It's Primeval: New World sixth episode in the UK, but with a 'Sound of Thunder' heads into a major two-part finale in its Canadian run...
In this week's UK episode (Ep 1.6) there's trouble in store for the team and you can read our original review HERE. Below is our review for Ep 1.12 which was broadcast in Canada this week. We've kept spoilers to hints and observations but proceed with caution...
Last week's episode was all about laying the groundwork for a major game-changer and while I seem to have been in something of a minority for feeling it a bit mooted, then it's clear to see that the energy reserves have been cranked up to eleven for the start of Primeval: New World's two-part finale.
Clearly the most ambitious episode to date, this is bigger in creative scope and visual canvas than any of the outings to date. We start with Evan and Dylan trying to work out how they are going to keep Project Magnet at a manageable distance and with Toby managing to put togegther a fully-functioning (?) mobile-anomaly reader that Evan recognises from another time and place. There's a chance to test it when a volley-ball game leads to another casualty and the appearance of a creature that Mac helpfully cuts through the latin to simply call 'Giant Scorpion'. However the team's encounter with the creature may have more direct and indirect consequences than they can possibly imagine. With one member seriously hurt, our heroes not knowing who to fully trust any more and a massive discovery on the other side of the Einstein-Rosen Bridge (to the layman: an anomaly or Vancouver's favourite means of travel, a wormhole) the past and the future may all be up for grabs.
If money was saved on the previous outing then it's been used proportionally here, not just on the plethora of prehistoric effects but on the pacing out of the various important elements - human and plot-wise. These effects (subtle and not-so-subtle) are top-notch - still a careful blend of what is seen and inferred but it's easy to forget just how difficult it must be to show an 'anomaly' in a complicated setting like a pipe-strewn factory. Here we get an environment that isn't just generic tunnels but a genuinely creepy and surreal layout and the anomaly looks totally convincing. The pace is spot on as well, building a sense of real peril and increasing those obstacles, threats and different choices as the episode progresses. What lies beyond the portal - and we won't spoil that here - is both an interesting development for the show (and where it could go next week or even, fingers 'evan-crossed', next season) and something of a moral quandry. It's also no spoiler to say we're left with multiple cliffhangers to take us into the first season's final episode.
Perhaps the most over-looked success here is that it's so far impossible to know exactly where that finale will take us. The show, from the start, quickly began to explore its potential better than many anticpated but there are many different directions to go and it's nice to be ina position as a viewer where you're still not sure which ones will be chosen. Characters remain conflicted and even as a fan you're not always sure of motivations and agendas... which is always a receipe for tension and drama.
There are some spoilers out there for what (or who!) we'll be seeing back in the very final episode of the current run (and again, we won't reveal them) but this only adds to the mystery of what the second part of 'Sound of Thunder' will bring next week. I, for one, am on the edge of my Brontoscorpio...
Bravo to all concerned. This is top-notch fun.
9/10
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