Primeval Series 4 Episode 6 Review

Now that I have decided to see this show as one that, as a friend says, demands that it not be taken seriously, I am enjoying it more.  I have to laugh, though - the poor wedding planner gets eaten in the first few minutes and is never even mentioned again?  That is just patently unfair.  She wasn't even wearing a red shirt.

After the prologue we were greeted with another mystery man scene.  If you are a LOST fan you have probably, like me, decided that the terminal mystery man (whom we now know was Matt's father, not a big shocker) is Daniel Faraday's uncle.  The man looks and acts so much like Dan, and I suspect he's a time traveler… but now he's gone, and I must let go and move on.

Speaking of mysterious characters, what the heck is Ethan's story?  As Lester
pointed out, he's from 1901 but can drive a car and seems perfectly at home in 2011.  If he's found he'll be sent to prison in 2011, presumably for kidnapping.  That would be an interesting trial… According to old police records, he was a "notorious anarchist" back in the day, and used to stake out buildings before breaching them.  Through this information Becker is able to find his lair.  Hmmm, really?  Ok, right, stepping back and enjoying it for what it is.  And why not.  It was nicely creepy to have Ethan visit his old home, remembering a voice telling him he had to help his brother, and telling the woman "I'm not that boy!"  Not a bad set up for future scenes.

Just one irritating thing for Connor this week, and it was early on, when he started chatting about Emily.  Unfortunate, too, because that came right after the very nicely creepy "it's stalking us" line by Matt.  Abby got irritated by Connor but turned to him to tell him to be quiet, allowing Connor to save her from the charging dog-like creature.  That move by Connor redeemed the immediately preceding silliness, thank goodness.  The mention of getting married was cute, and Jenny's suggestion that he actually ask Abby to marry him before planning the wedding was equally cute.  Speaking of which…

Jenny!  It was lovely to see her again (though I still wish she were still Claudia), and I hope it didn't throw off too many new viewers.  For we veterans it was nice to see her back, and I believe equally nice that they didn't recruit her back to the ARC and that she was allowed to get married.  There were so many places where they could have put a foot wrong with that storyline, and I'm happy to see that they managed it so nicely.  Other than, of course, having the wedding take place at all when creatures were roaming, and having ARC personnel attend the wedding instead of being appropriately armed and keeping guard against the creatures.  I did love that the women - Abby, Emily, and Jenny - did particularly well against the creatures with the weapons at hand.  Quite nicely done.

Emily's story wasn't very exciting this week, I hope we had some need to know that she was in an arranged marriage.  Primeval is no Downton Abbey.  Talking with Emily, however, did give Matt a chance to tell her that "something is going to happen with the anomalies," very ominous if not terribly shocking.
Jess was slightly less annoying this week.  It was silly for her to bring snacks to Becker, but ok, she has a crush.  She was really quite brave to stay with him and defuse the bomb, and gave Becker and us to see the brave and tenacious side of her character.

Overall a satisfactory episode when viewed from the stop-taking-it-so-seriously-it's-not-LOST vantage point.  I am even quite possibly looking forward to the next episode.

First published by Simply Television on 1/29/11