Primeval: Series Premiere

“In the very first week we were in Black Park near Pinewood, and we were all so excited about starting work. But when we got there it was cold, wet, windy and totally miserable. I just thought this isn’t how it was supposed to be, this wasn’t supposed to be about sitting here and trying to keep my face from shaking.

“And then, on the last night, the wind died, it stopped raining and it wasn’t cold anymore. We had these four massive cherry-pickers with these huge lights on them and the rays made the rain drops glimmer on all the trees. It was just stunning. There was our cameraman sitting on a quad-bike, which was doubling as the Gorgonopsid chasing us through the woods at 30-miles an hour, and that was the day when I thought: here I am, in the woods, pretending to run away from a 30-foot dinosaur… this is absolutely what I signed up for.”

—Douglas Henshall on shooting Primeval

 

This Saturday, August 9, American audiences will be treated to another fantastic series from the BBC.  Like Torchwood and Robin Hood before it, Primeval combines great characters, with cool action sequences and tops it all off with some pretty fancy special effects.

It all revolves around a rip in time that has allowed creatures from the dawn of the earth to roam around shopping malls, schools and the London Underground. Okay, let’s get it out of the way right now, it’s Jurassic Park for television — and as much as I imagine the creators hate that comparison, it does tell the story.

Douglas Henshall stars as Professor Nick Cutter, an evolutionary zoologist who hasn’t gotten over the loss of his wife eight years earlier.  No, she didn’t die.  He lost her, literally, but his discovery of the rift, thanks to wannabe Winchester brother, Connor Temple (Andrew-Lee Potts), leads him to wonder if his wife’s disappearances might be related to the temporal anomaly.

He heads out into the woods to investigate with his fearless assistant Stephen Hart (James Murray) close at hand. Along the way, Cutter, Temple and Hart pick up a junior agent from the “Home Office,” Claudia Brown (Lucy Brown) and Abby Maitland (Hannah Spearritt), a young zoologist with a small dinosaur in tow.

Abby’s lizard pal, Rex,  is one of the most amazing elements of the series.  The creature moves beautifully and it sparkles with personality.  There’s a funny scene where Rex makes it into an elevator and begins bopping his head along to the canned music.  It’s the kind of charm that made E.T. a household name and it kept me hoping the little guy was going to be around for the long haul.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from Rex is the Gorgonopsid. This enormous beast is all CGI but his presence on screen is no less than amazing. The way this huge creature gallops through the hallway of an elementary school is something you usually only see on the big screen.

The first episode of Primeval is packed with information, maybe a little too much. There were too many characters for me to keep track of and too many discoveries made in the space of an hour. Still, you can’t fault them for wanting to keep the action up and they do. There are half a dozen scenes where the creatures chase after the humans and in a variety of settings, from the woods, to a suburban neighborhood to the parking lot of a discount store where shopping carts and cars go flying — one as easily as another!

The scenes set in the Forest of Dean are visually captivating.  There’s something about the colors and the angles and the forest itself that really pulls you in. The real rain and cold temperatures may have been an annoyance to the actors, but they add a somber tone to the piece that really sells it.

Another intriguing element of the series is the rift, an undulating crystal of light in the center of the forest. When Cutter steps through to the other side, we’re treated to a look at the clear and clean landscape that was the Earth before we messed with it. Again, the visuals here are top notch.

As the episode progresses, Cutter and his crew are tasked with finding a way to put everything back where it belongs before anyone else gets eaten, or stomped on (Carnivore or Vegetarian?) Add the complication of a government wanting to keep a lid on the news, a science bureau trying to study the creatures and Cutter emotionally wrapped up in the ghost of his missing wife and you’ve got the makings of a really wild weekly series.

Says series creators Tim Haines and Adrian Hodges, “We passionately believe that the best special effects in the world mean little unless they are coupled to an exciting and compelling human story. Our series is as much or more about the people who come into contact with our creatures as it is about the beasts themselves. This is a story about all kinds of human emotions – grief, love, laughter, fear and courage – and each of our principal characters has a long journey to go on. For us, the drama always comes first and special effects are only a way to tell the story more effectively, not the reason for telling it in the first place.

This series, in essence, asks the questions: What would any of us do in the most extraordinary of circumstances? How would we behave if we met a dinosaur in the supermarket or the school playground? What would happen if humanity was suddenly confronted with its dark and terrifying past? In the face of unimaginable crisis, would we stand together or fall apart?”

Primeval takes the best of the old B giant bug movies and turns them into a clever, dramatic, action series with top-notch special effects.  A Pteranodon with a taste for golfers is something I expect to see on the big screen, but never could I have imagined it as part of a weekly series on BBC America.

Watch Primeval starting this Saturday, August 9 at 9:00.

Note: Although the show is new in the US, the series has been running in the UK for several years and is currently in production on a third season. 

Photo Credit: ITV Plc/Impossible Pictures 2007