Monday 3 January 2011

REVENGE OF THE DROP-OUT

Primeval - Series Four, Episode Two. A woman hears some suspect noise in her home by night and find a small weird looking lizard-like creature. She drops the thing into the toilet and five years later, workmen in an old warehouse must deal with the consequences.

[Spoiler-Free review]

The second of the 13 new episodes of Primeval happily captures the spirit of the first series of the ITV1 sci-fi/adventure show. When it seems that Connor Temple (Andrew-Lee Potts) will not fit within the Anomaly Research Centre as it is now operated, the young man - who spent one year in the Cretaceous with Abby Maitland (Hannah Spearitt), wants to go on from outside the centre with the help of his conspirationist "lone gunman" type friend Duncan (James Bradshaw).

« Oh, Connor. Please stay out of trouble. » (James Lester)

Connor follows Duncan on the trail of trouble in a disused warehouse and ask Abby, now assigned to the ARC's menagerie, for help. The trio and some unwise workmen (« Seriously, you don't want to do that. ») meet an all grown-up version of the creature first found by a woman five years ago and it's back to business for the ARC field team.

Steve Bailie's script is classic but effective, with shades of Primeval's first couple of years. And the return of Duncan (first seen in series one) is a good idea brilliantly handled, thanks to the help of James Bradshaw's performance (« Well, there's hope for us all. ») It looks like a story-arc is developing with Matt (Ciarán McMenamin), his motives and his ties with the mysterious Gideon (Anton Lesser). « It could be anyone of them, » says the man to the ARC team leader. What and who is he talking about and "could" it be the inquisitive Ruth (Jess Kearney)?

Director Mark Everest cleverly takes advantage of the locations and composer Stephen McKeon does a superb job. At this stage we hope that the 7 episodes of "series four" will erase the memory of the preposterous series three.

See also:

http://tattard2.blogspot.com/2011/01/primeval-too.html

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