Primeval Pimping Post (omg alliteration!)
I was going to make a wanky post, but have decided instead to write a little bit about Primeval, a six-episode series made this year by ITV; the Canadian channel Space is going to start showing it April 4th at 9 pm. It's an excellent show about time-travel and dinosaurs, and the short version of my pimp is that if you like (a) Dr. Who or Torchwood (b) Alias (c) dinosaurs (d) time-travel (e) angsty slash and/or het (f) UST or (g) running into things with trucks, you should check out this show.
None of the characters are related to each other, by the way.
This is the main ITV site for the show; it has clips and episode summaries and character background. This is the wikipedia page. The basic gist of the premise is that when holes in the space-time continuum start to open in (apparently) random locations around Britain, and prehistoric creatures start coming through to terrorize the locals, Professor Nick Cutter, evolutionary zoologist, is called in to manage the situation. He has a personal interest in the project, as his wife Helen disapeared through a similar anomaly, eight years ago, and he leads an unusually photogenic groups of zoologists.
This is Professor Nick Cutter. He has a lot of secret manpain related to his wife's disappearance, except that it's really not a secret to anyone. He's also very smart, has a lovely accent and a good sense of humor. I rather like him.
This is Helen Cutter. As I said before, she disappeared through a time-portal (they call them anomalies on the show) eight years ago. Now she's back, and it isn't entirely clear what she wants -- well, aside from Nick. At least, maybe. The actress does a really good job depicting someone who has spent the last eight years living with dinosaurs; there's something intensely reptilian about her body language, now. She has a kind of Irina Derevko ambiguously evil thing going on, although Nick is not quite up to Jack Bristow's standards.
Stephen Hart is Nick's completely devoted lab assistant. He is very pretty, and (it turns out) rather promiscuous. Indeed, one might even call him a manwhore. The opportunities for slash and het to do with Stephen are pretty much never-ending, and I think that both he and Helen have high crossover potential. Not only is he suitable for all kinds of pairings, he also is something of a survivalist type -- he's an extremely good shot and always seems happiest when offered the chance to play with guns and other weapons. He once ran over a dinosaur with a truck, which endeared him to me.
Also, he's extremely pretty. See?
I love that first picture -- it's from the official site, and doesn't it just scream "sex"?
Abby Maitland
and Connor Temple
are the cute young people: Abby spends a lot of time running around in her underwear, and Connor is a complete geek. Connor is the character they've done the best with, this season: he starts out as this annoyingly enthusiastic dinosaur nerd, but by the end of the series turns out to be quite a likable young man. Abby was likable from the beginning, although I find the underwear thing off-putting, because I'm such a prude, but she's also become more well-rounded and a lot more emotionally mature as the series has progressed. Abby is a zookeeper, and Connor a grad student. They're both smart, although Connor occasionally does very stupid things.
There are also two representatives of the Home Office, Claudia Brown and James Lester. Claudia is sympathetic and has a big crush on Nick; Lester is sour and extremely funny and is desperate to keep the whole "dinosaurs roaming modern Britain" thing under wraps. I am fond of Lester, because he's surrounded by idealists, all of whom he hates, and he has many of the best lines in the series. For a while I thought Claudia was something of a dull ingenue type, but then she saved the day with her amazing golf skillz (no, really!) and ever since I've decided to like her.
This is Claudia. She looks a bit like a grown-up Hermione Granger to me, but unfortunately is not a supergenius, which is a bit of a shame, because they clearly need one.
This is Lester, looking a little pissed off, as he usually does. But some of us find cranky brooding appealing, what can I say?
The Home Office occasionally brings in a Special Forces unit, headed by Tom Ryan; I don't seem to have a picture of him, but he's another character with a lot of potential.
If I were the shipping type, and granted that I am not much interested in Abby and Connor, I would say that Helen/Nick, Nick/Stephen and Nick/Lester are the obvious ones, but the show is also pushing Nick/Claudia, and frankly I think Helen and Lester have a lot of UST in their scenes together. The show has Stephen, Abby and Connor in a kind of unrequited love triangle thing, but it's fairly low key and has a few interesting twists; I have trouble seeing past Stephen's obvious love for Nick, though. Seriously, I am not making this up.
The first season had six episodes and a really nice arc -- the characters and the plot develop together into something quite satisfying. I think the second episode is the weakest, but after that it's all quite good. The final episode is excellent, and changes the rules of the game in a really interesting way. ITV is apparently planning another series of 7 episodes; I'd like to see more, but suspect from the quality of the CGI that the show is not cheap.
Also, the show has already had its first giant wankfest, this time started not by a fan, but by Russell T. Davies, who claimed that the show was too white. (It is very white, but my bet is that Davies is more concerned that it was a better product than Torchwood, and that he's thinking about how the new season of Who will be received.)
It's really worth watching. There are a few lj communities out there (primeval_itv has icons and fic and screencaps along with news and discussion, whereas primeval_fanfic is pretty much what it says on the tin), but you might want to be wary of spoilers until you've seen the whole thing. But do give it a try -- BH tells me that it's meant to be a bit like Buffy in its appeal, and I think the show pulls that one off rather well.
None of the characters are related to each other, by the way.
This is the main ITV site for the show; it has clips and episode summaries and character background. This is the wikipedia page. The basic gist of the premise is that when holes in the space-time continuum start to open in (apparently) random locations around Britain, and prehistoric creatures start coming through to terrorize the locals, Professor Nick Cutter, evolutionary zoologist, is called in to manage the situation. He has a personal interest in the project, as his wife Helen disapeared through a similar anomaly, eight years ago, and he leads an unusually photogenic groups of zoologists.
This is Professor Nick Cutter. He has a lot of secret manpain related to his wife's disappearance, except that it's really not a secret to anyone. He's also very smart, has a lovely accent and a good sense of humor. I rather like him.
This is Helen Cutter. As I said before, she disappeared through a time-portal (they call them anomalies on the show) eight years ago. Now she's back, and it isn't entirely clear what she wants -- well, aside from Nick. At least, maybe. The actress does a really good job depicting someone who has spent the last eight years living with dinosaurs; there's something intensely reptilian about her body language, now. She has a kind of Irina Derevko ambiguously evil thing going on, although Nick is not quite up to Jack Bristow's standards.
Stephen Hart is Nick's completely devoted lab assistant. He is very pretty, and (it turns out) rather promiscuous. Indeed, one might even call him a manwhore. The opportunities for slash and het to do with Stephen are pretty much never-ending, and I think that both he and Helen have high crossover potential. Not only is he suitable for all kinds of pairings, he also is something of a survivalist type -- he's an extremely good shot and always seems happiest when offered the chance to play with guns and other weapons. He once ran over a dinosaur with a truck, which endeared him to me.
Also, he's extremely pretty. See?
I love that first picture -- it's from the official site, and doesn't it just scream "sex"?
Abby Maitland
and Connor Temple
are the cute young people: Abby spends a lot of time running around in her underwear, and Connor is a complete geek. Connor is the character they've done the best with, this season: he starts out as this annoyingly enthusiastic dinosaur nerd, but by the end of the series turns out to be quite a likable young man. Abby was likable from the beginning, although I find the underwear thing off-putting, because I'm such a prude, but she's also become more well-rounded and a lot more emotionally mature as the series has progressed. Abby is a zookeeper, and Connor a grad student. They're both smart, although Connor occasionally does very stupid things.
There are also two representatives of the Home Office, Claudia Brown and James Lester. Claudia is sympathetic and has a big crush on Nick; Lester is sour and extremely funny and is desperate to keep the whole "dinosaurs roaming modern Britain" thing under wraps. I am fond of Lester, because he's surrounded by idealists, all of whom he hates, and he has many of the best lines in the series. For a while I thought Claudia was something of a dull ingenue type, but then she saved the day with her amazing golf skillz (no, really!) and ever since I've decided to like her.
This is Claudia. She looks a bit like a grown-up Hermione Granger to me, but unfortunately is not a supergenius, which is a bit of a shame, because they clearly need one.
This is Lester, looking a little pissed off, as he usually does. But some of us find cranky brooding appealing, what can I say?
The Home Office occasionally brings in a Special Forces unit, headed by Tom Ryan; I don't seem to have a picture of him, but he's another character with a lot of potential.
If I were the shipping type, and granted that I am not much interested in Abby and Connor, I would say that Helen/Nick, Nick/Stephen and Nick/Lester are the obvious ones, but the show is also pushing Nick/Claudia, and frankly I think Helen and Lester have a lot of UST in their scenes together. The show has Stephen, Abby and Connor in a kind of unrequited love triangle thing, but it's fairly low key and has a few interesting twists; I have trouble seeing past Stephen's obvious love for Nick, though. Seriously, I am not making this up.
The first season had six episodes and a really nice arc -- the characters and the plot develop together into something quite satisfying. I think the second episode is the weakest, but after that it's all quite good. The final episode is excellent, and changes the rules of the game in a really interesting way. ITV is apparently planning another series of 7 episodes; I'd like to see more, but suspect from the quality of the CGI that the show is not cheap.
Also, the show has already had its first giant wankfest, this time started not by a fan, but by Russell T. Davies, who claimed that the show was too white. (It is very white, but my bet is that Davies is more concerned that it was a better product than Torchwood, and that he's thinking about how the new season of Who will be received.)
It's really worth watching. There are a few lj communities out there (primeval_itv has icons and fic and screencaps along with news and discussion, whereas primeval_fanfic is pretty much what it says on the tin), but you might want to be wary of spoilers until you've seen the whole thing. But do give it a try -- BH tells me that it's meant to be a bit like Buffy in its appeal, and I think the show pulls that one off rather well.