Last night's episode of P:NW was very, very tragic, on an almost epic scale. This episode's chronologically-displaced creatures were Lycaenopses, the smaller cousins of the Gorgonops from the original series and WWM (2005). The Gorgonops was basically built like a tank, and as such it was powerful enough to fight anything, from a military truck to a future predator. The Lycaenops is a much smaller animal, roughly the size of a large dog, but here it behaved more like a cat, instigating ambushes from higher ground (tree- or rooftops) and then charging at its prey (i.e. people) with powerful, but short bursts of speed.
Scientifically, of course, this is all speculation; in reality Lycaenops was built more like a wolf than a leopard, and probably pursued its prey on the ground, rather than from the trees. As a matter of fact, that is reflected in Dylan's comments, when she compares that yet unidentified gorgonopsid to a coyote or a hyena, neither of which is an arboreal animal. Considering that this version of Lycaenops is arboreal, a hyena-based comparison is incorrect. But when it comes to prehistoric animals, Dylan often makes important-sounding, yet somehow incorrect statements, so it's all for the course.
And as far as we're nitpicking, what's with all the dinosaur statements? Lycaenops, Gorgonops and their relatives were actually mammal-like reptiles, close relatives to the direct ancestors of the mammals, cynodonts. Calling them "dinosaurs" is like calling monkeys parrots or vice versa - it's simply wrong.
That aside, however, "Undone" was a very good, but very tragic episode. Samantha, Mac's girlfriend that was introduced in the episode "Fear of Flying" made her appearance on screen once again, but this was for the last time (not counting the potential flashbacks): the Lycaenops killed her. Curiously, it didn't eat any of the people it killed, so it probably attacked in self-defense, finding itself (and its' mate) trapped in a strange time alongside strange creatures...
But Mac, and probably Dylan, have also killed the gorgonopsids in self-defense, for those creatures clearly weren't compatible with the 21st century Vancouver. Seriously. They have killed at least two people, and scared several more. As many dangerous or rogue (individual) animals they had to be put down, and so they were.
Leaving the CP team with a very bitter aftertaste in their mouths. Firstly, they failed to protect the people they planned to - the innocents, the passer-by. The CP people had tools and technology and by now also experience, but they still failed, and there's blood on their hands - blood of people, and blood of animals. Not a good thing!
Secondly, the CP team was split upon this issue: Mac and Dylan were ready to use lethal force on the Lycaenops, Evan (and probably Toby) were not. The fact that the Lycaenops died contrary to Evan's wishes has raised a question of Evan's capability as field leader and as a team leader too. And that question isn't raised just by Mac (and Dylan?), but by Evan himself: just like Tony Stark (hence the Chinese-related banter at the beginning of the ep), he does not take failure easily and failure so close to home? Doubly hard. And with the next episode only a week away, how will he manage to pull himself together by that time period?
Thirdly, Mac was clearly interested in his relationship with Sam(antha), and her loss took him. How will he deal with it? Will Toby be involved? Will this issue be resolved by the next week? I can't wait to find out!
Finally, who was that woman that Evan went to seek consolation from? It may be Ange, but I'm not sure. In either case, apparently the relationship between Evan and Dylan isn't that intimate yet - and with the new rift, it may be even longer in coming.
So: an interesting new depiction of an interesting new creature, some very tragic new developments for the CP team, and oh yes, Mac (Danny Rahim) appeared shirtless in the shower. Go P:NW!
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
Tuesday, 20 November 2012
Primeval New World 'Angry Birds' - Nov 19
In the last night's episode, the Cross Photonics team had to deal with several marijuana cultivators as well as with a small flock of Titanis (terror birds) that came through a time anomaly.
First, the good. The episode's script was very impressive, the plot alternated between comic and deadly serious almost within a blink of an eye. The marijuana cultivators alternated between comic relief and very real obstacles almost within the same scene - that took some acting skills; but then again, P:NW got good actors, if anything.
And CGI, of course. The Titanis were very life-like, especially the juvenile, and here is a sticky point: the terror birds have appeared in IP productions starting with WWB back in 2001. That said, they were usually acknowledged Phororhacos, yet ever since the original "Primeval" had aired, IP's fans argued about this species.
More specifically, IP never appeared to be particularly interested in the species identity of the terror birds, whether or not we're talking about "Primeval" or "Prehistoric Park" (2006) or etc. Terror birds were terror birds, and that was that. But now, in this episode, we've got Dylan channeling her inner Twilight Sparkle by declaring this bird to be Titanis - based on a fluffy juvenile, as well. Seriously, P:NW isn't a documentary show, after all, so why the bon mot of scientific trivia? (And the meat-eating pteranodon from the pilot ep was bad enough.) Sara Canning (Dylan) should really complain to the script writers about her lines: such scenes rather diminish her character.
Conversely, Dylan's interactions with Evan, with Angelika and the cultivators, other characters, really bring out her character: a strong, caring woman that is trying to rein in Evan's potentially self-destructive obsession with time anomalies and the creatures that come through it. After all, not even Batman could fully pull off being a CEO of Wayne Tech and a masked crime fighter at the same time, and Tony Stark (Iron Man) solved this by becoming affiliated with the US government (even if just through SHIELD), and so has Evan Cross...only with the Canadian government, in the person of Ken Leeds. Considering, that the last shots of the episode had the self-same RCAF man stowing away a Titanis juvenile (whether the same from earlier in the ep or another one - the model looked different) this has potential to backfire.
From Leeds to Angelika. Any ideas why the first shots of her in the ep were upon her legs? Yes, Miranda Frigon has very nice legs, but seriously, her character is a CFO of a flourishing company, why the legs? Is Frigon a leg model or something and angles for some professional PR, I wonder?
That said, Angelika's interaction with Evan in the beginning of the ep was something else: it really did brought out the point that Evan had a company to run and couldn't afford to be a vigilante superhero all the time. Already his involvement with the time anomalies are bringing changes to his company beyond his control, and as Leeds' decision to keep a Titanis indicates, this may bite him in the ass eventually.
Dylan, I should point out, actually agreed with Angelika on this one, so I also cannot help but feel that since Evan rode so roughshod over their mutual objections, at least some of that bad karma that may be coming his way is deserved.
And speaking of coming, the character of Toby (Crystal Lowe) has experienced some major development. Unlike Jess Parker from the original series, who'd been happy to simply work in the labs, Toby is more of a Connor Temple sort of character (what is he up to, anyways, since the pilot?) who can work in the field as well - to Mac's worry. In part, I suspect, that's because the show's producers are Toby/Mac shippers, though I seriously hope that Mac's interaction with his current girlfriend (Susannah or Susan) will be resolved before then: unlike Connor's first girlfriend, who turned out to be sort of evil, Susannah appears to be a rather decent person, a good shot with a tranquilizer gun too. Toby, on the other hand, actually shot one of the marijuana cultivators in the butt, but that was Mac's fault too: all guns tend to have a recoil, something Mac was aware, but Toby (who is a computer expert, not a firearms one) was probably not.
(Speaking of guns and targets, at least one of the terror birds had a minor case of invincibility - it was shot at with a gun and a taser and shrugged of both? IP's terror birds were often tough, but this is ridiculous: sabre-tooth cats like Smilodon very quickly cut them down to size, BTW.)
So. In this episode we had some good acting and CGI, and script, to a lesser extent. All of the characters had their personalities developed further, and there were giant killer ostriches as well. All in all - a good episode.
First, the good. The episode's script was very impressive, the plot alternated between comic and deadly serious almost within a blink of an eye. The marijuana cultivators alternated between comic relief and very real obstacles almost within the same scene - that took some acting skills; but then again, P:NW got good actors, if anything.
And CGI, of course. The Titanis were very life-like, especially the juvenile, and here is a sticky point: the terror birds have appeared in IP productions starting with WWB back in 2001. That said, they were usually acknowledged Phororhacos, yet ever since the original "Primeval" had aired, IP's fans argued about this species.
More specifically, IP never appeared to be particularly interested in the species identity of the terror birds, whether or not we're talking about "Primeval" or "Prehistoric Park" (2006) or etc. Terror birds were terror birds, and that was that. But now, in this episode, we've got Dylan channeling her inner Twilight Sparkle by declaring this bird to be Titanis - based on a fluffy juvenile, as well. Seriously, P:NW isn't a documentary show, after all, so why the bon mot of scientific trivia? (And the meat-eating pteranodon from the pilot ep was bad enough.) Sara Canning (Dylan) should really complain to the script writers about her lines: such scenes rather diminish her character.
Conversely, Dylan's interactions with Evan, with Angelika and the cultivators, other characters, really bring out her character: a strong, caring woman that is trying to rein in Evan's potentially self-destructive obsession with time anomalies and the creatures that come through it. After all, not even Batman could fully pull off being a CEO of Wayne Tech and a masked crime fighter at the same time, and Tony Stark (Iron Man) solved this by becoming affiliated with the US government (even if just through SHIELD), and so has Evan Cross...only with the Canadian government, in the person of Ken Leeds. Considering, that the last shots of the episode had the self-same RCAF man stowing away a Titanis juvenile (whether the same from earlier in the ep or another one - the model looked different) this has potential to backfire.
From Leeds to Angelika. Any ideas why the first shots of her in the ep were upon her legs? Yes, Miranda Frigon has very nice legs, but seriously, her character is a CFO of a flourishing company, why the legs? Is Frigon a leg model or something and angles for some professional PR, I wonder?
That said, Angelika's interaction with Evan in the beginning of the ep was something else: it really did brought out the point that Evan had a company to run and couldn't afford to be a vigilante superhero all the time. Already his involvement with the time anomalies are bringing changes to his company beyond his control, and as Leeds' decision to keep a Titanis indicates, this may bite him in the ass eventually.
Dylan, I should point out, actually agreed with Angelika on this one, so I also cannot help but feel that since Evan rode so roughshod over their mutual objections, at least some of that bad karma that may be coming his way is deserved.
And speaking of coming, the character of Toby (Crystal Lowe) has experienced some major development. Unlike Jess Parker from the original series, who'd been happy to simply work in the labs, Toby is more of a Connor Temple sort of character (what is he up to, anyways, since the pilot?) who can work in the field as well - to Mac's worry. In part, I suspect, that's because the show's producers are Toby/Mac shippers, though I seriously hope that Mac's interaction with his current girlfriend (Susannah or Susan) will be resolved before then: unlike Connor's first girlfriend, who turned out to be sort of evil, Susannah appears to be a rather decent person, a good shot with a tranquilizer gun too. Toby, on the other hand, actually shot one of the marijuana cultivators in the butt, but that was Mac's fault too: all guns tend to have a recoil, something Mac was aware, but Toby (who is a computer expert, not a firearms one) was probably not.
(Speaking of guns and targets, at least one of the terror birds had a minor case of invincibility - it was shot at with a gun and a taser and shrugged of both? IP's terror birds were often tough, but this is ridiculous: sabre-tooth cats like Smilodon very quickly cut them down to size, BTW.)
So. In this episode we had some good acting and CGI, and script, to a lesser extent. All of the characters had their personalities developed further, and there were giant killer ostriches as well. All in all - a good episode.
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
Primeval New World 'Fear of Flying' - Nov 12
Last night's episode of P:NW was great, though I still liked "Sisiutl" better, and here is why.
It all began with the "beetles". When it came to insects, "Primeval" had the following:
- S3 had the "megaopteran", a giant insect from the future that laid its offspring into other creatures like the modern parasitic wasps do, but had supposedly descended from the tiger beetle.
- S5, on the other hand, had a giant burrowing blind insect that ate people and a much smaller species that looked vaguely like the modern rowe beetle, whose queen was larger than an average member of the swarm, and who also ate people.
- Now we have a beetle that lays its eggs into other creatures like the "megaopteran" did, who is blind and lives partially underground, as the giant burrowing insect did, and who lives in swarms and has a bigger than the average member queen as that other future insect did. In other words, this beetle is a mixture of the previous three insects, all of which were from the future, and only one of which was recognized as a beetle, actually.
This is the reason why I have problems with the last night's animal: it is not from the past, whatever the official page says, it is from the future. The Jurassic no longer had high enough oxygen levels to allow insects to reach almost 2.5 m in length as the queen beetle did and so, well, you get it? P:NW may not be a documentary, of course, but it is still realistic and scientifically accurate enough to know that insects of this size belong in the future, not in the past (not counting the Carboniferous, but the beetles didn't exist back then, actually).
Frankly, I don't know why P:NW had to claim that those were Jurassic beetles, when they could've as easily been from the future and their role in being this episode's antagonist wouldn't have changed one bit.
After the beetles come the people, and I got to confess the actors really carried this episode through. The plot itself, I confess, appeared to have suffered from a too-large 'red herring' - the plane. Evan and Dylan spent almost the entire episode 'cannibalizing' it in order to make it fliable again and in the end had to give it up, as the last of the pilots died. Got to admit - the demise of Joe and Caitlynn (the pilots) had been two of the most heart-rendering moments in the episode: the original series tended to rescue people outside of the main cast (for the moment) that went through a time anomaly; P:NW apparently decided to change all that - and I got to admit that that had worked. Whatever else, "Fear of Flying" had been a very tense, dramatic episode and the actual defeat of the characters by the prehistoric vermin made it even more poignant. (And the fact that the time anomaly remained open at the episode's end does not promise anything good, either.)
Speaking of the characters and the cast, this episode also introduced Susan, Mac's new girlfriend and a fellow action junkie. Got to admit, I'm not sure what to think of her. On one hand, judging by the "Primeval" experience, any girlfriends & boyfriends from "aside" usually proved to be evil, but on the other hand that may not be the case here, and she appears to be as competent as Mac is when it comes to hunting chronologically displaced animals and insects. So, I'm holding my judgement on her until the later episodes.
So: insect chimeras that never existed (and couldn't exist), many dramatic and drastic turns and twists of the plot, a major relationship development between Evan and Dylan (Niall and Sara), and we get to see Toby (Crystal) in her bra and knickers at the beginning of the episode. This makes this episode a definite success, as far I as can tell.
It all began with the "beetles". When it came to insects, "Primeval" had the following:
- S3 had the "megaopteran", a giant insect from the future that laid its offspring into other creatures like the modern parasitic wasps do, but had supposedly descended from the tiger beetle.
- S5, on the other hand, had a giant burrowing blind insect that ate people and a much smaller species that looked vaguely like the modern rowe beetle, whose queen was larger than an average member of the swarm, and who also ate people.
- Now we have a beetle that lays its eggs into other creatures like the "megaopteran" did, who is blind and lives partially underground, as the giant burrowing insect did, and who lives in swarms and has a bigger than the average member queen as that other future insect did. In other words, this beetle is a mixture of the previous three insects, all of which were from the future, and only one of which was recognized as a beetle, actually.
This is the reason why I have problems with the last night's animal: it is not from the past, whatever the official page says, it is from the future. The Jurassic no longer had high enough oxygen levels to allow insects to reach almost 2.5 m in length as the queen beetle did and so, well, you get it? P:NW may not be a documentary, of course, but it is still realistic and scientifically accurate enough to know that insects of this size belong in the future, not in the past (not counting the Carboniferous, but the beetles didn't exist back then, actually).
Frankly, I don't know why P:NW had to claim that those were Jurassic beetles, when they could've as easily been from the future and their role in being this episode's antagonist wouldn't have changed one bit.
After the beetles come the people, and I got to confess the actors really carried this episode through. The plot itself, I confess, appeared to have suffered from a too-large 'red herring' - the plane. Evan and Dylan spent almost the entire episode 'cannibalizing' it in order to make it fliable again and in the end had to give it up, as the last of the pilots died. Got to admit - the demise of Joe and Caitlynn (the pilots) had been two of the most heart-rendering moments in the episode: the original series tended to rescue people outside of the main cast (for the moment) that went through a time anomaly; P:NW apparently decided to change all that - and I got to admit that that had worked. Whatever else, "Fear of Flying" had been a very tense, dramatic episode and the actual defeat of the characters by the prehistoric vermin made it even more poignant. (And the fact that the time anomaly remained open at the episode's end does not promise anything good, either.)
Speaking of the characters and the cast, this episode also introduced Susan, Mac's new girlfriend and a fellow action junkie. Got to admit, I'm not sure what to think of her. On one hand, judging by the "Primeval" experience, any girlfriends & boyfriends from "aside" usually proved to be evil, but on the other hand that may not be the case here, and she appears to be as competent as Mac is when it comes to hunting chronologically displaced animals and insects. So, I'm holding my judgement on her until the later episodes.
So: insect chimeras that never existed (and couldn't exist), many dramatic and drastic turns and twists of the plot, a major relationship development between Evan and Dylan (Niall and Sara), and we get to see Toby (Crystal) in her bra and knickers at the beginning of the episode. This makes this episode a definite success, as far I as can tell.
Tuesday, 6 November 2012
Primeval New World 'Sisiutl' - Nov 5
The second episode of P:NW was aired on Space last night. Basically, though it surprises me to admit, this episode was simply great.
To recapitulate. The pilot episode of P:NW was already good: the CGI/technology side of the show was great, as it is always with IP shows, and the actors' acting was up to strength. The only flaw was the script: it was rather disjointed.
Now, however, in "Sisiutl" P:NW scriptwriters have picked up the slack, and the show's script finally caught up with the rest of the show's aspects. This is evident in the following.
Initially, this episode introduces two new conflicts/points of tension in the new TANK team: Evan Cross does not like Lt. Kenneth Leeds from the government's project Magnet, and the latter does his best to accidentally piss him off by his amateurish and nervous demeanor and utter lack of tact when it comes to Evan's personal space. Mark you, Evan and his lack of patience is equally at fault, so this is going to be a situation where both sides will have to compromise/adjust to each other (sooner or later).
The second conflict is only in the opening stage: Angelika "Ange" Finch is not enjoying the new development of Evan's dinosaur obsession and is trying to get Lt. Leeds to do something about it, even though Leeds is downright reluctant to do so, and clearly isn't the kind of "alpha male" that Evan is (by the show's standards). Undoubtedly, Ange has the best of intentions of going behind Evan's back with this, but everyone knows where good intentions lead and sooner or later Ange's meddling will backfire on her, and she and Evan will have to clear the air…eventually.
This brings us to this episode's conflict between Dylan and her Predator Control superior officer. Here the scriptwriters added the conflict between truth and conformity, as Dylan has to decide what matters more: the truth or her job. Naturally, in the end she chooses doing the right thing over keeping her job at Predator Control and helps Evan & co to send the giant snake (Titanoboa) back to the Eocene. Still, her superior had also encountered the reptile, so Dylan may yet keep her job at Predator Control for a while, just because she cannot right quit. (That just won't look right.)
As an off point, I want to bring out that it is interesting (and impressive) that P:NW, unlike the original show, seems okay with introducing "people of color" into the cast. The original UK "Primeval", not unlike the US "Friends", had mainly an all-white cast, but here we get the show's producers introduce a greater variety into the secondary cast, if not the main one.
This brings us to the episode's other conflict: between the oil company (unnamed) and the native locals. The latter are led by officer Davis from "Corner Gas", known in real life as Lorne Cardinal. As a consequence, this veteran of acting (CG ran for 6 seasons and 107 episodes) does a remarkable job as a hotheaded wildlife activist, who does his best to try and bring his nephew Leo into the fold. He fails at that, though Leo and he do make up, once the underwater time anomaly closes and the titular monster goes home.
And, of course, the giant snake deserves a separate mention. It was Earth's biggest snake of all times, and it was a constrictor, just like the python and the anaconda, though it is bigger than any other snake on the planet, reaching a length of 12-15 m long. The cryptozoologists (like Leo in this episode) may claim that such a snake (megaconda) still lives in the waterways of South America, so far there is no credible evidence to back up their claims, so officially Titanoboa is extinct.
(Note: no offense to Leo, but Ogopogo cannot be a Basilosaurus for several reasons that aren't important here, so let's move on.)
Being such a massive monster, the real life Titanoboa probably wasn't as spry on land as the show's version. However, since P:NW isn't a documentary show, this is still within acceptable reasons, especially when compared to the messed-up Pteranodon from the pilot. Also, animal fans should know that constrictor snakes have a second row of teeth on the roof of their upper jaw and they are hooked, so if a Titanoboa bit something like a rubber raft one or more of those teeth would be left behind, to be sure, and they wouldn't be confused for a tooth of a shark or a killer whale, believe it!..
That said, this is something not unlike nitpicking and is a matter of taste (and principle), not unlike those rather annoying (and pointless) wide angle shots of the cast during the presentation of the episode, so that is not relevant. Even with that in mind, "Sisiutl" proved to be a very good episode of P:NW, and I seriously hope that the upcoming episodes of this show will be just as good.
To recapitulate. The pilot episode of P:NW was already good: the CGI/technology side of the show was great, as it is always with IP shows, and the actors' acting was up to strength. The only flaw was the script: it was rather disjointed.
Now, however, in "Sisiutl" P:NW scriptwriters have picked up the slack, and the show's script finally caught up with the rest of the show's aspects. This is evident in the following.
Initially, this episode introduces two new conflicts/points of tension in the new TANK team: Evan Cross does not like Lt. Kenneth Leeds from the government's project Magnet, and the latter does his best to accidentally piss him off by his amateurish and nervous demeanor and utter lack of tact when it comes to Evan's personal space. Mark you, Evan and his lack of patience is equally at fault, so this is going to be a situation where both sides will have to compromise/adjust to each other (sooner or later).
The second conflict is only in the opening stage: Angelika "Ange" Finch is not enjoying the new development of Evan's dinosaur obsession and is trying to get Lt. Leeds to do something about it, even though Leeds is downright reluctant to do so, and clearly isn't the kind of "alpha male" that Evan is (by the show's standards). Undoubtedly, Ange has the best of intentions of going behind Evan's back with this, but everyone knows where good intentions lead and sooner or later Ange's meddling will backfire on her, and she and Evan will have to clear the air…eventually.
This brings us to this episode's conflict between Dylan and her Predator Control superior officer. Here the scriptwriters added the conflict between truth and conformity, as Dylan has to decide what matters more: the truth or her job. Naturally, in the end she chooses doing the right thing over keeping her job at Predator Control and helps Evan & co to send the giant snake (Titanoboa) back to the Eocene. Still, her superior had also encountered the reptile, so Dylan may yet keep her job at Predator Control for a while, just because she cannot right quit. (That just won't look right.)
As an off point, I want to bring out that it is interesting (and impressive) that P:NW, unlike the original show, seems okay with introducing "people of color" into the cast. The original UK "Primeval", not unlike the US "Friends", had mainly an all-white cast, but here we get the show's producers introduce a greater variety into the secondary cast, if not the main one.
This brings us to the episode's other conflict: between the oil company (unnamed) and the native locals. The latter are led by officer Davis from "Corner Gas", known in real life as Lorne Cardinal. As a consequence, this veteran of acting (CG ran for 6 seasons and 107 episodes) does a remarkable job as a hotheaded wildlife activist, who does his best to try and bring his nephew Leo into the fold. He fails at that, though Leo and he do make up, once the underwater time anomaly closes and the titular monster goes home.
And, of course, the giant snake deserves a separate mention. It was Earth's biggest snake of all times, and it was a constrictor, just like the python and the anaconda, though it is bigger than any other snake on the planet, reaching a length of 12-15 m long. The cryptozoologists (like Leo in this episode) may claim that such a snake (megaconda) still lives in the waterways of South America, so far there is no credible evidence to back up their claims, so officially Titanoboa is extinct.
(Note: no offense to Leo, but Ogopogo cannot be a Basilosaurus for several reasons that aren't important here, so let's move on.)
Being such a massive monster, the real life Titanoboa probably wasn't as spry on land as the show's version. However, since P:NW isn't a documentary show, this is still within acceptable reasons, especially when compared to the messed-up Pteranodon from the pilot. Also, animal fans should know that constrictor snakes have a second row of teeth on the roof of their upper jaw and they are hooked, so if a Titanoboa bit something like a rubber raft one or more of those teeth would be left behind, to be sure, and they wouldn't be confused for a tooth of a shark or a killer whale, believe it!..
That said, this is something not unlike nitpicking and is a matter of taste (and principle), not unlike those rather annoying (and pointless) wide angle shots of the cast during the presentation of the episode, so that is not relevant. Even with that in mind, "Sisiutl" proved to be a very good episode of P:NW, and I seriously hope that the upcoming episodes of this show will be just as good.
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