Primeval 4.04
Jan. 29th, 2011 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatI actually found this episode surprisingly suspenseful and gripping, in spite of the fairly straightforward nature of the set-up. An example, perhaps, that sometimes it is better to do something simple well, than to try something more complicated.
I think in the grand sweep of season 4 this episode is going to be seen as filler. The first three episodes were all concerned, to a greater or lesser extent, with introducing the characters and setting up their interactions as a team. This episode was content mostly to just coast along in terms of the characters and focus attention more straightforwardly on it's monster of the week. For the first time this year, I was genuinely on the edge of my seat once or twice during the more action-based segments. I was also, in an abstract way, pleased that the production team had the guts to sacrifice the princess to the monster and the kids, as a whole, were remarkably unirritating and portrayed with a much better eye for real kids than the kind of idealised or demonised extremes you often get. I could nit pick at some of the direction but I felt the pacing was much better and the direction much clearer than in the first three episodes.
Even though it was mostly coasting in arc terms, there was also still nice character work (so far the big strength of this season - though I think season 1 still handled it even better) going on between Matt and Becker and even between Connor and Abby. Jess's reaction to the death of the girl was nicely written but Ruth Kearney, sadly, really failed to sell it at all and ended up appearing more prissy and self-righteous when she refused to help Abby, than genuinely shocked and upset. In fact I'm coming to the conclusion that Jess is the real weak link in the team. Ruth Kearney isn't a great actress and she's being handed some appalling material. In 4.03 the character was reduced to handing things to Connor, this week she's supposed to be able to randomly hack into a school security system and then lumbered with conveniently malfunctioning cameras and the less said about the outfits she's being asked to wear the better really.
I was a teensy bit upset that Abby didn't manage to save the creatures somehow, with her own resources since I like competent Abby. In the end, however, it all relied on Lester displaying his much better grasp of Burton's character than Burton's grasp of Abby's.
Burton, incidentally, has the people management skills of a muppet. Actually that's unfair to muppets. Kermit could handle people far better than Burton could. Kermit could probably design a more sensible security system too. Neither the writers, nor the actor, are really working to make the character even remotely believable. If Jess wasn't there providing the character black hole of the season I'd be complaining a lot more about Burton.
However Burton's idiocy aside, I mostly liked this episode. It wasn't attempting to do a great deal, but what it did do it well.
I think in the grand sweep of season 4 this episode is going to be seen as filler. The first three episodes were all concerned, to a greater or lesser extent, with introducing the characters and setting up their interactions as a team. This episode was content mostly to just coast along in terms of the characters and focus attention more straightforwardly on it's monster of the week. For the first time this year, I was genuinely on the edge of my seat once or twice during the more action-based segments. I was also, in an abstract way, pleased that the production team had the guts to sacrifice the princess to the monster and the kids, as a whole, were remarkably unirritating and portrayed with a much better eye for real kids than the kind of idealised or demonised extremes you often get. I could nit pick at some of the direction but I felt the pacing was much better and the direction much clearer than in the first three episodes.
Even though it was mostly coasting in arc terms, there was also still nice character work (so far the big strength of this season - though I think season 1 still handled it even better) going on between Matt and Becker and even between Connor and Abby. Jess's reaction to the death of the girl was nicely written but Ruth Kearney, sadly, really failed to sell it at all and ended up appearing more prissy and self-righteous when she refused to help Abby, than genuinely shocked and upset. In fact I'm coming to the conclusion that Jess is the real weak link in the team. Ruth Kearney isn't a great actress and she's being handed some appalling material. In 4.03 the character was reduced to handing things to Connor, this week she's supposed to be able to randomly hack into a school security system and then lumbered with conveniently malfunctioning cameras and the less said about the outfits she's being asked to wear the better really.
I was a teensy bit upset that Abby didn't manage to save the creatures somehow, with her own resources since I like competent Abby. In the end, however, it all relied on Lester displaying his much better grasp of Burton's character than Burton's grasp of Abby's.
Burton, incidentally, has the people management skills of a muppet. Actually that's unfair to muppets. Kermit could handle people far better than Burton could. Kermit could probably design a more sensible security system too. Neither the writers, nor the actor, are really working to make the character even remotely believable. If Jess wasn't there providing the character black hole of the season I'd be complaining a lot more about Burton.
However Burton's idiocy aside, I mostly liked this episode. It wasn't attempting to do a great deal, but what it did do it well.