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.
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