posted
The BBC has had a run on cool SF shows in the past couple years, coming with the reboot of the most famous of them all in "Doctor Who". Now rival commercial channel ITV has thrown their hat in, and given us "Primeval".
THIS British sci-fi series is about a group of renegade scientists operating outside of government supervision, dealing with all sorts of nasty creatures that appear through a rift in the time-space continuum. Note that this is not remotely like "Torchwood"! THAT British sci-fi series is about a group of renegade scientists operating outside of government supervision, dealing with all sorts of nasty creatures that appear through a rift in the time-space continuum. There's a DIFFERENCE.
Actually, there is. But simply, "Primeval" is "Torchwood" meets "Jurassic Park" meets every other monster movie made after that. This time, there are random rifts in time and space appearing around England, apparently to periods in the far distant past when dinosaurs and various other giant creepy crawlies existed and from which they're wandering through. The first two episodes have featured giant reptiles and giant insects, respectively, which our group of hip & sexy science geeks have to find, identify and generally kill by the end of the show. But wait, there's an overriding arc to this six-episode series too: our lead geek's wife disappeared eight years ago investigating something similar, and clues begin to appear that she's not quite dead... Isn't she?
There's very little new or groundbreaking about this show... It's all monster of the week, smash and shoot, guilty cliche fun - if you like that sort of thing. The effects work is top-notch, with dinos and bugs lookin genuinely scary and hungry. If you like that kind of movie, then you'll like the six weeks of "Primeval" that ITV is giving us. If not, well... It'll help pass the time until "Doctor Who" comes back in a month or so. The Beeb has nothing to worry about this technically competing SF series. Thoughts?
Mark
PS - Both rounds of creatures so far have been afraid of light. If that's the case, then why do they all run away back into the anomalies... Which are BLINDING WHITE LIGHT?
posted
Hey, just letting everyone know that this series was actually renewed for a second season, which is airing now opposite Torchwood's second. Torchwood, which is actually ABOUT something, will have no real competition to this series, which is more of the same we saw last year. At the end of the previous series, Dr. Cutter did *something* in the past, closing a time loop and changing his present. Everyone's on a much cooler set now, and the main love interest has been replaced by a much colder woman, played by the same actress (dun dun DUN!).
Still worth watching for the popcorn factor of watching CGI monsters eat poor defenseless humans, but not for anything else. Either way, just watch this or Torchwood for your British sci-fi fix until Doctor Who comes back in April/May.
Mark
PS - Along the same vein, "Ashes to Ashes", the followup to the immensely-cool "Life on Mars", starts in early February.
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