Sunday, April 19, 2009

TV: Yes Virginia, There IS a Good Primeval Episode

And show four of the third season of ITV's Primeval IS that good episode.

Not as many dinosaurs as I would have liked, but the gigantosaurus was pretty good. Looked nasty. Chomped a goodly number of louts. Managed to survive the predations of the ARC team, which, when you think about it, is standard for the course. Best of all Bad Haircut Man, the reporter with dubious morals, and his witchy boss, both failed to make it through the episode, alive and living in the 21st century.

Actually, the best thing about the episode was no Helen Cutter, despite Juliet Aubrey being listed in the opening credits. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

But before you take heart in that development, the writers couldn't last a week without an idiotic conspiracy. That new government flunky introduced in episode one this year, the one extra brunette we didn't need, has assumed the Helen role as conspiracist thorn in the backside of the ARC team. She's taken all the snark out of Sir James and turned it into sulk, and that doesn't make the show any better. A big part of the charm of the show is Ben Miller's snide throwaways as the stiff upper lip Sir James. Wonder if we can feed her to the mushroom people next week, although they seem to be threatening to do that to Jenny.

Lucy Brown, who's played Claudia/Jenny since the start, seems to be a bit off this year. Took me almost the whole show to figure it out. She's dressing down--jacket, shirt and jeans. No flighty frocks with a penchant for hats and a bit of upper crust upbringing showing. I thought it annoying how she'd take her frilly dress and heels into action when the intelligent and obvious thing would be to give orders from the sidelines. Turns out, I miss the girly girl. Brown looks great in anything, so I'm not complaining ... too much. Guess I can't have my cake of logic and eat it too.

The Connor-Abby-Jack triangle resolved about as obviously as it could. The only question was whether it was going to be older or younger for Jack. And I'm glad our little menagerie additions from last week made an appearance, although I wonder how they handle NOT eating their way through a house, given the hospital burrowing escapades.

All in all, I got enough dinosaurs to give it a straight thumbs up. All quibbles were minor and I'll chance the Pod People episode in a week's time. But if we don't get more dinosaurs and more logical behaviour soon, that damned need by the writers for conspiracies will surely end my watching sooner than later.

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