TV: Primeval Second Season Stinker Start

I'm watching a lot of Aussie and British TV thanks to the WGA withdrawal of writing services in the States. I think the other members of the Commonwealth do quite a good job in general. One series I quite enjoyed early in 2007 was the Brit SF action thriller, Primeval. It was a monster of the week show, with said monsters coming through portals into the current time in Jolly Olde England. Doug Henshall headed the team that battled the dinosaurs and other assorted prehistorical ilk. He also had a missing wife to initially mourn over and then battle when she too showed up. All the while, he was falling in extreme like with Claudia Brown, played by Lucy Brown. It was a nice match of naive young lass with jaded old professorial type (by way of Indiana Jones). The first six-episode season concluded with Henshall's Professor Cutter emerging from a portal into the past, only to find the time-line he returned to didn't include the likeable Claudia.

Which set the stage for the second season debut this weekend. Claudia's no more than a glint in the eye of Cutter and there are a whole lot of new people hanging around a nifty HQ. A Raptor or two or three have invaded a local multi-level mall after-hours. Last season, a commando unit and our intrepid team headed by Cutter would have descended upon the mall to box up the visitors and send them back through the portal. Not this year. Cutter's team of four go in with ONE dart rifle and ONE dart pistol. Alone.

The whole thing turns into a lite version of Night at a Museum. Raptors ride elevators from within and without. They scrabble along slick linoleum with nary a problem. They let themselves get bopped on the nose by Cassius Clay Cutter like a common shark, yet the youngest of the reptile 'family' gets to use its claws to almost eviscerate one of an enumerable set of various people who are hanging around the place. A Three Stooges race that has Cutter on a motorcycle leading one nasty Raptor back into the bowels of the mall (actually, to the bowling alley), while another team member follows up, segues immediately into the Raptor chasing BOTH of them. Lithsome Hannah Spearritt won't give the comic sidekick of the team, played by Andrew Lee Potts, a gun, until she hears something in a locker room. Then hands it over so that Potts' Connor Temple can do a Bondian riff before shooting her accidentally.

When this episode of supposedly smart people acting stupidly grinds to its obvious 'shock' conclusion, I was dispirited and wondering if it was at all possible to continue watching any more shows in this series. Then I got mad and wrote this review. I am not going to give up, yet.

There is a lot of good science fictional potential in the whole Primeval setup. The portals (aka anomalies) are interesting in and of themselves. The monster of the week is the weakest point, but the characters are generally well-drawn and interesting. As long as they stay above the normal slasher-film intelligence level, it can be worthwhile. But please, let the characters be as smart as they were last year.