purplecat

Oh dear!

( Under the Cut )

This was a nice but somewhat slight episode. The show clearly needed a pause after the excitements of Undone. Something that established the new status quo, and focused on the core "dinosaurs travelling through time" premise.

( More under the cut )

I thought this was a nice episode. The show needed a change of pace back to something more formulaic, straightforward and up-beat and Breakthrough provided that. Ultimately that does make it look a little like a filler episode, and I'm not convinced it was as well thought through as some of the others in the series, but it was nicely done for all that.

And... the military having geared up to full operational whatever-it-was they were doing are entirely conspicuous by their absense this episode.

( Which wasn't what I was expecting at all )

On reflection I think this was a really good episode. It was firmly in `monster of the week' mode, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, especially when, as here, it is used to have some fun and to quietly do some interesting things with the character dynamics.

A bit of an oddity this episode. It makes sense of some of the material that has come before, and does some nice work with the characters but, at the end of the day, felt a little disjointed.

( Definite spoilers under the cut )

Ultimately I think this episode is a failure. The shift in tone is too sudden and there hasn't been quite the necessary build up to it. However, it also highlights a lot of things that Primeval:New World does well and, as failures go, at least it's a fairly decent one and is still I think, a sign of a show on an upward trajectory.

It's interesting* that the very first season of Primeval included explicitly both underwater and airborne anomalies. After that (with I think one exception) all the anomalies were basically terrestrial. Primeval:New World seems to be attempting to mix-it-up in a similar way.

( Until, of course, it becomes clear this isn't an airborne anomaly at all )

*for a value of interesting that probably only applies to geeky types.

Yes, I know I shouldn't have access to this yet. What can I say? I was impatient.

( Review under the Cut )

Ah Lord of the Rings and your inability to decide where to end. Now I see thee in so many places!

( Cut for spoilers )

Season 5, as a whole, I think has been one of Primeval's stronger seasons. It suffers from many of the shows endemic problems: people widely acting in ways that would be deeply unprofessional given their position in life, characters (particularly antagonists) that could be interesting but are somehow short-changed in the execution and, despite a good set of female characters a horrible tendency to sideline them in favour of the men. Emily suffered particularly badly here, so much so that I wonder if bringing her back and integrating her with the team was an after-thought. She spent much of the last two episodes being being unconscious, captured or just not apparently doing anything in a situation where you would expect her to be doing something which reminded me of nothing so much as the confusion faced by 1980s Doctor Who writers when faced with the comparatively complex character of Turlough (their solution was generally to have him captured early on and then spend the rest of the story variously tied up). However the season also demonstrated many of Primeval's strengths, particularly those shown in the first two seasons. It had a good arc plot that didn't over-burden the individual stories, every story managed to be reasonably imaginative and stretched itself beyond "raptor in a shopping centre" plotting. While I've complained about Burton he did, in the end, manage to be a nuanced villain with his own agenda, even if I don't think the show articulated that very well. Abby and Connor were handled so much better than in season 4 that I boggle a bit that season 4 got them so terribly wrong. In fact, I think as a whole it was streets better than season 4 which is so very, very odd, given the two were filmed as a single unit.

In which we learn that creatures without backbones are undeserving of sympathy and that you are more likely to be condemned for doing the right thing, than for doing the wrong thing.

( Spoilers etc. under the cut )

Even before we got to the opening credits B. had had a few choice things to say about whales "nothing that has ever lived has been as large as a whale" and the behaviour of animals in general including ones in the sea "they keep away from novel objects". He also had some thoughts on what you might or might not tell the commander of a nuclear sub about potential hazards to navigation - though he was later slightly mollified when it turned out not to be a nuclear sub.

( Spoilers under the cut as usual )

After it all finished B said, "if it wasn't quite so silly, Primeval would sometimes be very good." I didn't disagree.

Oh Primeval! How can you get so much right and so much so wrong all in the space of one episode!

( My likes and dislikes under the cut )

In the end this episode, like much of the season was strangely frustrating, as if I kept getting glimpses of a much better show. The complaints aren't new: general lack of imagination when it comes to female characters and the military and organisational set up they have. I did think this was much better than season 3. I thought both the character work and the arc plot were more consistent and better thought out, but the show would definitely benefit from lightening the tone a bit and, frankly, investing a bit more effort into the set-up of the ARC and turning its supporting characters in actual people.