Episode 2 of Primeval was another entertaining story; however, it either didn’t suffer from as many annoying scientific faux pas or I didn’t notice because I was sitting with my feet off the floor, curled up in a fetal position on the sofa.
Spoilers if you continue reading…
Synopsis
Conner is a twit, and to prove it, he tells his mates about the gorgonopsid incident, despite being bound by the Official Secrets Act. Needless to say, without proof, his friends don’t believe him.
Meanwhile, Cutter and Stephen goes through Helen Cutter’s notes, looking for a clue about the anomalies. Cutter reveals that he blames himself for his wife’s disappearance because he refused to go with her on her last excursion as they’d just had a fight.
On the London Underground, a woman is attacked by a giant Carboniferous spider.
Conner finds information on the Internet indicating a new anomaly may have opened. He enlists Abby, who he fancies, into checking it out without telling Cutter. He and Abby travel to the New Forest and setup camp.
Back in the underground, a pest control worked is attacked and bitten by one of the spiders, which are hunting rats in the subway.
Conner discovers that Abby fancies Stephen and he tries to convince her that Stephen might be gay. Presumably, Abby sees through this and gets mad and informs Cutter about their stake out. A Dinosaur shows up and menaces the two of them. After they’ve been good and frightened, the “dinosaur†is revealed to be Conner’s friends, who are pulling a prank on him. Cutter and the cops arrive and frighten them off.
Cutter fires Conner for being such an irresponsible prat.
Cutter and his (now diminished) team go to check out the problem in the Underground. The Special Forces are sent in first and encounter a nest of giant spiders in a disused WWII bunker adjacent to the underground. They are sent packing with the tails between their legs.
Cutter, Stephen and Abby go in next, armed only with flashlights. They scare off the spiders and find the anomaly. The also find a giant, 2 meter long centipede, which attacks them, separating Cutter from the others, who get out.
Cutter finds his way into more disused tunnels and thinks he sees Helen again. He follows her, but all tunnels lead to dead ends.
Stephen suggests that Claudia get Conner back on the team because of his encyclopedic memory of prehistoric creatures. While Claudia is arranging that, Stephen secretly returns to the tunnels to rescue Cutter despite orders not to do so. He’s bitten by the centipede and envenomed. While lying on the floor, Helen Cutter comes to him, but does not help him.
Cutter comes out of hiding and finds Stephen. Stephen tells him he saw Helen and she left a message for him. The message is “go through the anomaly if you want an explanation of what’s happening.†Cutter gets Stephen out but it is clear he is dying from the venom.
The Special Forces begin running the spiders back through the anomaly, using bright lights. Cutter and Conner hatch a plan to collect centipede venom to save Stephen’s life. They go back down to find the centipede.
After searching it appears the centipede has already returned, but Connor’s knowledge of the creature allows them to find its burrow and they track it into its lair. It’s dug its way into another underground facility and there, with the help of Captain Ryan, they confront it and collect its venom, before killing it.
Stephen’s life is saved, but he claims to remember nothing after he was bitten. Conner is back on the team, but Cutter refuses to give him a cool nickname. The episode ends with Cutter, alone in front of the anomaly, pondering what Helen is doing.
Analysis
First, a word of explanation.
When I was about 10 years old there were two Saturday morning TV shows on that I always wanted to watch. Land of the Lost and Valley of the Dinosaurs. My recollection of Land of the Lost is quite vivid, but my recollection of Valley of the Dinosaurs is quite hazy – with one exception.
It was on quite early in the morning and I was up one Saturday before my dad or grandparents were awake and I was sitting in the living room watching the show. The episode was about a plague of giant army ants, swarming across the Valley of the Dinosaurs. The ants were two inches long and the whole episode was already creeping me out. I was sitting in a big armchair and I had my legs pulled up so the ants wouldn’t get me, but I was keenly aware of the horrible sensation that I was being watched. I turned and looked over my shoulder and there was a giant ant on top of the chair looking at my face! I ran screaming in terror.
Of course, it wasn’t really a giant ant, it was just one of those fairly common two-inch long cockroaches they have in Tucson. Nonetheless, it has indelibly stamped that moment in my memory. Since that day, I’ve really had a problem with big insects. I don’t like them.
It’s no surprise that watching giant insects brought to life through the magic of modern special effects is a profoundly disturbing experience for me. This episode was no different, although I did find myself getting inured to the revulsion as the episode progressed.
For the episode itself, there’s not a lot to be said. It certainly isn’t Shakespeare.
The “character†of Helen Cutter continues to be presented in a context which could be either reality or imagination. Both people who have seen her are either obsessed or delirious with poison and shock. Is she real? Is she somehow controlling the anomalies? Or is she at least somehow capable of using them as more than just random doorways?
Once again the show recycles the creatures presented in the BBC’s Walking with Monsters, specifically the Mesothelae and Arthropleura.
In this episode, the anomaly doesn’t close, although presumably it will. We leave Cutter standing in front of it. I couldn’t help wondering what he’d do if something walked through the anomaly while he’s standing inches in front of it. No Special Forces appear to have been posted to keep everything on the other side until it closes.
Insects and arthropods don’t have “lungs†like animals. They absorb oxygen through their tissue. This limits the size of insects (thank goodness) based on the available oxygen in the air. During the Carboniferous, oxygen levels were much higher, allowing the runaway growth of the nasty crawlies. During the show they mention that the oxygen level is much higher in the nest due to the proximity of the anomaly which is allowing the carboniferous atmosphere through. This would also prevent the spiders and the centipede from operating very far from the anomaly for any length of time – if not suffocating them outright. While, for the most part, they seem to stay near the anomaly, the centipede at the end of the episode goes a long way into territory that would have ordinary, modern atmospheric oxygen levels.
That, in itself presents an interesting problem. The centipede burrows between the tunnels and the underground facility. I would be more inclined to believe it would burrow to create…well, a burrow, not to colonize new territory.
Still looking at oxygen issues, Stephen does a very foolish thing in the high-oxygen part of the tunnels by lighting a torch (the fiery kind, not a flashlight.) which would have been an explosive combination.
Finally, I’m getting a bit tired of the Special Forces apparently using styrofoam bullets. I’m not convinced that standard issue military machine guns wouldn’t have cut down last week’s gorgonopsid and I’m even less convinced it wouldn’t be effective against the centipede and extremely close range. Those guns would effectively kill an elephant in short order. The centipede should have been turned to a pulp.
All in all, another enjoyable, if a bit creepy, episode as long as you don’t think about it too long.
I’m looking forward to next weeks episode, which appears to open a watery doorway to the Jurassic.
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