PNW: The Great Escape

[purplecat]

Another excellent episode.

I think the episode benefitted from pulling away from the ensemble for a week and focussing instead on just Evan, Dylan and Leeds. Leeds, in particular, did very well even though I suspect Evan and Dylan got more actual screen time. I love the way the character shifts between bumbling and determined, and the way he obviously has a strong moral sense, albeit one that recognises certain expediencies and is prepared to own the consequences of his actions. It makes him a much more nuanced military figure, and semi-antagonist, than you often see.

I was also impressed by the way that even though Evan and Dylan's behaviour is both dangerous and foolish we actually believe, given the characters they have been given, that this is what they would do. I'm really much more impressed by the character work on this iteration of Primeval (and on the greater attention that is, once more, being paid to the way tranquilisers work). B. was impressed by the realisation of a terror bird walking on ice. We are, in general, impressed.

Obviously, just to be clear we weren't impressed by everything, Major Douglas and his military team were about as useless as a chocolate fireguard. Dylan took stupid risks, again, even after the terror bird had killed a human. Her characterisation, early on in the show, as a predator control expert was very good, but she's been gradually slipping towards Primeval's tendency to over-sentimentalise the creatures. However her decision to euthanize the bird at the end was well played and very credible.

But all in all I really liked this episode. I'm impressed by the arc-plotting work they've done leading from Angry Birds onwards, with Undone, Truth and The Great Escape as particular high points.


I have to say that Primeval: New World has turned out to be a much better show than I had expected. So, of course, it entirely figures that its cancellation was announced the other day. It's not a Firefly level tragedy, but given I thought Primeval's "cancellation" after series three was more or less a case of putting it out of its misery, and its second cancellation after series five was understandable, if a bit of shame, I'm really rather upset about this one.

Comments

[celeste9]

I really need to have a proper rewatch of series 1, as I know everyone talks about how brilliant it is but to be honest, I rushed through it (and 2 and 3) to catch up to series 4, and I've really only watched pieces of it since for fic purposes.

[deinonychus-1.livejournal.com]

I do wonder if 'rushing through' a series is what makes the difference as to whether or not I want to write fic about it? I've watched ten eps of New World in about a week and a half, and on more than one occasion watched two or three episodes back to back in a sitting (so some of them sort of blur into each other in my mind, unfortunately).

I wonder, if I'd been watching it week by week an getting to know the characters over a longer time, thinking about them between episodes, I might have actively wanted to write fic about them by now?

Just a theory.

[celeste9]

I know in my case, for the most part I didn't feel as strongly about the characters in the seasons I flew through (there are exceptions, I remember being quite upset at losing Claudia and I would have cried if Lester had died in series 2, having not even realized how much I liked him until then), and it took a real effort to start writing any of them as I didn't feel quite comfortable. TBH, I still can't write Cutter with any sort of confidence and tend to avoid doing so. I didn't particularly even *want* fanfic at first, it was more through a curiosity as to what was out there that I started looking into it.