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Gripes/comments on a surprisingly good series

posted 11 years ago by Phidippides
8 replies | jump to latest

*Spoilers may be here*

I just finished watching the last episode of Season five. Some observations:

1. I started watching the show after seeing it recommended somewhere. I enjoy the sci-fi genre in general so decided to watch Primeval. After watching a few episodes in the first season I was mildly entertained but soon found the whole formulaic approach rather bland. In case you can't guess, virtually every episode in the first few seasons begins in a setting somewhere near London where 1) some regular person is minding their own business, 2) an anomaly opens up nearby, 3) creature from the past/future enters through the anomaly, 4) said regular person gets killed/taken, and 5) the ARC team is on the case. It was so aggravating to see the same basic storyline over and over again that it crossed my mind that actor Doug Henshall must have left the series out of sheer boredom/disgust/aversion to the whole thing!

2. Despite the standard storyline, the series moves along best by supporting characters such as Connor and Abby, and by the subplot involving Helen Cutter. However, it noticeably picks up strength by Season four when the dinosaur invaders become secondary to the larger issue of the anomalies.

3. One thing that perplexed me was the way actors came and went throughout the seasons. Was there a revolving door in the actor's studio? First it's Stephen who exits, then...Cutter? How does the protagonist leave after just two seasons? I didn't understand that one. Then a new quasi-Cutter, Danny Quinn, conveniently joins the team...only to leave at the end of the season! Also, Sarah joins the team the same season, only to mysteriously (and unexplained within the story, IIRC) disappear before the next season. It amazes me that the series was able to continue with Connor and Abby in the lead, but they did surprisingly well in this regard.

4. As I have already seen commented, there is a suspension of belief that must be undertaken to watch this series. Perhaps the largest for me was the fact that virtually whenever an anomaly opened, some prehistoric creature was ready to march right through it to the present day. This actually annoyed me - what are the odds of a large animal walking through a randomly-placed space about the size of a normal door? Oh, and why did they always end up in England?

5. There's also the whole issue of a team of academics/scholars being the "front line" of defense against creatures that the military would have difficulty taking down. Oh, and don't even remind me about how they'd go in to deal with creatures UNARMED.

Despite the gripes above, the series developed at a nice enough pace, and finished strongly in Seasons four and five, to keep my attention.

~After enjoying that movie, I figured I'd drop by IMDB to read about all of its problems.

[–] ncrawford82 11 years ago

I'm just copying and pasting from a post I made last year. But I think the point remains true.

I too find the writing in Primeval to be weak at times, especially in the first series. Through no fault of the actors, I find alot of the character development to be hackneyed and forced. Many of the guest actors, especially the ones playing teens, are caricatures at best, written by people who haven't been around children much in their lives.

Much of the time, I feel like the writers were like, "And then a Triceratops totally messes up Trafalgar Square and-what, this show is about people? Okay, well, uh, Lester polishes his shoes and it's funny, but then the T-rex rips up a hot dog stand! Yeah!"

One major example comes to mind. The bit with the Diictodons. This woman is having a baby and no one in the hospital pays her any mind after she checks in. Once it's evacuated, she's left there in the delivery room and Cutter and Abby are forced to deliver the baby. But... Abby literally handled an animal and went to handling a newborn child without even washing her hands.

That whole scene was totally implausible, and only existed so that they could squeeze some "cute" and "funny" moments in between all of the creature incursion stuff. Like Cutter getting shot in that very same episode wouldn't have carried just as much weight. Oh, and Cutter's "slow dying, Conner fight the good fight" scene. Cliched.

Again, this is through no fault of the actors. Jason Flemyng really carries series three on his shoulders, and Alexander Siddig is always a pleasure but it's a lot of window dressing.

[–] robertfranz 11 years ago

I have no idea how this series was rated as highly as it has been.

The writing is abysmal.

The situations are stupid and contrived.

In a campy show like Torchwood or Doctor Who, that's forgivable.

But this show really has nothing much going for it other than a premise with some potential.

Unfortunately, failure to gather together a competent writing staff predictably yields a result that looks like they were making it up as they went along.

[–] Phidippides 11 years ago

Well, I can tell you from my experience that the mystery surrounding the anomalies was enough to keep my interest. Although the dinosaur-enter-through-anomaly-to-wreak-havoc formula got tiresome rather quickly, the fact that the stories gradually answered questions about the anomalies over time made the series somewhat rewarding. I was also holding out hope that sooner or later, humans would start making their way through the anomalies, which would have elevated the series with seemingly endless possibilities. Alas, except for some limited exchanges with other civilizations, they stuck to dinosaur storylines.

~After enjoying that movie, I figured I'd drop by IMDB to read about all of its problems.

[–] ProfessorFrink79 11 years ago

I too wondered why no humans ever came through the anomalies. They were supposed to be opening up across all time, yet we never got a Roman or a medieval knight or even a Neanderthal coming through. An animal would naturally be wary of a weird glowing shape in the air and would most likely avoid it, not wander through it obliviously. A human, on the other hand, would be curious and likely investigate.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy the prehistoric animals - they're basically the reason I watched this show. But it did irritate me that throughout the first series there were constant references to 'dinosaurs' when none of the animals in the first series was a dinosaur.

"I don't have low self-esteem...I have low esteem for everyone else." - Daria.

[–] claudia_lampl5 11 years ago

In one episode there was a medieval knight. The episode with the Dracorex that he chased because he thought it was a dragon.

[–] ProfessorFrink79 11 years ago

So there was! I completely forgot about that episode.

[–] draftdubya-274-182961 11 years ago

What irked me was that it was a never shoot to kill when most of these animals killed people left and right

[–] dsrtrosy-1 11 years ago

Working off of the formulaic gripe, I had a real problem with the fact that every creature, with VERY few exceptions, immediately started killing humans. Huh. Not sure I can believe that. And yes, it was a bit too much that every SINGLE anomaly just happened to open where some creature would come through, although I suppose it's possible that proximity to something in the atmosphere could trigger an anomaly, but that doesn't seem to be the case (and I was never very clear on how they knew it was past or future--it's not like we've cataloged every single prehistoric creature in existence).

My only other gripe is that every single woman in the show who was not a main character (and often, even those who were), were shown as hysterical idiots. Yes, I know a handful of hysterical idiots, both male and female. But between that and Helen's ridiculous cleavage, it was a bit much.