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“Primeval” had a animal appeal. The series (which sadly
has been cancelled by ITV and which left viewers with a
major unresolved cliff hanger)took the appeal of “Jurassic
Park” mixed it with elements of “Doctor Who” to create a
formidable family friendly but thoughtful series. There
are spoilers below so if you don't want to know what occurs
during the third season I'd suggest moving on to the image
& sound section. ***
During the first two seasons of “Primeval” we were
introduced to scientist Nick Cutter (Douglas Henshall) who
becomes the head of a special team given a difficult task;
discover what has caused a rash of anomalies to rip through
the fabric of time and space allowing creatures from the
past and the future to come into our time. Aided by team
members Connor (Andrew-Lee Potts) , Abby (Hannah Spearritt)
and a new member (Jason Flemyng “The League of Extraordinary
Gentlemen”) the team must prevent Cutter’s wife an anthropologist
Helen (Juliet Aubrey) previously believed to be dead from
altering the past; she has seen the future and has decided
that Earth would be better off without humanity and goes
about altering the past in such a way to try and eliminate
her entire species. The team has a new mission--to prevent
the extinction of humanity. ***
“Primeval” continues to be a well made series and this
set as with the previous one has some top notch writing,
visual effects, acting and direction which makes it seem
like natural for success. Fans of the series can only hope
that Henshall and his collaborators are able to see their
plan to create a theatrical film or series of TV movies
to wrap up the series to fruition. While I wasn’t happy
with some of the major changes in characters (which resulted
in some storyline threads not being followed through on),
I thought that overall the producers did a very good job
of making this intelligent series fun to watch. The only
good news is that if ITV decides by some miracle to change
their mind and bring back the series this is, after all,
science fiction and the eliminationg of characters doesn’t
always mean that we’ve seen their demise. With just enough
thrills and spills to keep kids and adults engaged “Primeval”
deserves better than extinction. ---
Image & Sound:
As with the previous transfer “Primeval” looks good
in its DVD transfer. Details, clarity and colors are rendered
nicely throughout the presentation. We do have occasional
digital artifacts that crop up such as aliasing that has
to do with the limitations of DVD and the amount of data
on each disc. ***
Audio sounds quite good throughout the film with a
nice 5.1 mix that comes to life whenever the creatures pop
up. ---
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