Have they no staff at all?
I guess I should get this review out of the way before the next episode airs…
Synopsis
A paintballer at an amusement park is killed by a big cat.
Meanwhile, Conner has to break another date with his girlfriend. In case the audience was too dim to pick it up last week, this week, they beat the audience with the information that she is a plant. But for whom? Do we care?
Conner demonstrates his anomaly detector, but while the detector says there’s no anomaly, the report of the mauling at the park comes in.
At the park, the owner refuses to close down and evacuate, so Cutter and his band of (at least armed, this time) misfits starts searching for the cat. Conner is mystified why his anomaly detector isn’t working.
Stuff happens, the give Conner a gun again, he shoots a guy in a lion suit through the head, we all have a good laugh.
Cutter’s plan is to make big pits and trap the cat. It would appear the ARC can’t muster a qualified backhoe operator, but in a pinch, Abby, the herpetologist, happens to be a whiz-bang heavy machinery operator. The cat attacks Cutter, Abby distracts it with the backhoe – using it like a giant cat toy.
After a daring, incredibly stupid and totally doomed to failure attempt to run away, Cutter gets lucky and lives.
Back in the pit, he discovers the boyfriend of one of the park’s workers.
He confronts her and she reveals that she raised it from a kitten. She’s been talking with Stephen, and she’s concluded that Cutter and his people have been conducting hideous genetic experiments and created this poor animal. The cat tries to kill Cutter, but in the end kills the girl. The cat is tranquilized and the day is saved.
Back at the ARC, Leek tells Cutter the cat died in transit and was immediately cremated. Then we see Leek paying Conner’s “girlfriend†to continue spying on him.
Analysis
The second series of Primeval has been a bit like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
I’ll spare the usual complaints about, “What the heck does the ARC do?†and move to questions like, “Since they don’t do anything, and Leek is the chief facilitator of the organization, why does he need to spy on its members? Doesn’t he have access to everything, anyway?†Of slight interest might be, “Who does he work for?†but, since we’re in a different universe, I’m not entirely sure who runs the ARC, without any kind of a hint of who the opposition would be, and why there would be an opposition in the first place, the question hasn’t got legs.
This season, Stephen has been questioning the “rightness†of what they’re doing – keeping secrets and all that. Coming from a guy who has been sleeping with his boss and friend’s wife, that’s positively hilarious.
In fact, they’ve been beating us about the head and shoulders with it. This episode, in which the girl dies supposedly as a direct consequence of the secretive nature of Cutter’s work is just a new club in their arsenal of subtlety.
To be honest, it’s only after been pummeled a bit that I realized the writers were going after this theme in the previous series. Conner’s nutty friend was killed because he was trying to dig into the team’s secrets. At the time, rather than see it as a serious indictment of secrecy, I saw it as a manifestation of conspiracy-looniness.
Since secrecy is the only thing this story brings to the table, let’s look at this a little bit.
In our culture, there is a presumption that information kept secret is a dark and evil thing. That’s simply not true, at least, it isn’t a truism. I’ll play the devil’s advocate and say that, sometimes, it’s better to conceal. It is not possible in all cases to consult everyone as to what should and should not be made public.
Children have died in the UK because a newspaper published information on a study that link MMR vaccinations to autism. Otherwise sane and rationale people began preventing their children from having this crucial vaccination based on information that turned out to be inaccurate. It wasn’t false information, per se, because it was the results of a study. The study itself proved to be wrong.
People are not always able to digest and comprehend information, particularly information about risk. How many refused to go swimming after the movie Jaws came out?
If the people who run the ARC, presumably the British government, revealed to the world that holes in time were opening up and prehistoric monsters were coming through, what would happen?
Some people would be terrified, but would it be justified? Shouldn’t they be more worried about being killed in London traffic?
Other people would be hunting the anomalies. What would happen if they found one? Would they go through? Of course they would! Who wouldn’t? Would they change history?
The anomalies are an extremely dangerous phenomena – one that threatens the very existence of all we would call reality.
This is a secret best kept to as few people as possible. People will continue to die either way, but which way are the stakes higher? In this case, it isn’t possible to find out without choosing the later course.
The point is made that the girl died because of the secret. Did she? She found a flippin’ saber-tooth kitten in her garage and decided to raise it – no matter what she thought it was, that was not a sane course of action. Nor was it sane when she buried her boyfriend that the cat had killed.
What would she have done differently if she’d known the kitten had come through a time anomaly? Turned him in to be destroyed? Not likely – she’d have done the exact same thing.
Therein seems to lie the problem – no one is bothering to think about the situations or characters before they write these stories.
Technorati Tags: Dinosaur, Dinosaurs, Primeval, Review, Television, UK, Video
yeah I agree, it is a bit loose so far not sure why, they surely did not change the writer’s team. As for going through anomalies, This did cost them a lot in travel and CGI already. We won’t see them in a dinosaur filled tropical jungle time any soon. Each time they went through it was either desertic or empty enough to warrant minimal CGI. They need to do something about what happened to the real CLaudia before episode 7 or this will not go well for season 3 which will be produced anyway. Oh well, nothing better really along the same vein and I like the actors even if some do act badly from time to time….
yeah I agree, it is a bit loose so far not sure why, they surely did not change the writer’s team. As for going through anomalies, This did cost them a lot in travel and CGI already. We won’t see them in a dinosaur filled tropical jungle time any soon. Each time they went through it was either desertic or empty enough to warrant minimal CGI. They need to do something about what happened to the real CLaudia before episode 7 or this will not go well for season 3 which will be produced anyway. Oh well, nothing better really along the same vein and I like the actors even if some do act badly from time to time….
i think that primeval is still brilliant. i mean, the storyline could be slightly better, but that doesnt mean its not good. i like the actors and the characters they play. there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. and anyway, you cant judge. i dont see you writing a better script. you seriously need to get out more in my oppinion!!!!!!!
i think that primeval is still brilliant. i mean, the storyline could be slightly better, but that doesnt mean its not good. i like the actors and the characters they play. there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. and anyway, you cant judge. i dont see you writing a better script. you seriously need to get out more in my oppinion!!!!!!!
With the price of gas these days, who can afford to get out, anyway?
The fallacy here is in the statement “…you cant [sic] judge. i [sic] dont [sic] see you writing a better script.”
First, how do you know I haven’t written a better script? That’s pure guesswork on your part. I actually have stacks of scripts I’ve written sitting around here. I would never argue that they’re better, but better isn’t what gets scripts produced.
For an excellent primer on scriptwriting and the business, I recommend J. Michael Straczynski’s The Complete Book of Scriptwriting, or Alternative Scriptwriting by Ken Dancyger and Jeff Rush for an interesting look at how breaking the traditional script conventions can give a better understanding of how and why the conventions work.
Even if I haven’t written a better script – even if I’d never written a script, why can’t I judge? Do food critics have to be top-rated chefs? Do theatre critics have to produce a play before they’re entitled to review a play?
Judgement is being able to look at the whole and apply logic (or other defined rules) to the situation. Having written a script isn’t a prerequisite to having an opinion any more so that being able to punctuate or capitalize is.
I try to back my opinions up with examples. The scriptwriters in this series of Primeval have taken breathtaking liberties with logic in their scripts and it shows.
For the record: I like Primeval. It’s the most interesting premise for a TV series I’ve seen in years, but I think the British argument that 6 to 12-part series allow the writers to produce higher-quality scripts has taken a black eye over this one.
This series only had seven stories to work with and they squandered most of them. It’s an excellent premise and good cast totally undermined by slipshod writing.
You’ll note, I didn’t mention the cast at all in my indictment, I have no complaint about them. I think it’s great to see a Scotsman as the hero rather than the wacky sidekick. It’s a pity that Henshall apparently has a Landau clause.*
With him being at the forefront of almost every action, it diminishes from the teamwork aspect of the show. (That means less Claudia/Jenny time, and that’s a bad thing.)
*During Space:1999, Martin Landau and Barbara Bain had clauses in their contracts that required that they be featured in a certain percentage of each episode.
With the price of gas these days, who can afford to get out, anyway?
The fallacy here is in the statement “…you cant [sic] judge. i [sic] dont [sic] see you writing a better script.”
First, how do you know I haven’t written a better script? That’s pure guesswork on your part. I actually have stacks of scripts I’ve written sitting around here. I would never argue that they’re better, but better isn’t what gets scripts produced.
For an excellent primer on scriptwriting and the business, I recommend J. Michael Straczynski’s The Complete Book of Scriptwriting, or Alternative Scriptwriting by Ken Dancyger and Jeff Rush for an interesting look at how breaking the traditional script conventions can give a better understanding of how and why the conventions work.
Even if I haven’t written a better script – even if I’d never written a script, why can’t I judge? Do food critics have to be top-rated chefs? Do theatre critics have to produce a play before they’re entitled to review a play?
Judgement is being able to look at the whole and apply logic (or other defined rules) to the situation. Having written a script isn’t a prerequisite to having an opinion any more so that being able to punctuate or capitalize is.
I try to back my opinions up with examples. The scriptwriters in this series of Primeval have taken breathtaking liberties with logic in their scripts and it shows.
For the record: I like Primeval. It’s the most interesting premise for a TV series I’ve seen in years, but I think the British argument that 6 to 12-part series allow the writers to produce higher-quality scripts has taken a black eye over this one.
This series only had seven stories to work with and they squandered most of them. It’s an excellent premise and good cast totally undermined by slipshod writing.
You’ll note, I didn’t mention the cast at all in my indictment, I have no complaint about them. I think it’s great to see a Scotsman as the hero rather than the wacky sidekick. It’s a pity that Henshall apparently has a Landau clause.*
With him being at the forefront of almost every action, it diminishes from the teamwork aspect of the show. (That means less Claudia/Jenny time, and that’s a bad thing.)
*During Space:1999, Martin Landau and Barbara Bain had clauses in their contracts that required that they be featured in a certain percentage of each episode.
Are you going to see people getting eaten in series 3 i hope they do and i hope they will have an andrewsarchus
Are you going to see people getting eaten in series 3 i hope they do and i hope they will have an andrewsarchus
You know, Andrewsarchus would be a fascinating choice for a creature on Primeval.
A couple of pieces of trivia about it, for starters, it was named in honor of Roy Chapman Andrews, who was… well, Indiana Jones. But more than that, he was one of the greats of paleontology.
Second, andrewsarchus, despite being frequently depicted as a bear or wolf-like creature, andrewsarchus may have been more whale-like. The species is only know from a single, partial skull, but that skull has features similar to extinct whales.
Here’s an opportunity for the Primeval production team to “break away” from Walking with Beasts by developing a new CGI creature for andrewsarchus rather than reuse their existing one, and even explore the issue of how we don’t really know what the creature was like. While it would still be wild speculation, they’d at least have a leg to stand on to so dilettante bloggers like me won’t pick on them so much.
(Of course, that presents the problem of how to they determine that the creature actually is andrewsarchus, but I’m sure Cutter can just sniff a hair sample and make a spot on identification.)
You know, Andrewsarchus would be a fascinating choice for a creature on Primeval.
A couple of pieces of trivia about it, for starters, it was named in honor of Roy Chapman Andrews, who was… well, Indiana Jones. But more than that, he was one of the greats of paleontology.
Second, andrewsarchus, despite being frequently depicted as a bear or wolf-like creature, andrewsarchus may have been more whale-like. The species is only know from a single, partial skull, but that skull has features similar to extinct whales.
Here’s an opportunity for the Primeval production team to “break away” from Walking with Beasts by developing a new CGI creature for andrewsarchus rather than reuse their existing one, and even explore the issue of how we don’t really know what the creature was like. While it would still be wild speculation, they’d at least have a leg to stand on to so dilettante bloggers like me won’t pick on them so much.
(Of course, that presents the problem of how to they determine that the creature actually is andrewsarchus, but I’m sure Cutter can just sniff a hair sample and make a spot on identification.)