River Monsters Coming Back!

And though P:NW has still been cancelled, I have some good news, at least: River Monsters is coming back in April 2013 for a fifth season. That is very cool! Admittedly, this show does aim to entertain and humour and enrapture its audience, but there are some scientific elements present in this show as well, unlike, say, Hillbilly Handfishing (not that I have anything against it, mind). I can hardly wait for RM to re-appear.

And speaking of RM, earlier this week JW has aired several of his ‘specials’ – “Killer Weapons”, “Lethal Legends” and “Deadliest Encounters”, to name a few. In each of those special episodes he provides a medley of his encounters with various fish and other creatures, from New Zealand’s longfin eel to the Japanese giant salamander, to name a few. Each of those encounters had some importance for JW, spiritual or experience-wise or something other. This also shows that this show is maturing into something more than more entertainment, which is good. After all, with so many shows being cancelled, it is nice to see that RM keeps going on. I wish it and JW best of luck in the future.

P:NW cancelled - Feb 23

...And so, P:NW was cancelled. 

Wait, what?

My point exactly. After the first season of P:NW was over, SyFy decided to cancel any future seasons of the show without any ado. Ergo, I do have to exclaim – what gives?

Did P:NW has its flaws? Yes. Both the actors and the episode scripts had flaws, but show me a show that doesn’t have them, and like so many of them P:NW had some very good episodes too, besides to the not-so-good ones. So it could not have been poor acting/script writing in the end.

The time slot then, maybe? Yes, 10 o’clock at a weekday night is not very convenient, but neither was it P:NW’s fault, but rather the channel’s for giving it to P:NW. This is no real reason to cancel the show either.

The hiatus in the middle of the season? That is a more likely explanation – it was a relatively large period of time between 17/12/2012 and 22/01/2013 in Canada; when the show was re-started, P:NW did have to start from scratch, basically, but did quickly caught on and recovered itself, so on its own it isn’t a significantly good reason. But then, what is?

I have no idea. I do know, though, that there is an online petition aimed to save P:NW, and people should go and check it out. Here is the address, and good luck:

"Renew Primeval: New World"

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/renew-primeval-new-world/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=system&utm_campaign=Send%2Bto%2BFriend

P:NW "The Sound of Thunder, Pt 2" Feb 19

So, let us talk about “The Sound of Thunder, Part 2”. This episode has introduced new plot developments to the show, so let us talk about them first.

As it was said on P:NW’s Facebook page, the finale’s name was derived from Ray Bradbury’s short story with the same name, where a time traveling hunter, after stepping onto a butterfly, changed the entire history – for the worse. Since then, this idea has been used at least once, in 2005, in a film vaguely based on the same concept, and also in 2007, at the end of the first season of original “Primeval”. This concept states that messing with the past is always bad and should not be used.

Unfortunately, the delivery of this idea by the P:NW somehow fell somewhat short; in fact, the entire conveyance of “The Sound of Thunder Part 2” fell short. Two weeks ago, in “The Inquisition”, the actors took Jon Cooksey’s script and managed to ham it up, especially Sara Canning (Dylan Weir); here, they went the other way, and not just them, but Gillian Horvath and Katherine Collins (the scriptwriters) as well.

Messing with the time, i.e. with the past, is bad and leads to untold or unimaginable problems? Perhaps, but somehow the actual reasons delivered by Evan and Connor were less grandiose and more personal: Connor just wants to get back to his wife (Abby, I hope) and not lose her, Evan just does not want to die and disappear up the Albertosaurus’ gut; project Magnet may be able to save the people killed by the dinosaurs and co. from the pilot episode onwards, but Evan would not be around...

No, I am not saying that Evan should have died – he is the main character of the show, but frankly his line of reasoning was weak, especially since he failed to save a lot of people, starting with his friend Drake in the pilot, ending with Mac in the season finale, and over a dozen people in-between, that is all.

On the other hand, he does kill the Albertosaurus, after it apparently killed his wife and Mac (again) and that changes something in the time line...thus nullifying all of the song and dance that was done to ensure that the dinosaur does go back in time and kills all of the right people. That, in turn, makes all of the episode’s lines about the non-violation of the past seem not even hypocritical, but pointless. (And considering that ever since “The Inquisition” Evan’s team was worried that Hall’s people were going to change the past, this is also dramatically ironic, in a moronic way, though.)

As for the other characters, well, Connor got married. Congratulations. I am sure that he and Abby are going to be even happier together now that they got together at last, but... he knew that Evan and the other Canucks were either messing with the time travel technology or had problems with time anomalies of their own and just went back to England and did nothing? What the f*ck was he thinking – the ARC job is to constraint the time anomalies and ensure that the time anomaly situation doesn’t get out of hand, so to ignore the situation in Canada is nothing short of criminal. Both Connor and Lester should be sacked for letting it get that intense and not contacting either Evan’s team or project Magnet to establish damage control. This is criminal negligence, period, and Connor really should not have been so smug, when he told Ange that it was he, who introduced Evan to this whole thou shall not kill prehistoric animals’ philosophy – he was lucky that Evan is an easily influenced guy.

No, seriously, Evan is. He accepted Connor’s policy about the dinosaurs after one brief talk with him, he accepted Dylan’s Greenpeace-like opinion without an argument, and I honestly do not know why he was able to resist colonel Hall so well. Maybe because the good colonel challenged Evan’s alpha male status? I have no idea...

Speaking of males, Leeds’ character has developed little in this episode: he was shown as a take charge and an intelligent man (maybe that is why Evan had problems with him since the beginning), while Toby is actually alive. Yay for Toby, she really had us worried.

But Mac is dead. Boo. And he had not told Evan about any of his and Toby’s ARC related discoveries or about his conversation with Connor (really bland and pointless, if you ask me). I seriously hope that Toby will fill the blanks for Evan and the others, or this plot thread will a) bite them all in the ass; or b) vanish completely, making the audience wonder why was it so important that Mac worked in the ARC in the original timeline.

As for character development – well, Mac clearly was a tragic hero of this season: nothing, not even Toby, appeared to be going his way ever since Samantha died in “Undone”, just as he was about to take things with her to a new level, plus he already had to help his friends to bury himself. I seriously hope that he will not be forgotten in the next season or so, as captain Ryan, Nick and Stephen had been in the original series, eh?

Toby, incidentally, has changed little in this episode, and neither has Ange. Maybe she has done the right thing, by having Connor and his friend (Kieran, was it?) go back to London via the time anomaly express, but for all that we know, this could have been rendered pointless by Evan killing the dinosaur, so I honestly cannot say that either, she, Leeds, Toby or Dylan have changed much. Dylan, in particular, did little other than demonstrate her field experience and her fiery temper; and also she had saved Leeds from the Albertosaurus – this will probably be important in the next season of P:NW (if there will be one).

So: Evan had his reckoning, Connor became thoroughly OOC, Mac is dead, Toby is not and the other characters have remained as they were. Plus the season ended on an open note. A fitting end for the first season of a show that had plenty of both ups and downs.

P:NW "The Sound of Thunder Pt 1" Feb 12

Last night's episode of P:NW was interesting, but, as far as tension goes, nowhere as intense as last week's "The Inquisition" was. Such is the power a screen writer: the trio who are writing the script for the season's finale are nowhere as hyped-up about Greenpeace as Jon Cooksey was, and as a result the script for "TSOP1" is much more coherent than the last week's episode was.

What has happened in "TSOP1"? A classic hero quest, that's what. King Polydeuces (in canon) sent Perseus for the head of Medusa; Perseus slayed the monster and then returned back home and kicked the king's butt. That's a classic quest, and that is what this episode of P:NW is about, with some variations.

The biggest variation, of course, is the reason behind the quest: Toby got stung. This isn't unlike what has happened in "Primeval" episode 1x02 (2007), when Stephen Hart got bitten by an arthropleura, and captain Ryan, Nick and Connor had to go and capture the giant invertebrate to retrieve some of its venom for the antidote. Even earlier, in "Prehistoric Park" (2006), Nigel Marvin got stung by a Pulmonoscorpius and was just fine, because there were no mammals in the Carboniferous epoch and the scorpions of that time didn't have the right sort of venom to affect mammals, such as humans. In canon, the scorpion in "TSOP1" is supposed to be a Brontoscorpio, an arthropod from an even earlier time period, the Silurian (first shown in "Walking with Monsters" [2005]), only it's not. Rather, it is a scorpion that appeared in "Clash of the Titans", when Medusa's blood was spilled onto the ground - that's the only way this creature could've appeared: it is just as unrealistic as the so-called Jurassic beetles from "Fear of Flying", so there is no real reason for listing its flaws, for it is just one big flaw, period.

Instead, let's talk about character development in "TSOP1". Ange has decided to stay and join colonel Hall's project Magnet as the civilian liaison. The script writers were probably thinking of Claudia Brown (or Christine Johnson?) when they were designing this plot twist, and on screen Ange found herself as Lt. Leeds co-worker, being in charge of a large group of people once again. I must admit that this role suits her very well - she must've been the goddess Ishtar in her previous life. More precisely, think Aphrodite, but with a generous dollop of Hera: Ange isn't afraid of making her hands dirty, even if she rather would not, as her upcoming call to colonel Hall about the 'spaghetti junction' seems to indicate: she isn't happy about this, but she's got to do what she's got to do, period.

As for Lt. Leeds, he really must think fast if he's to talk Ange out of this action. Why's he's to talk her out of this? Because otherwise this will burn any hope of him co-operating and befriending Evan Cross for good. Of course, there's also the question as to why Lt. Leeds would want to befriend Evan Cross in the first place, or even own him loyalty: ever since their first interactions, Evan was curt and unfriendly to Kenneth, clearly not a good friend material. And Lt. Leeds is interested in befriending Team Evan for some reason that goes beyond the time anomaly detection devices, so I would really love to know why.

For Ange, though, there is no choice. She has had it with Evan and his maverick approach to time anomalies and the creatures that come through them, so she's on Team Hall from now on. Considering that P:NW S1 is in the home stretch, this situation is unlikely to change, but P:NW has made plot twists its M.O., so who knows?

Speaking of plot twists and Ange, she is really doing her best to be a good friend to Toby and Mac...well, mostly for Toby. Yes, Ange is fishing for advantage for her new boss, but she also believes that she is doing the right thing, and she wants Toby to do the right thing too. When Mac confronts Ange outside of the hospital room, claiming that Toby is already full of venom, Ange promptly fires back, claiming that she had it with Evan and that he shall not cause another person to die on her watch. The battle lines have already been drawn, and Ange and Mac are staring right across them, while Toby's life hangs in the balance.

That said, Mac, for all of him being an Evan patriot, still hadn't told Evan about his and Toby's discovery about the ARC - the Anomaly Research Center in Britain (a.k.a. the original show). I wonder if this makes P:NW apocrypha - at the end of "Primeval S5", there were dinosaurs and mammoths in London streets, there's no way that Lester's people would have been able to cover it up, even if there wasn't also Burton's "New Dawn" to deal with as well. But that's besides the point.

The point itself is that the members of team Evan are starting to keep secrets from each other, and that's bad. The more secrets there are, the greater is the number of the fractions that a team can break-up into, and team Evan is already down to four, 'cause Leeds is still a member of project Magnet than otherwise.

(As an aside I should add that whoever did Crystal Lowe's/Toby's make-up in this episode did an awesome job, very realistic. Of course, Crystal's own acting had contributed a lot to the realism too.)

Speaking of Evan, he has at last arrived to ship Devan, when he didn't change his past and saved Brooke from getting eaten by the Albertosaurus from the earlier eps - instead he went to save Dylan from getting munched by the mythical scorpion in the land that time forgot. Consequently, he saved her and got the scorpion's venom - pity that that pesky rock slide trapped him on the wrong side of the cave with the scorpion. Not to worry, though: a scorpion's stinger is a part of its abdomen, so by cutting that off Evan did an action that was akin to cutting-out a large part of his own stomach and belly, an action that will result in the death of the victim very quickly.

But what of the character development of Evan and Dylan in general? Compared to the last week's episode there wasn't much of it at all: clearly Evan and Dylan have arrived where they need to be character-wise at the moment, and here they are going to stay. Plot-wise, though, Dylan has to leave Evan to bring back the scorpion's stinger and the venom sack back to the present, before entropy sets-in and all of their time travelling was in vain.

And yet, the season's finale is named fully after the famous story of Ray Bradbury, where a death of a prehistoric butterfly did cause the present to change, quite a bit. Maybe Toby is supposed to die (or maybe just lose her leg) and all of the heroic deeds by Evan and Dylan were pointless. (They had failed to save many people already.) Only next week will tell.

So: serious personality development of Ange, some development of Leeds and the ship of Moby, and a lot of actions. Plus Connor Temple is going to make another guest appearance next week. This is going to be a big one, I'm sure: let's wait and see!

Primeval New World 'The Inquisition' Feb 5

There is an old proverb that says that best is the enemy of the good. Last night's episode of P:NW has shown this very clearly, for the script writer Jon Cooksey apparently had gotten too perfectionist or ambitious and wrote a very peculiar script for the episode, but first - a relatively brief run through the characters, old and new.

Lt. Leeds, of course, was one of the main stars of this episode as he had made his choice fully in favor of Cross. This must signify his new redemption story arc as he tries to make up for what he did in the past (led military teams into the time anomalies and captured creatures for study and dissection). Simple enough. Also, this episode reveals that despite his occasional stutter and Star Trek fanboy mode, Leeds can be as canny and self-controlling as any, such as colonel Hall, the season's chief human villain (it seems). Admittedly, this sight of the good lieutenant has been hinted at, for example in the "Clean-Up on Aisle 3", but now it was revealed fully. It will be interesting to watch further developments of Leeds' character, if the good man is given any more screen time.

Ange, of course, has returned, and she is on colonel Hall's side rather than Evan's. Maybe her running into Lt. Leeds in the hall, as he is being sent back to his cell will give her a change of heart but honestly? The episode's script has made it ambiguous enough for Ange to have equal (50-50) chance both to go back to Evan's team in some new capacity or to make "The Inquisition" her swan song and to leave for good (especially since there are only 2 episodes left till the finale). Guess only next week will show. (That said, Miranda Frigon must've made some sort of a contract regarding her legs: even in "The Inquisition" there was a shot centered on them. Yeesh!)

Toby, sadly, wasn't in this episode - well, she was, but only at the very beginning and end, so let us turn to the other half of the good ship Moby - Mac. He has also returned and apparently "stopped sulking" as Dylan put it, but Dylan has her own issues so let's not underestimate Mac. In "The Inquisition" Mac has become a foil to Dylan, being something of the voice of reason to her emotions so we have to respect and appreciate Evan's firearms expert for that. Other than that Mac's main contribution was to tell Dylan and the audience that everything related to the ARC has been removed from the Internet. Personally, in this day and age, I find this unlikely, but technology aside, I honestly hope that Connor will be able to explain this situation to the Cross Photonics gang when they return: what did happen to the original ARC and is P:NW actually canon or not?

Dylan. Ever since "Breakthrough" she was one of my least favorite characters of P:NW; no offense to Sara Canning, but since when did Dylan became so Greenpeace? Let's not forget that Evan got involved with the time anomalies to protect innocent people such as his late wife from the dinosaurs, not vice versa. Evan's silence on this subject ever since "The Great Escape" (considering that Leggy that terror bird got shot dead during maybe "The Epic Fail" would've been a better title from his point of view as the escapee) is less peculiar: he had already lost several people from his team, even if he wasn't falling in love with Dylan, he cannot afford to alienate her without a good reason. That said, he is still in charge of his team, not Dylan, so either he and Ms. Weir must have a confrontation about their goals and have a good heart-to-heart talk about everything short of the moon, or Evan should resign and make Dylan the full and rightful leader of the team instead.

The second big problem with Dylan is Sara Canning, or more precisely - her acting. In this episode, Sara hammed it up. Certainly, "The Inquisition" was supposed to be a very tense, very dramatic episode, but Sara went at it as if she was a character in an ancient Greek tragedy, like Medea or Antigone, for example. There are various ways to execute this sort of character, and Sara had failed at it almost as badly as Leggy the terror bird did with his escape. I wouldn't say that Sara came across as a third-rate diva in a second-rate TV series, but it could have gone a lot better.

If Dylan has turned into Antigone - all emotion and rightful fury, then the CP team's new nemesis, colonel Hall, is king Creont - all logic and domination and the same unyielding character. His master plan is to raid the past in order to save the humanity's future, a clear nod towards Earth's future in the original series. Evan and the others (primarily Mac and Dylan) see this as good intentions that lead to Hell, but did Evan really sell his company? For if he did, he not only had destroyed his own power base, but also, possibly, betrayed the expectations of many people who were loyal to him - hardly heroic at all.

This brings uns to the main problem that plagued 'The Inquisition' - the episode's script. The actors did their jobs very well, even Sara, who hammed it up somewhat, but the script itself was flawed, and in several ways. Firstly, it's the shifts in Evan and Dylan's characters - too large and drastic for the audience to believe in, as I mentioned above.

Secondly, it's the lack of the actual dinosaurs & co. and the time anomalies in this episode. "Primeval" was all about them, basically, and if P:NW is moving away from them, it is also moving away from being a spin-off of the original and into the realm of independence. If that's the case, some sort of a press release would've been nice, thank you.

Thirdly, it's the multiple flashbacks to the previous episodes - the pilot, "Babes in the Woods", "Truth". Even if the audience is incapable of uploading those episodes from YouTube or wherever, there is still no reason to assume that they have short-term memory of a gnat and are incapable of remembering which episode stared Ange's first meeting with Leeds, which episode had the Ornithomimus, and which episode - the Pachycephalosaurus. The flashbacks were supposed to intensify the drama, I reckon, but instead they just made "The Inquisition's" script fragmented and hard to follow. Combine this with Dylan's/Sara's over-the-top acting, and instead of feeling horrified or sympathetic you begin to feel annoyed and start hoping for the latest dinosaur or other prehistoric animal to come through a time anomaly to break things up.

And there were no dinosaurs or other creatures in "The Inquisition" either. Instead we had several long talks about the sanctity of life and of humanity's place in it. I cannot say that I'm fully surprised by this - P:NW may be a Canadian show, but IP who made it is a British company, and lately England has been very involved with wildlife conservation efforts - just ask Sir David Attenborough. That said, a sci-fi TV series isn't the best place to introduce such topics to the wider audience: another TV series, "Terra Nova", made in the States but based on an idea of a British writer, tried this, and got cancelled after a single season; I honestly hope that P:NW will not.

And there you have it, folks. "The Inquisition", the episode where P:NW appears to be on the verge of transforming from a spin-off into an independent series, where most of the main cast got captured by a villain whose hideout, for all of its high tec, lacked simple security cameras to track Mac and Dylan, and where Jon Cooksey's ambitions to write a very good, very serious episode backfired on him and the audience...at least partly. What will happen next week? Only time will tell.