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</script></div>{/googleAds}It's funny to think that TV was once regarded as a limited medium when it came to genre storytelling. With budgets to think of, and talent once thinking a step to the small box was career regression, ‘limitation' seemed to be the first word to pop into everyone's mind when it came to TV. How things have changed...
With the enormous revenue now coming from the home video market, TV no longer relies solely on ratings. The budgets have grown to accommodate the fantastical more and more, the demand - and disposable income - is obviously there, and so we are in no short supply these days. Even the Brits are back. ‘Doctor Who' is back, has its own spin off, and from the one of the brains behind the groundbreaking documentary series ‘Walking With Dinosaurs' a hit series combining prehistory with a fictional modern world is making itself heard around the globe: ‘Primeval'.
Following an evolutionary zoologist, Nick Cutter, and a band of Brits, ‘Primeval' tells the story of portals (flashy lights that rip a hole in space and time) allowing prehistoric creatures to enter the modern world and reek havoc. Cutter and his band are engaged by a shady government official to investigate these ‘anomalies' and send the nasties that come through back to their own time.
The Brits, in case you don't know, are renowned for their making TV seasons rather short, and ‘Primeval' is no exception, with the first (2007) series running a whole 6 episodes and the second (2008) only 7. The package sent to this reviewer oddly is titled Volume 1, when in fact you are getting the entire series (to date at least a 3rd series will hit next year) - having said that, they do fit a remarkable amount of story within these 13 episodes. There are subplots, a challenging amount of techno-babble inherent in every episode, a main thematic spine running through both series, and the talent for squeezing every moment full of layers is impressive.
The special effects are nothing to be sneezed at either. However, there are times when they fall short. To be fair, on the budget and time afforded, it's unlikely that anyone could do any better, but it is not unfair to weigh these attempts against anything else out there vying for your hard-earned clams, and on that comparison ‘Primeval' fails. This is not to say it looks bad at all, but there are moments when this reviewer was taken out of the story by a dodgy effect here and there.
The cast are an eclectic mix of characters, with some, such as the socially awkward student (Andrew Lee Pots) and the sexpot with a brain (former S Club 7 hottie Hannah Spearitt) erring on the side of clichéd. But altogether the cast take a challenging combination of exposition heavy dialogue, and slim moments of character development between heavy plotting, and make it fun to watch.
This series has justifiably earned an increasingly large fan base. For something a little different, fun, and British flavoured, you could do a lot worse than ‘Primeval'. Of all the Brit sci-fi shows out there, it's this reviewer's pick of the bunch.
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DVD Details:
Screen Formats: 1.78:1
Subtitles: English SDH
Language and Sound: English: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Other Features: Color; interactive menus; scene access; The Making of Primeval Season 1; Through the Anomaly: Making of Season 2; audio commentary.
* Commentary
o Feature-length commentary track for a single episode
* Featurettes
o The making of Primeval
o Through the Anomoly by Andrew Lee Potts
Number of Discs: 4 with Keepcase Packaging
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