Primeval: New World continues its UK broadcast and also returns to Canadian screens with its ninth new episode... one that has a 'Breakthrough'...
Primeval: New World continues its broadcast in the UK - see the review of this week's third UK episode HERE...
Meanwhile in Canada, Episode 1.9...
When last we left the world of Primeval: New World the team was in complete disarray and at least two members' futures on the team in doubt. Though there's been a seasonal gap in the Canadian transmissions of the show, this return is very much about cause and effect... the idea that what's past is prologue... or possibly the future depending on how close you want to read in to some of the possibilities.
Time waits for no man - even Evan Cross (Nial Matter) - and he's almost thankful when an amateur vlogger captures what appears to be footage of a triceratops near a Vancouver skatepark - after all, it's an excuse to get himself out from under the pile of paperwork and company-running that were never exactly his forte or interest. Now the team have two tasks - to try and diffuse the growing media interest in the sighting AND to get the herbivore back through an anomaly before it accidentally hurts anyone.
Matters are complicated when it appears that the triceratops has wandered onto the estate of a reclusive innovator named Howard Kanan (Colin Ferguson). Once a promising inventor in the realm of photonics, he's convinced that Evan's success is due to stealing one of Canan's patents out from under him. There's no doubt that Howard is brilliant, but he's locked himself away from everyday interaction, his work now laced as much with regrets as inspiration. At first Evan wants to keep his rival at arm's length, but begins to realise that both men's past and future reflect each other.... could this be the kind of person Evan may end up as if his focus is too much on his dinosaur hunting rather than life as a whole..?
This is a solid return for the show - successfully mixing a 'dinosaur of the week' concept into an episode entitled 'Breakthrough' that really does cement some interesting concepts into the show's mytholgy - laying groundwork as well as being entertaining in its own right. The idea of indirect and longterm 'cause and effect' rings true as almost every character asks some personal questions about what drives them and where they're going. Colin Ferguson's guest-role as Howard reunites him with Eureka star Nial Matter and gives us a character that could have been one-dimensional, but is imbued with a deeper resonance. We've already seen the future impact Evan and his decisions - something that colleague Mac continues to, understandably, dwell upon this episode - but some viewers may also wonder, just how responsible Evan's fateful success was (indirectly or not) for the unfortunate course Howard's life has taken. One of the themes developing on the show is consequences and we're seeing that develop more and more each week.
Primeval: New World may have been perceived as merely a spin-off, but it is now a success in its own right and with it rolling out internationally (already begun in the UK and coming to France and the US later this year), one suspects that the show's firm foundations will help it go from strength-to-strength. There's a real feeling that the show is building towards something and it will be interesting to follow it to see how that steady evolution take place.
9/10
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