Ain’t no party like a Primeval party
Primeval, ITV’s new Saturday night blockbuster, is a lot of things, but ground-breaking isn’t one of them. Even so, it’s still enjoyable as long as you don’t take it too seriously. The story is simple enough: The Forest of Dean has become Britain’s answer to Jurassic Park, with prehistoric horrors all over the place and the British government trying to stage a cover-up but making a total hash of it. There’s a shimmering gateway to a Lost World in there as well, and Professor Nick Cutter (Douglas Henshall) pops through it for half an hour, hoping to find his wife, Helen, who was snatched away by a dinosaur several years earlier. Cutter is hampered by having to take an experienced Gulf War veteran and wannabe Rambo with him for protection: probably something to do with the British obsession with Health and Safety precautions.
Meanwhile, smarmy government official James Lester (Ben Miller) tries to be intimidating and merely ends up getting his best suit splattered with green dinosaur droppings; what a come-down — this is panto at its best.
And where would we be without the obligatory nerdy kid, Connor Temple (Andrew-Lee Potts), who’s into aliens, dinosaurs and conspiracies in a big way. Despite his being laughed at in the opening episode, you just know his theories will inevitably be proved 100% correct by the time the series ends.
Poor old Hannah Spearritt, who plays zoologist Abby Maitland, has been hailed by some as the new Billie Piper. Unfortunately, the only way she’ll manage that is if she marries Chris Evans. Spearritt, to be fair, though, isn’t bad. She’s certainly mastered the art of wearing a puzzled frown, presumably by thinking “Well, this has gotta be better than being in S Club 7, hasn’t it?”
Hannah Spearritt also has the misfortune to be well and truly upstaged by Rex, a flying lizard-type creature, called a Coelurosauravus. (Hmm, I think the name Rex is the one we’ll be using.) Rex is bright green and unbelievably cute; and if the makers of Primeval haven’t got a soft toy merchandising deal ready to roll, they’ve missed a great opportunity.
There was one particularly good sequence (almost up to the standard of an episode of Buffy, we thought) where a fierce Gorgonopsid was rampaging through some school corridors. For a moment, it stopped to admire a kid’s painting on the wall: a picture of a dinosaur. Clearly, vanity is this monster’s weakness and will no doubt be its downfall too. Must keep watching to find out; one episode down, five to go…