Primeval 2.4
Being largely an excuse to show off my new "Paid Account" status, my shiny new user pic and the fact that I've worked out how to convert a set of PNGs (kindly supplied by B) into an animated gif and then ruthlessly hack out frames until it comes under LJ's 40K restriction on icons.
I enjoyed this episode best of the season so far. This only re-emphasises for me a growing realisation that I place quite a high value on a decently plotted and interesting A story. I like the way primeval has relatively complex characters who are relatively consistently written and portrayed (as I've said elsewhere I think it manages this much better than new Who) but its Monster-of-the-week plots have a tendency to be unimaginative, occasionally a little dull, and sometimes just plain rubbish. I'm no fan of Nu Who's plotting but it is a lot more imaginative than Primeval (though obviously, it has a lot more scope to be so) even though it frequently has plot holes you could drive a truck (loaded with every plot hole that's ever occurred on Primeval) through them.
So it was nice to see a reasonably interesting set up this week (though how/why exactly did the shark eat just Lucien's shoe and football?) with the monster story being worked into the character stories rather better than in the preceding weeks. There were niggles (shoe and football aside), why was Stephen so certain the monster was in the canal (was he being misled by text messages from Helen?), what were the future walruses doing? were they trying to communicate in some ham-fisted fashion (our initial assumption) or was this just some sort of larder building exercise ? There were certainly signs of intelligence on display which makes the unexpectedly violent attitude of our heroes (they spend episodes nearly getting themselves killed while faffing around with tranquiliser guns but happily pull out automatic weapons at the first sign they are dealing with something with higher sentience - B said Nick must only care about saving pretty creatures).
The reveal that (the sadly underused so far this year) Helen is involved with Leek was genuinely surprising, while feeling entirely natural. Though I've been having some interesting discussions over on primeval_itv about how this could be interpreted, I think we are meant to take it at face value. Helen and Leek are up to something - given Helen's apparent desire to get to the future last season, and the fact that they've found a recurring future anomaly, what's the betting that Leek is not going to simply conceal it under layers of concrete?
I enjoyed this episode best of the season so far. This only re-emphasises for me a growing realisation that I place quite a high value on a decently plotted and interesting A story. I like the way primeval has relatively complex characters who are relatively consistently written and portrayed (as I've said elsewhere I think it manages this much better than new Who) but its Monster-of-the-week plots have a tendency to be unimaginative, occasionally a little dull, and sometimes just plain rubbish. I'm no fan of Nu Who's plotting but it is a lot more imaginative than Primeval (though obviously, it has a lot more scope to be so) even though it frequently has plot holes you could drive a truck (loaded with every plot hole that's ever occurred on Primeval) through them.
So it was nice to see a reasonably interesting set up this week (though how/why exactly did the shark eat just Lucien's shoe and football?) with the monster story being worked into the character stories rather better than in the preceding weeks. There were niggles (shoe and football aside), why was Stephen so certain the monster was in the canal (was he being misled by text messages from Helen?), what were the future walruses doing? were they trying to communicate in some ham-fisted fashion (our initial assumption) or was this just some sort of larder building exercise ? There were certainly signs of intelligence on display which makes the unexpectedly violent attitude of our heroes (they spend episodes nearly getting themselves killed while faffing around with tranquiliser guns but happily pull out automatic weapons at the first sign they are dealing with something with higher sentience - B said Nick must only care about saving pretty creatures).
The reveal that (the sadly underused so far this year) Helen is involved with Leek was genuinely surprising, while feeling entirely natural. Though I've been having some interesting discussions over on primeval_itv about how this could be interpreted, I think we are meant to take it at face value. Helen and Leek are up to something - given Helen's apparent desire to get to the future last season, and the fact that they've found a recurring future anomaly, what's the betting that Leek is not going to simply conceal it under layers of concrete?