I happen to love Primeval. I know, I know, it's like admitting to a sexual fetish for John McCririck. Last year it rebooted itself by jumping through an anomaly into a completely different version of Earth, seemingly so that all the characters could just be a bit cooler. This year it's started merging Egyptology with dinosaurs, which has set off my StargateSense (basically inducing nausea and shaking).
Abby appears to have got the London Look from Rimmell, sleeping in more black eye shadow than Rameses himself, but let's hope Connor can shake off both his Pete Doherty wardrobe and the slight whiff that's followed him of being a young Neil Morrissey. Still, they've introduced a couple of newbies to sex it up: Sarah Page and Captain Becker: a pair of svelte, pouty and highly unlikely types. So far she's acted him off the screen. Here's hoping he improves or gets eaten by a gorgonopsid.
No doubt about it, this season looks way more ambitious than previous ones: more action and adventure, a bit of Indiana Jones and Unit from Dr Who thrown in, neither of which are bad things in my book. And this episode was much less reliant on Nick's moralising and pining for Claudia Brown than the last season, which it bloody well needed to be. We want an hour of dinosaurs eating children and stamping on Renault Clios, not Nick Cutter furrowing his brow and being tortured about plot twists from two seasons ago.
Of course, it needs lots more of mad, evil Helen, the Servalan du jour with her heaving bosom and prehistoric grooming regime, to assure my full engagement. Sure, it's not The Wire, but if it were I probably wouldn't be watching it...
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Ben Miller was being interviews on the radio yesterday ( yes - other media exist ) and as usual he was trying really hard to make himself far more interesting than being 'just' an actor off the telly - in fact it's obligatory for him to talk about his scientific past and how clever he is and how he knows all about quantum physics - it's almost as nauseating as Al Murray going on about being related to Thackery - and being his greatest fan, even though he originally admitted that he had never read any. What really annoyed me was that Ben Miller insisted that the fact that the woman who plays his boss in Primeval just so happens to be married to Ben Miller in real life - and the casting came as a surprise to both of them - and wasn't nepotism or anything sinister...
ReplyDeleteI do love a feeble attempt at PR spin. 'After you auditioned for a part in a series I'd been in for two years and then you were offered it, it came as a complete surprise, didn't it darling?'
ReplyDeleteThey are doing lots of lethal on-screen flirting. Like their PR story, I hadn't realised she was Mrs Ben Miller. For some reason that makes it slightly more uncomfortable. I'm not sure I want people to have actual feelings in Primeval; I have enough trouble coping with Nick's permanently furrowed brow.
I'm not sure about Captain Becker. I don't think mixing live actors with supermarionation puppets works in this case.
ReplyDelete'Dr' Page sounds as if she should be working in a supermarket, not a museum.
Claudia is still f***ing annoying, with as much sex appeal as Edwina Currie. What's the point of her?
At least Stephen's dead.
Claudia Brown is pointless twice over. No-one liked her the first time other than Nick, and he was deranged enough to marry Helen, so what does he know?
ReplyDeleteI'm annoyed that they seem to have done a Claudia with Stephen - killed him off only to replace him with himself. And Becker is sub-Thunderbirds, you're right. At the moment all he's had to do is strut about and shoot guns and he couldn't even do that convincingly. I'm dreading the inevitable love/hate sparring he'll develop with one of the women.