Review

Nick Cutter, just returned through an anomaly, is noticing things have changed. Claudia Brown never existed and there's a whole Anomaly Research Centre full of military types and scientists that didn't exist previously. About the only person who believes his claim that they have somehow changed history is Connor, but that would be a given. On the bright side it's business as usual, though Oliver Leek is a new irritant in Cutter's otherwise brave new world.

At the Castle Cross Shopping Mall an anomaly has opened in the ten pin bowling alley unleashing a family of Velociraptors on the mall security, who naturally are ill equipped to deal with break-ins from the cretaceous. Cutter and team are soon dispatched to deal with the situation and a couple of surprise developments ensure season two gets under way in pretty good fashion. Connor shouldn't be given a gun at the best of times, 87.6 on the FM band distorts when anomalies occur, and the new PR person is a blast from the past. Primeval is back, strap yourself in folks it's going to be a rough ride!

Season two of Primeval kicks off with most people's favourite dinosaur, the velociraptor, starring. But if it was simply about the dinos we wouldn't be as interested in each episode, there's a whole bunch more happening than one might thing. Besides a big slice of comedy we have the changed timeline, the enigmatic anomalies, and Nick Cutter being a stranger is a slightly strange land. Primeval throws on some mystery and in due course a hell of a lot of drama no doubt. ITV have a show to rival Doctor Who, but they are going to need to keep the standard up across the full seven episodes that make up season two.

I was rocking out to the humour in this episode, both the one liners from multiple characters, in a sort of subdued Brit fashion, and the sight gags that had me smiling. Loved the guy on the floor polishing machine, used to not only elicit a smile on your dial but to also push the plot along to the locker room and Connor's tranquiliser gun mishap. While the episode is all about discovering a way to detect anomalies, and Nick's out of time thing, it's not taking itself totally seriously. Good solid writing that added some well placed humour to proceedings.

Once again the team from the Walking With series of prehistoric outings were called upon for the creature effects, CGI for the most part but some animatronics also used to good effect. The Raptors were well realised and given distinct personalities, those are one angry corn feeds, though if I was being honest I would have to say the seams were showing in a few scenes where the CGI was noticeable. Considering this season was produced a scant five years ago that's a bit of a black mark against it, though there was nothing as badly conceived as the dog bolter in Alien 3. Perhaps the issue was with showing the dinos in a modern shopping mall, a lot of background detail worked against fully incorporating the computer images.

The whole Nick Cutter finding things have changed story line would have delighted Sci-Fi fans no doubt, who let's face facts don't have a lot to do on the weekend so argue parallel time universes and the like, but I'm kind of hoping they don't allow this plot point to out stay its usefulness. The cynical amongst you are probably already pointing out the budget has increased after the commercial success of season one ergo more to spend on sets and this was a great way to make that a happening thing. Shame on you, as if ITV would spend more on an episode than they absolutely had to! Anyways Steven points out to Nick that he can't go back in time to try to fix whatever it is that got broken as firstly they don't know what exactly got broken and secondly if they try and fix something then it will quite likely have further repercussions in the future. It's that whole time paradox enigma, so if I was Nick I wouldn't be stepping on any butterflies in the Jurassic. We have covered the plot point, they should leave well enough alone now or they will face their own anomalies, why aren't things changing every time a member of the team goes back into the past?

Season two has started in particularly promising fashion, looks like we might be in for something good

One of the plot points that left me confused was what happened to the body of the cleaner? Warning Will Robertson spoilers ahead and coming at you right now! The dude had his throat slashed by the baby raptor so he wouldn't exactly be running an Olympic marathon so what went down there. Notably the script helpfully points out the issue of the missing body, but since the immediate concern is cretaceous dino rampages it sort of gets shuffled to the background rather than featuring prominently as the action heats up. Please note this isn't a plot hole as such, more a mystery that will no doubt be cleared up in the next few episodes.

Speaking of plot points going forward I noted that frequency 87.6 on the FM band distorts when an anomaly is happening, Nick Cutter takes note of it and tasks Connor with developing something that will give the ARC team a heads up when an anomaly appears. For mine this could be a real cool development, but I guess you are going to need one hell of an antenna, just how far do FM bands extend in the normal course of operation anyways? Once again proving we research things to the nth degree here at Scaryminds I have no friggin idea folks. But I reckon it's going to be decidedly cool regardless.

An excellent episode to get us rocking into season two after the outstandingly good first season. There was a bit of personal tension missing, Abby and Connor, but nevertheless things have started with a bang as the latest anomaly unleashed angry angry Raptors. The tension was ramped up by the viewer never being quite sure where the carnivores were in certain scenes, the animal noises were freaking outstanding, and the topping on this cupcake was the shock behaviour of the male Raptor toward the small one. I got a couple of nods towards Jurassic Park, the first death for example, so on that evidence alone was nodding my head in approval. Primeval is one of the most innovative shows around, if you haven't caught up with it yet then I would advise you to do so immediately. It's one cool show with just the right selection of ingredients.