Primeval 3.7

June 27, 9:00 p.m. on BBC America

An anomaly opens in the middle of a huge junkyard and a dinosaur from the Cretaceous era comes through. The Dracorex is wounded, which only makes it more aggressive. The team is trying to force it back when, suddenly, a medieval knight on horseback gallops through the anomaly, chasing what he thinks is a dragon. The knight decides the modern world must be hell and his only chance to make it to heaven is by slaying the creature—this is his quest. The team finds itself in the unusual position of dealing with, not only a dinosaur on the loose, but a deranged medieval knight who is convinced he is a latter-day St. George.

Photo: Impossible Pictures / BBC America

Shortly after Season Three of the UK series Primeval ended with a cliffhanger, ITV announced that they were canceling the series. Though there was some word play about the kind of dramas ITV wants to produce, it really looks like a case of pure dollars and cents — or pence, as the case may be.

BBC news is reporting that ITV cut more than 600 jobs this year, so it’s easy to see why they’re looking to cut pricey TV shows as well.

Read more

Primeval: 3.5

Air Date: Saturday, June 13, 9:00 pm on BBC America

A transient anomaly opens and, through it, comes a  deadly flesh-eating fungus.  It’s the team’s most unusual and dangerous threat yet.  The incredibly aggressive, fast-growing fungus first invades and kills its human host before reanimating their bodies to seek out new hosts.  Once it “eats” its victims it retains a vaguely human shape, making it both sinister and frighteningly dangerous. When all attempts to destroy the creature fail, the team faces the possibility that it will spread across Britain, absorbing everyone it encounters—becoming bigger and more dangerous as it moves across the country.

Photos: Impossible Pictures / BBC America

Somewhere in Vancouver the stars of Rocky Horror Picture Show, Primeval, Battlestar Galactica, Sanctuary and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are slaving away under the hot lights to bring you a crazy new version of the Alice in Wonderland story.

It’s the latest four-hour mini series event from Sci Fi Channel and it’s sporting quite a cast.

Academy Award winner Kathy Bates (Misery) stars as the Queen of Hearts and Caterina Scorsone (1-800-Missing) plays Alice.

Rounding out the stellar cast are Tim Curry (Rocky Horror Picture Show) as Dodo, Colm Meaney (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) as the King of Hearts, Philip Winchester (Crusoe) as Jack of Hearts, Matt Frewer (Watchmen) as the White Knight, Andrew Lee Potts (Primeval) as Hatter, Alessandro Juliani (Battlestar Galactica) as 9 of Clubs, Timothy Webber (Taken) as Carpenter, Alex Diakun (Sanctuary) as Ratcatcher, Zak Santiago (Kingdom Hospital) as 10 of Clubs, and Eugene Lipinski (Animorphs) as Doctors Dee and Dum.

Using the classic Lewis Carroll books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass as a jumping off point, writer/director Nick Willing has created the modern-day story of Alice Hamilton, a fiercely independent twenty-something who suddenly finds herself on the other side of a looking glass. She is a stranger in an outlandish city of twisted towers and casinos built out of playing cards, all under the rule of a deliciously devilish Queen who’s not very happy about Alice’s arrival.

Willing also directed the record-breaking, Emmy-winning miniseries Tin Man for SCI FI in 2007 so you can bet this one will be quite an event! Watch for in on the newly named SyFy Channel this December.

Photo: Tim Curry from Newscom

Primeval: 3.4

Air Date: Saturday, June 6, 9:00 pm on BBC America

 
The largest anomaly the team has yet encountered registers on the detector. As they race to intercept it, a journalist is also on their trail as he’s stolen one of their handheld detectors. He and his media mogul boss are already on their way. Setting up camp in a huge aircraft hangar where the anomaly has appeared, they have cameras ready to record whatever comes through. Unfortunately for the journalists, it is the gigantic Giganotosaurus, affectionately (or not) known as a G-Rex. A truly terrifying predator, bigger even than the Tyrannosaurus Rex, it smashes the journalists aside before rampaging onto a nearby airport. As the G-Rex plays cat and mouse with a 747 aircraft parked on the runway, its terrified crew are trapped inside. The team also receives assistance from Danny Quinn, who turns up unexpectedly and refuses to leave the scene.

Photo: Impossible Pictures / BBC America

The wide-mouthed comedy tragedy masks have long been a symbol of the theater. They were designed to represent the two sides of the god Dionysus, as well as the two sides of wine – unbridled joy and bottomless despair.

Those masks are the perfect emblem for this past week’s Primeval episode which began with a bit of slapstick comedy and ended in the ultimate tragedy.

Beware! There be spoilers ahead!

We start off this week with threats from three directions. First we have Helen and her army of Cleaner clones. Perched high on a roof top, Helen orders one of them to jump to his death. Though he hesitates for a moment he eventually follows orders showing us how really cold blooded Helen has become. (I like that about her.)

Read more

Primeval: 3.2

Air Date: Saturday, May 23 on BBCAmerica

This week’s Primeval put a scifi spin on an old fashioned haunted house tale. It begins fourteen years ago when three teenage boys went in but only one came out. Fast forward to today and the house is a derelict monstrosity that couldn’t be anything but haunted!

Back at the ARC, Cutter and his new assistant Sarah Page are building a 3-D model of time that marks the initial sightings of a variety of mythical beasts. Through this bit of existential art, they hope to predict where the next anomaly will pop up.

Read more

Primeval: 3.2

Episode two premieres Saturday, May 23, 9:00 p.m. ET/PT

This sounds like it could be my favorite episode to date. It reminds me of a new Outer Limits episode called “If Walls Could Talk.” Very creepy stuff.

Several years back, three teenage boys broke into a supposedly haunted house that came alive when a terrifying creature attacked them. In the aftermath, the only survivor was arrested for murder. Years later, the hapless young man is free, but is still too tormented to confront what really happened. Cutter’s research leads him to predict the next anomaly will open in this same so-called haunted house but soon into the investigation they discover the house is actually home to a terrifying camouflage creature from the future, a beast that can change shape and form to disguise itself until it is practically invisible. The team also find themselves in trouble with the law when suspicious police detective Danny Quinn (Jason Flemyng) takes an instant dislike to them and their interest in the house, culminating in Connor’s arrest.

Photo Credit: Impossible Pictures

Primeval: Episode One—Season Three Premiere

Air Date: May 16 at 9:00 on BBC America

When an exhibition of ancient Egyptian relics comes to London’s British Museum, an anomaly opens in a mysterious monument called the Sun Cage. A creature emerges from it—a Pristichampsus, a kind of monstrous crocodile that can run on two legs. This creature, which comes from a past much more distant than the Egypt of the Pharaohs, somehow became worshipped as a God in that civilization, and is now portrayed in the hieroglyphics on the Sun Cage. The murderous creature wreaks havoc in the museum before escaping into the city. Helped by Sarah Page (Laila Rouass), the smart and surprisingly sexy archaeologist at the museum, Cutter and the team attempt to track it down—but not before Connor begins to believe he’s the victim of the legendary curse attached to the monument. Meantime Cutter is impressed by the museum’s archaeologist and Page is invited to join his team.

Photos courtesy of BBCAmerica

Abby (Hannah Spearitt), Connor (Andrew-Lee Potts), Claudia (Lucy Brown), Nick Cutter (Douglas Henshall), Captain Becker (Ben Mansfield) and Sarah Page (Laila Rouass)

According to a report in Variety, Warner Brothers has spent some serious coin to acquire the big screen rights to the UK series Primeval.

The series, which currently airs on SCI Fi Channel and BBC America, deals with the concept of a time rift which is allowing dinosaurs to come through into modern-day London. On the movie front, Primeval would look a lot like Jurassic Park except that it has the time travel element.

Akiva Goldsman and Kerry Foster will produce through Goldsman’s WB-based Weed Road banner. Word is the setting will be switched to the US and the action will be cranked up quite a bit.

I’m a huge fan of Primeval on TV, so I’m excited by the idea of a major motion picture even though it obviously won’t be featuring the current cast or characters.

Photo: BBC America