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| A deadly Spinosaurus contemplates its human dinner menu in the new series of PRIMEVAL. All images: ITV 1. |
After a long absence, it was good to see a new season of PRIMEVAL back on ITV 1 in a prime Saturday mid-evening slot, saved by the kind of funding agreements that only London’s Merchant bankers could dream about!, though it ultimately needed and deserved a more spectacular series introduction, and re-introduction to viewers who hadn’t seen it in ages, nearly two ages, than what was eventually seen on screen-it was pretty much business as usual despite the loss or writing out of several of last seasons regular characters (they killed off Laila Rouass when they couldn’t get her back from SPOOKS or HOLBY CITY!) with one major monster and a thin plot capable of sustaining fifty minutes being the order of the day for the opening episode and the others to come, but it all could have been far more densely plotted and interesting. Despite the occasional thrill and spill here and there, backed up with some atmospheric direction from time to time, the oomph factor wasn’t really there in abundance, which was a shame as I thought that the show’s format had started to evolve and hit its stride creatively in the third year before it’s once cancellation. It was all still likable fun, of course, don’t get me wrong, but disappointingly not involving enough, with this seasons running plot about discovering who and what are behind the evolving anomalies acting more as a teaser for things to come rather than providing totally satisfying answers after the previous three years. And what’s happened to the series creators Tim Haines and Adrian Hodges in writing episodes? The latter only co-wrote one episode this season (episode five, which sadly turned out to be the least interesting one of the year).
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| Action men! Matt Anderson and Captain Becker go dino hunting! |
Now filmed in Ireland, with the country more than adequately getting away with covering for London, and making the most of some of its beautiful countryside scenery (especially shown in episode five), the series revamp also boasted two new Irish lead actors: rising star Ciaran McMenamin as lead action hero/ladies heart throb with a strange past (and future), Matt Anderson (sounds like the name of an HASBRO toy!), proved okay, a competent leading man, but he hardly set the screen alight with much charisma (I personally would have preferred a more well-known, perhaps older name actor/actress as the new series lead), whilst Ruth Kearney as Jess Parker showed promise as the sweet and sexy new Anomaly tracer/ARC technician with the wacky fashion style (and certainly a far quicker and infinitely leggier computer analyst and tracker than 24’s Chloe O’ Brian ever was!), but she did have very little to do in her first season, which was a bit of a shame. The same also, despite his work in the sinister finale (linked to the “New Dawn” plot mentioned earlier in the season), with that fine actor Alexander Siddig, who could have been the series main star playing a heroic character if the producers had chosen it (he’s not that old!), wasted as the series shady PROSPERO company industrialist/profiteer Philip Burton, appearing in the episodes prior to the finale just trotting in and out of the storylines at key moments, and with no real characterization, apart from being shadowy. And how did they manage to waste a fine character actor as Anton Lesser over six episodes!! Hopefully he enjoyed the Irish summer since he was always out in the garden offering sage Obi-Wan Kenobi advice to his son!
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| Get away from my husband-to-be! Jenny (Lucy Brown) lays down the law to any attacking monsters in her guest return for the enjoyable Episode Six. |
Of the rest of the regular main leads, Andrew-Lee Potts and Hannah Spearritt as young leads Connor and Abby proved as amiable as ever and a true plus factor for the series. She may have let her hair down in a new straw cave woman style but Abby’s a little more spiky and action heroine this season after her unwanted year trapped in the past –and especially when she takes on the unwanted passenger of the worm dinosaur in episode five, whilst Connor could prove the overall key to saving the planet long term from the anomalies. Ben Miller was great to have back as the Man from the Ministry, James Lester, even if his part in the show has shrunken ever further, whilst action hero Ben Mansfield as Captain Becker proved as largely incompetent as he was in the last season. And what happened to all the ARC’s soldiers this year? Could the Production Team not afford to hire them?
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| Back to the present, Danny Quinn (Jason Flemyng) gives a warning to Matt (Ciaran McMenamin) and Lady Emily Merchant (Ruth Bradley). |
Above all the lead actors however, and as usual, the big stars of the series are the CGI monsters, which, like the episodes they appeared in, also proved a mixed bag. Kudos to the Spinosaurus in the series opener, and the bird creatures in the finale-they looked great watching them in high definition. Additionally, the CGI flying green cutie Rex, despite little screen time this year, was much better than before- who wouldn’t love him in their home or office, eh? The Hyaenodons wreaking havoc on the lavish wedding of guest star returnee character Jenny (played by the ever yummy Lucy Brown) were also a fun standout of an enjoyable penultimate episode, but Five’s worm dinosaur-like Labyrinthodont hybrids looked weak in the outdoor exterior scenes.
Building sub-plots alongside the creature attacks had proved successful in prior seasons, and this idea was tried once more, with the hardly new but always intriguing concept of time travelers from the past and future entering our present day. Sounds promising, but it should have been more interesting than it ultimately was. Lady Emily Merchant, played by Ruth Bradley, who joined the series around Episode Three, was okay and certainly had the ethereal/haunted look required, though Jonathan Byrne as Ethan Dubrowski-the time traveling nut job Victorian era Russian anarchist who’s also from the present day- proved to be a bit of a drag in the latter half of this season, with things regarding the character only perking up with the much welcome return from the past of once series lead Danny Quinn (played well by the much missed Jason Flemyng) in a series finale which showed PRIMEVAL just about going somewhere as it headed to its mild cliff-hanger ending! With its fifth season having been already guaranteed, pre-planned and filmed I was expecting something a bit bigger and game-changing.
With ratings over the course of this new season shooting up, down and all over the place, the series audiences seem to have shown the same kind of inconsistency as the episodes themselves, so here’s hoping for a faster paced and more exciting, surprising Season Five, so as to build its audience base back, later in the year.
Despite its faults, PRIMEVAL remains fine family entertainment. And I’m glad its back.
KOOL TV OVERALL SEASON RATING: A could be so much more than it ultimately is 3 out of 5.
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