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Day eleven, a show that disappointed you. Oh, Primeval. For about six weeks, I loved Primeval; the entire, insanely short length of the first series. It was pretty much everything that I wanted to be watching. A fun gang of university types (three boffins and a student) find holes in time that lead back to various prehistoric ages. Giant prehistoric beasties! Rampaging through the Forest of Dean! Gods, it was wonderful. Giant monsters prowling through school corridors; enthusiastic amateurs thrown into the thick of things; gorgonopsids and pteranodons and dodos and mosasaurs and giant centipedes and basically many things with big teeth. Except the dodos. And the centipedes. And a few other things, but anyway. I loved Primeval, is basically what I'm saying. I liked the characters, too. Okay, so the student (Connor) was irritating, and could have done with a bit of being eaten. But the three boffins were brilliant. We had a good head boffin, called Nick, with a pleasing fondness for ammonites. We had a tough and capable lizardy boffin called Abby. And best of all we had a main assistant boffin called Stephen who, when he wasn't doing things in laboratories, turned out to be brilliant with guns, and spent much of his time chasing giant monsters. Also he was blatantly obviously in love with Nick, but that's by the by.
And then they "reinvented" everything for series two. Nick fell into an alternate universe, in order to rid the show of all the stuff that the producers didn't like (and, as it turned out, everything that I did). No more were the team enthusiastic amateurs. The university was gone, and in its place was a big government department. Political conspiracies abounded, where once had been boffins being pleasingly boffiny. Logic had been thrown out of the window, and in its place was brooding in shadows, and people being blazingly stupid, just in order to get them somewhere where a big monster could create a bit of peril. Central relationships, which helped the stories tell themselves, were all destroyed. Characters need relationships, but every single one of those that existed in series one was now gone, except the twee romance between Abby and Connor. Worst of all, the show didn't even make sense anymore. In series one there were soldiers around, to guard against prehistoric beastie incursions, and to protect the scientific department. In series two there were no soldiers. Presumably good sense gets in the way of big monsters creating a bit of peril. Or possibly the faceless government department had spent so much money building itself a giant glass skyscraper to base itself in, that it didn't have any money left for soldiers. It was stupid. And they ruined Helen, the brilliant evil genius who was busily being Up To Things in the background. That sucked a whole lot too.
British sci-fi has a long tradition of enthusiastic amateurs. Maybe it's an overused trope, but it allows for good characters. Switch to a faceless governmental department, and you've got... well, you've got a faceless governmental department, haven't you. Quirky, original characters give way to cookie cutter types. Also they killed Stephen. Really, really stupidly.
Oh, Primeval. I loved you, I really did. And then I didn't. And I still really regret everything that was lost. For such a brief time it was all so much fun. And then, all of a sudden, nothing.
And then they "reinvented" everything for series two. Nick fell into an alternate universe, in order to rid the show of all the stuff that the producers didn't like (and, as it turned out, everything that I did). No more were the team enthusiastic amateurs. The university was gone, and in its place was a big government department. Political conspiracies abounded, where once had been boffins being pleasingly boffiny. Logic had been thrown out of the window, and in its place was brooding in shadows, and people being blazingly stupid, just in order to get them somewhere where a big monster could create a bit of peril. Central relationships, which helped the stories tell themselves, were all destroyed. Characters need relationships, but every single one of those that existed in series one was now gone, except the twee romance between Abby and Connor. Worst of all, the show didn't even make sense anymore. In series one there were soldiers around, to guard against prehistoric beastie incursions, and to protect the scientific department. In series two there were no soldiers. Presumably good sense gets in the way of big monsters creating a bit of peril. Or possibly the faceless government department had spent so much money building itself a giant glass skyscraper to base itself in, that it didn't have any money left for soldiers. It was stupid. And they ruined Helen, the brilliant evil genius who was busily being Up To Things in the background. That sucked a whole lot too.
British sci-fi has a long tradition of enthusiastic amateurs. Maybe it's an overused trope, but it allows for good characters. Switch to a faceless governmental department, and you've got... well, you've got a faceless governmental department, haven't you. Quirky, original characters give way to cookie cutter types. Also they killed Stephen. Really, really stupidly.
Oh, Primeval. I loved you, I really did. And then I didn't. And I still really regret everything that was lost. For such a brief time it was all so much fun. And then, all of a sudden, nothing.
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