Primeval Volume 2 - DVD Review

Popular British Sci-Fi Actioner Returns for Encore, on DVD

Oct 25, 2009

After having fought all manner of mysterious beasts past and future in the first season, the members of ARC continue their investigations into temporal anomalies. 6.5/10

As the members of the Anomaly Research Centre fought with a highly evolved predator creature which hailed from one of the anomalies, Nick Cutter (Doug Henshall) and his team fought the deadly beast back into the vortex/anomaly from which it came. As Cutter takes the animal to its own time and returns to Present-Day England, he discovers that some elements of his own reality have changed, and no one seems to know or remember his teammate Claudia Brown (Lucy Brown).

As mentioned earlier, elements of Cutter's reality have changed. Not only does Claudia not seem to exist, but in her place a new member seems to have taken over (or been there all along, in this new timeline): Oliver Leek (Karl Theobald). Very eager to please yet conniving and devious, Leek manipulates others around him to serve his own purposes. We find out later in the season that he may in fact be in league with Cutter's estranged wife and the series' main villain, Helen (Juliet Aubry).

More interestingly, Cutter quickly realizes that the chain of command in this timeline's version of the ARC has changed, and the new public relations officer is a certain Jeny Lewis, an exact duplicate of Claudia Brown.

Despite these startling changes, Cutter and the rest of his team are back hard at work, capturing all manner of prehistoric monsters, both from the past, and some future species which are evolved from their original breed. When Cutter isn't fighting these beats, he's also busy at the ARC fighting the corruption found within Leek, who slowly angles himself to become the most powerful man on the planet, relying on captured predators (from the future), to conquer all.

Of course, Cutter won't allow this, and goes all out with his teammates to try and stop Leek's plans, in the finale of this second season.

The show's writers did have something going for them, when they opted to explore the repercussions of a changed timeline, with only Cutter noticing the difference. But when you take away the alternate timeline intrigue, as well as the internal plot by Leek to utilize the threat of the dangerous monsters they capture, the show really falls back down to its original formula: a team of secretive agents who capture dangerous beasts from other eras, as they come through the anomaly.

With that in mind, the main element of the show is still whether the audience will experience a new creature the following week, or if they'll be facing an older threat, back to haunt them (i.e. the Future Predator).

The show is very repetitive in that respect, and so the characters must becoming that much more engaging, so to not lose the viewer's attention. The creature effects are decent in the majority of cases, but since worldwide audiences have been spoiled by large Hollywood productions such as Jurassic Park, the TV-level graphics become less interesting, but more elaborate.

Like many shows of the past who come into their own after their initial season, the cast of Primeval does manage to allow more fleshing out of their respective characters, though many fans will see several of them disappear by the end of this seven episode season.

A third season of the show was produced, and should eventually hit DVD shelves. ITV, the group which produces Primeval, reportedly encountered financial difficulties, which made any subsequent seasons unlikely. Several of the key cast members left the show during what was thought to be the third and final season, but ITV has recently announced a deal with several other groups, which would allow for two more short seasons to air in the next two years or so. As long as financing remains viable, fans of the show would very likely continue to enjoy the team's adventures, and hopefully find closure in the several story arcs of this often complex TV series.

6.5 out of 10, for being extremely repetitive at the best of times, but seeing the cast flex its muscles story and character-wise.

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