Monster-rosity
Blakeborough
I promise that unless something noteworthy actually happens in Primeval from this week onwards I will try not to write about it again. Mainly because I am genuinely baffled why a series that is so abysmal is getting rave reviews all over the interweb.
Normally,
+ + (in just knickers or otherwise) should equal something that I would thoroughly enjoy, so it is completely without jaded prejudgements about any of its elements that I find Primeval unwatchable. However, I like to be fair, so I watched the second episode of the new series in an attempt to prove myself foolish in my previous misgivings. Unfortunately Primeval so barely holds itself together as a TV show at all, let alone a popular and credible Saturday night series. The acting is dispassionate and wooden at best, and ITV should take note that making your protagonist desperately unlikeable is a mistake.
All this and more complaints before we’d gotten to the spitting sea cucumber which was the prehistoric monster of choice this week. I’d love to take Primeval for what it is, and enjoy the silliness but none of the characters feel real, or the actors particularly bothered, so I’m reduced to finding fault with everything:
1) The anomaly produces radio interference. Better get to work on a machine that can detect such a thing… What? That already exists? A radio? Never heard of it.
2) Woe is me, I’m socially awkward, inept with women and live in a sexless relationship with Hannah Spearritt and her collection of lizards that she substitutes for children. Good thing I look like an underwear model. None of those things seem to matter now.
3) Gasp! Claudia Brown is lost in time. But wait, Jenny Rod-Up-My-Arse is her counterpart in this universe, and now I work with her. Better be as unpleasant as possible. That’ll make her believe my wild stories.
4) People who wear red socks with a blue suit are knobs and deserve to be eaten by Sea Cucumbers. Sound observation ITV.
5) If you write advert breaks into the script the audience can tell, you know.
I probably won’t be watching it next week. Then again, I’m far too intrigued how Thorpe Park is going to work as a location. I foresee the team chasing a dinosaur through ‘X- No Way Out’ then Hannah Spearritt in a white t shirt riding Tidal Wave.
Really should be TV gold, right?
