Primeval series 4

[Bedlam]

Did anyone else watch tonight premier?

So far I'm not very impressed. None of the new characters have really grabbed my attention, the returning characters seemed o.k. but were more or less just going through the places. With only 7 episodes in this series there isn't long to give us much time with the characters so I'd hope they'd make them more memerable.

They seem to have dropped most of the plot from the previous series. It looks like their sticking with a conspiracy story rather than returning to the monster of the week format of the first few series.

The new ARC team do seem to be rather more perfesional in the field, they shut down the anominally quickly but leaving the door open or not haveing an airlock backup for the door seems stupid.

Abby and Connor's survival for a year in the past doesn't seem realistic to me, they just dont seem hardened enough by their experience, in about an hour their almost killed by two seporate dino's if thats been their life for a year their should be much different or atleast much better at avoiding danger. It might have worked better if they had been there for a week or so and the anominally just opened up a year or two in their future.

The CGI was good although I think it was all reused from previous series, the dragon and raptor had appeared before but I'm not 100% sure about the spinysaurus?

From the room temperature superconductor line either the series is set in the near future (which I dont think has been previously suggested) or there were more time line changes than were shown at the end of the first series or the events of the end of the last series did have some effect on the time line.

Overall, not impressed so far but I'll defently be watching the next part tomorrow, however, unless it improves quickly I'd guess it will be cancelled again at the end of this series.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Same here, not impressed.

Seriously, how long did they drag out the dino bit? Why didn't one of the goons just shoot the damn thing when it appeared with their new magic tasers?

For me Primeval went tits-up when they blew up the ARC and killed off Cutter. He was fun. Quinn was OK but never grabbed me. And this new Irish guy is even more underwhelming. And having Ben Miller effectively sidelined as a public/private partnership really annoys me, makes the character far less interesting.

And, yay, MORE conspiracies! At least Cutter's wife seems to be gone for good

[Johonebesus]

Why have they even bothered continuing it? They lost me when they had the giant, terrestrial scorpion in the Silurian swimming through sand like water. I heard tell they later had some sort of moss monsters that took people over and turned them into zombies. They killed off all the halfway sane, sensible, competent characters, including the primary protagonist. I just can't see why they would keep doing a handful of episodes every year or two. For that matter, why is the BBC so willing to invest in sets and costumes and actors for just a half dozen episodes?

[OmegaChief]

Isn't Primeveal basically ITVs Dr Who? If so why would the BBC be involved in it?

Now for the opinion: They really should just have put the show out of it's misery a while back, seriously I'm half expecting this season to just start repeating previous epsiodes at this point.

[Johonebesus]

Isn't Primeveal basically ITVs Dr Who? If so why would the BBC be involved in it?

I know almost nothing about U.K. television, but it is being shown on BBC America. I just assumed it was a BBC production.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It's been on ITV here in the UK since it first started, so I'm fairly certain it's nothing to do with BBC. And as OmegaChief said, it was their challenger to NuWho.

[Bedlam]

Nothing particularly impressive with episode 2, again nothing terrible but not great.

Unfortuantly, it gave up the chance of a character piece looking into what Connor and Abbey have gone through to have an extended chase with a monster of the week. It was nice to have a link back to the first few seasons with Rex, the mamoth and Connors old friend making an appearence.

Next weeks episode looks a bit more interesting, a snake man thing and a woman from the future, it might link back to the appocaliptic near future seen at the end of the last series.

[Big Orange]

Like the recently concluded Ashes to Ashes, Primeval is hardly the best show of all time, but OK for what it is. I'd admit that Season 3 was a bit of a clusterfuck, it seems like they've gone back to basics. Lester is OK, the new Irish team member is "meh" so-far (despite being a mole), and the best S4 plot development is a smarmy Dr. Bashir funding the new ARC.

Here's some online prequel episode shorts.

[Bedlam]

Part 3 was on a few hours ago.

To me it was a bit of an improvement over the previous two although the plot didn't really hold together much (see below). We got a bit more of a look into the characters and they were mixed up a bit. However, I now think that there are too many characters for the 'size' of the show, Lester didn't appear, the desk jockey woman didn't do anything but look nice in a very short skirt and soldier boy didn't do much but get knocked out. I think you could cut 3-4 people out without much of a problem and make the stories much tighter.

The CGI was quite nice although they did ruin several scenes but the apparently difficulty with having a CGI and real character together primarily the knife fight and the roping of the creature. The 'Arboreal raptor' itself looked quite good but it seems to me to not be a realistic historic creature, it seemed rather big to be jumping from tree to tree.

The idea of the Victorian time travels is quite interesting and hopefully we'll find out a bit more about the group next week and how they came to be although it raises the question that if portals have been opening in all time zones why no one seems to have noticed them until the 21st century. They noted that the dead woman had smallpox antibodies and I hope that this gets brought up again as it seems stupid to just ignore that fact that the time travellers could be carrying any kind of infectious nastiness.

Generally the ARC troops seemed highly incompetent this week, they missed two man sized and highly aggressive creatures when securing the building along with a time displaced human and keep guarding / patrolling as individuals so they can get handily knocked out / killed. Having the only person who can shut down security go for a wander when their checking the system for the first time is also stupid beyond belief, it would have made more sense for him to go 'Ok I'll be back in 10 mins and we can check the system together then' and then for Connor to get impatient and run the scan anyway leading to the lock down.

On the overarching conspiracy I think the dying old man is from the future and is trying to prevent some sort of catastrophe caused by the ARC, presumably something to do with the secret project that got brought up.

Next week doesn't look too great, I'm not really excited by a Victorian Psychopath wandering around compared to Dinosaurs.

[Big Orange]

Generally the ARC troops seemed highly incompetent this week, they missed two man sized and highly aggressive creatures when securing the building along with a time displaced human and keep guarding / patrolling as individuals so they can get handily knocked out / killed.

Primeval is the sort of show that absuses its TV Tropes.

On the overarching conspiracy I think the dying old man is from the future and is trying to prevent some sort of catastrophe caused by the ARC, presumably something to do with the secret project that got brought up.

I have feeling that it may be a late middle-aged/early elderly Nick Cutter. Also Matt Anderson is likely from the future or some dystopian alternative reality, since he couldn't really relate to 20th/21st century Western schools.

Next week doesn't look too great, I'm not really excited by a Victorian Psychopath wandering around compared to Dinosaurs.

In the fourth episode a school kid got killed, that's pretty dark.

I've purchased the first two seasons of Primeval on DVD.

[Bedlam]

More of the same to me this week. Not atrotious, just not very good.

I dont know if it was mentioned on the diologue at all but was there any reason why only three core characters were sent to secure the school with no support or reinforcements? Normally they seem to bring some minions with them at least and once they found there were dozens of the things I'd have thought they would have scrambled everyone they had.

Lester was probably my favourite thing in the episode and Abby my least favourite. It does seem unlikely there ever going to be able to return the creatures the odds of an anomaly opening up to just the right time and place seems vanishingly small and at present their just keeping them in small dark rooms so it does seem more humane to put them to sleep.

Does pouring large ammounts of salt onto a poisoned wound actually do anything?

What did the home made gas grenades at the end actually do? They just made the monsters disapear without seeming to have any effect on the humans.

[Big Orange]

I wouldn't say Season 4 has been genuinely outstanding by any means, but still wins out against crap like Neighbours, etc, and preferable to Season 3. Season 3 was alright, but felt like an uncontrolled mess, blindly smashing up a lot of the stuff that was carefully built up in the first two seasons, with the Cutters dying, and the future crap getting more strung out and convoluted. They seem to know what they're doing this time round with the sleazy Dr. Bashir, the young homicidal Ian Holm, and that old crusty guy in the glasses. But the next couple of episodes are make and break.

This week's episode had homages to The Blair Witch Project, The Host, and An American Werewolf in London.

[Xon]

Where the hell did all the mooks/redshirts go? Did thier budget for extras run out or something?

[Bedlam]

It does seem like that, see my comments on the story from the week before last.

I think their being lazy and not coming up with reasons for backup to not be possible just not mentioning them at all.

[Iroscato]

I think this was the best series so far in my humble opinion, the arcing story was less muddled than the confused series 3, and the characters were better writeen. The CGI was better, and there was an interesting element of Alexander Siddig playing the shifty billionare.
Although it still needs a lot of improvement, it's an adequate filler until Doctor Who comes back hehe

[Big Orange]

Primeval's S4 was alright I suppose and cleared up some of the mess made by S3, and I was vindicated when it was revealed the Anomalies themselves was what destroyed human civilization in the comparatively near future. There's going to be seven more episodes later this year and I knew Dr. Bashir was up to no good.

New cast additions such as Ruth Bradley, Alexander Siddig, and Jonathan Byrne were excellent, supporting cast members like Ruth Kearney were OK, but I disliked how Ben Miller was sidelined and Ciarán McMenamin was boring. I'm going to miss Mr. Cutter.

[Iroscato]

Primeval's S4 was alright I suppose and cleared up some of the mess made by S3, and I was vindicated when it was revealed the Anomalies themselves was what destroyed human civilization in the comparatively near future. There's going to be seven more episodes later this year and I knew Dr. Bashir was up to no good.

New cast additions such as Ruth Bradley, Alexander Siddig, and Jonathan Byrne were excellent, supporting cast members like Ruth Kearney were OK, but I disliked how Ben Miller was sidelined and Ciarán McMenamin was boring. I'm going to miss Mr. Cutter.

I miss Cutter too, I thought his death was so rushed, and Douglas Henshall was a good actor... maybe in the future he`ll make a miraculous comeback- after all, since when has being dead mattered in Sci-Fi?

[Big Orange]

Yeah.

Primeval is harmless enough family viewing, but more meatier and more older teen/young adult orientated UK sci-fi that's currently hitting big have been Being Human and MisFits. Anybody seen those?