptor back, lying in exactly the same position in front of the anomaly and conveniently waking up.

(Yawn.....so predictable.......)

And as the raptor attacks Henry they are all standing in front of the anomaly, including the raptor, which they all didn't fall over..........but Becker shouts "Look out behind you!!"

Oh, it's a pantomime, then ? 

Um.....erm......urrrrgh....

Regretfully, of course, it's far too late to correct any errors or change anything in future episodes. They are long since written, in-the-can and edited.  I am not privy as to how this season will end, but no matter what the final denouement in the last episode may be, I am sure there will not be a season 6. No self-respecting production or TV company is going to shell out for another season of a programme that has degenerated from a ground-breaking new idea into an insipid, tired and predictable show full of plot, writing, directorial and continuity errors.

Primeval is no longer first rate TV entertainment.

It is not even second-rate. 

More like third or fourth rate.

What a shame !!!!!! 

 And the notable exception I referred to above ?

 CASTLE

This American TV series, now shooting season 4, has been consistently excellent entertainment since the very first episode of season 1. The writing is faultless, as is the dialogue, and the plots are cleverly and intriguingly woven to keep the audience guessing, and entertained, until the very end. But the main thrust of a police investigation is always the principal plot of every ep.  The relationship between Castle and Beckett, and Castle's family, is deeply integral to every ep, but it is never, never, allowed to overwhelm that principal  storyline. I haven't missed an episode, and I haven't spotted any errors. If there are any, they are not so  obvious as the ones in Primeval. And Castle has 24 eps per season, not just 6 !!                                                                                                                                                      

They've got the balance exactly right.

Primeval hasn't.

Earlier posts on Primeval Season 4.

Always loved the ITV show, "Primeval". I was delighted when the news came through that the series had been saved after ITV scrapped it.

But, oh! What have they done with this current series 4?  Apart from the obvious cutbacks on the SPFX, the dialogue is weak, the characters (apart from Connor and Abbey) have become insipid, even Lester, the wonderful Ben Miller who in previous series had that lovely supercilious, cutting, snobbish attitude with deliciously sharp retorts, comments and put-downs. And he stood up for his department and, quietly, for his staff. But where's all that gone? Even his dialogue has become somewhat tremulous. Now he gives every appearance of kow-towing to Philip despite apparently still being in charge of the ARC.

Ciaran McMenamin is so badly miscast it makes you wince, and the squeaky voiced Jess with 1960's miniskirts just grates on the nerves.  Her "hots" for Becker is like that of a teenage schoolgirl.

And as for episode 4 last week, I counted enough mistakes to drive a fleet of buses through the holes. With the heat full on, Jess had her eyes glued to her 4 or 5 monitors with her fingers feverishly tapping at two or more keyboards. She never looked at them once! Even touch-typists have to orientate their hands over the keyboard before they start.  There were several more glaring errors, but the worst and most blatant sign of the low budget was using the same bit of monster film 3 times!

Director Cilla Ware is a stalwart of Primeval and she should know better. Probably not her fault entirely....

...producers, if you ain't got the money, don't make the show!

Episode 5  was better, a bit punchier and crisper. And Lester (Ben Miller) began to show some of that old spirit and disdain that was so good in earlier series.  If you didn't know the entire thing was shot in Ireland, you'd soon realise it from that pub, and the customers in it!   I know the series has already been shot and edited, but I hope the episodes don't slide back to the level of the first 4.

If they do....well....yawn......yawn....... 

More about Primeval

WELL !!

The series finished, not with a bang, but a bloody great whimper,  didn't it!!

Once again there was a very stupid mistake. Connor's hand-held widget for telling him where the anomaly went to had only a four digit display.  Fine for reading "1876" or thereabouts, but what about "30,000000 years"  or  "Pliocene era", which Connor quoted later.  

Shouldn't have shown the read-out, should you!

There is also the curious question of why Danny came back. The only thing of any consequence that he did was to warn the others that Philip was not to be trusted:- which we'd all worked out in episode one. And having been away for a year, and "so glad to be back" he promptly disappeared back into another anomaly to chase after his brother who had sworn to kill him, forcing viewers to dredge their memories back to series one when the brother vanished in the old house.

Ho hum!

Of course, we completely understand that Emily and Ethan, coming from the 1870s, would be fully conversant with wind-up radios and how to convert them to track anomalies. What was the point of Emily at all, except to pad out each episode and provide a distraction for Matt, which did not in any way further the storyline. And if Ethan had arrived to seek revenge on Danny, what was all that about him skulking around earlier and bumping people off?

Ho hum again!

 Then there was Matt's father, no explanation of his apparent expertise on anomalies, or how he got there only to expire without explanation - and only at the end was it revealed that Matt had come from the future, which had also become obvious a few episodes back.

Tim and Adrian, you have seriously disappointed with this series!!

You have a lot of plot explaining to do! So, as series 5 (the last?) is not being aired till later in the year, you have time to go back to the cutting room and check that series 5 doesn't have the glaring errors that this series did and that all the loose ends are tied up. And that series 5 has some of the excitement and suspense of previous series, which this one sadly lacked.  Otherwise for God's sake spend another hundred grand or so and reshoot anything that isn't up to scratch.

Because in series 4 there was a lot that was definitely NOT up to scratch!