TV Show Review – Primeval Season 4

Dinosaurs better watch out!

A BBC show about time travel, dinosaurs, future monsters, and fancy technology? Oh and let’s not forget hot British actresses. You had me at dinosaurs really. Primeval is one of those Sci-Fi shows that always seems to fly under the radar, I watched and highly enjoyed the first 3 seasons, which is remarkable considering almost every season they’ve gone through a major casting upheaval and time travel usually gives me a headache. But then I finished season 3 and is so often the case with BBC shows that aren’t Doctor Who I kind of forgot about it for a while. The episode runs on BBC shows are so short and the gap in between seasons or “series” as they call them is so long, I don’t know how anything actually keeps an audience over there.

In England: Dinosaurs + Hot Former Pop Star = More Sci-Fi for us all!

Anyways, I realized that there was series 4 and 5 of Primeval on my Comcastic onDemand service yesterday and managed to plow through 4 episodes before the fiancée got home. Now over all this isn’t the best Sci-Fi show ever conceived of and put on the air, but it always managed to worm its way into my heart, not least of all because I’m very aware that this show probably wouldn’t have made it half way through its first season if it had been on in the states.

So far the first 4 episodes of series 4 have proven to be just as enjoyable as seasons 1 – 3. Monster of the week type missions with little hints to this season’s major plot line which will likely all come together in the finale. The team has undergone another minor cast upheaval including adding Star Trek DS9 alum Alexander Siddig to the cast. Usually we hardly ever see former Star Trek cast members after their series ends, so that was a nice little surprise for my nerd brain.

Hannah Spearritt - Gotta love British Pop stars turned actress in Sci-Fi shows

Hannah Spearritt as Abby managed to survive into the 4th season and return from being stranded in the past along with Andrew Lee Potts as Connor. And YAY! The nerd gets the hot girl! Always gotta appreciate that. There’s nothing like getting stranded in a per-historic horror land to bring two hearts together.

When last we left Connor and Abby at the end of season 3, they had traveled into the past to save the first humans from being killed, thus saving the human race in the future. But then they were trapped there, and stayed trapped for an entire year. It doesn’t really matter how they got back, because the only reason they were left in the past was so that the show could go through a new visual and casting overhaul for season 4. I’m sure they’ll find some way to tie it into the over all mythology of the season, but it hasn’t yet 4 episodes in. All we know is their new team leader, Matt Anderson, is secretly meeting with some old man out in the country and talking about how Abby, Connor, or Captain Becker could be the cause of something. Presumably this is the future disaster that destroys mankind, creates the super predators and causes the anomalies in time to start appearing in the first place. I’m only 4 episodes in, but that seems to be the most logical course of that little plot line. Of course they have access to some form of Future Knowledge, but it’s non-specific enough that they’re left guessing as to who their suspect really is. Great. Have I mentioned that I hate time travel? It always gives me a headache. Let’s just hunt so monsters thrown through time for Queen and Country damn it!

Hot geek girls with a british accent? Yes please!

Also Ruth Kearney as Jess Parker, the team’s new resident button pusher/techno geek girl is just absolutely lovely. She’s simply adorable! My only wish is that there were more pictures of her on the internet. The show has really been showing off her remarkable legs lately, but she doesn’t have much of a web presence. Let’s see if she can actually survive the season though, as really only 3 cast members have stuck around since season 1. This is a show that killed off its main heroic male lead and still survived to tell the tale! That doesn’t happen anywhere but on the BBC in my experience.

Well I’m on the 2nd day of my weekend and aside from some small errands (like going to pick out my wedding ring finally) I’ll probably be spending it watching Primeval and getting my laundry done for the week.

Season 4 holds up compared to the 3 preceding seasons if you were a fan of the show, I say keep watching. If you haven’t watched before but what I’ve described sounds up your alley, then start at the beginning and catch up with us. I don’t recommend using this as a jumping on point, because despite the “monster of the week” episodic nature of most of the episodes, there is an overall serialized story line happening as well that might not make too much sense if you jump in here. I think at least the 1st season is on Netflix streaming, but if not get the DVDs or…use “other methods” that I’ll let you figure out for yourself.