After last week’s better-than-average adventure down on a nuclear submarine, Primeval ventures out of its comfort zone once again, as Matt finds himself travelling back to Victorian London to track down a loose raptor.
When the team are called to an anomaly in a London tower block, complete with obnoxious art installation, they find a raptor running amok. It should come as no surprise to viewers that once the raptor has been dealt with within barely 5 minutes (when it usually takes them an entire episode!); something else was bound to go wrong. And so it does; quite spectacularly.
After sending the raptor back through the anomaly, the team realise that this was a *different* anomaly – one leading to the Victorian period, where it would appear the raptor has been busy killing people and inadvertently becoming the basis of the Spring-Heeled Jack urban legend. And when Matt goes through to try and stop it, he runs into a familiar face in time-travelling love interest Emily. Will this afford him the opportunity to save her from her date with the insane asylum?
This is the sort of episode that Primeval should be doing far more often, given its premise. A man from the future, chasing a raptor from the past, around Victorian London? Awesome. Scenes like the carriage chase with a raptor on the roof that takes place here must be what people first envisioned when this series first came to fruition. Whether due to budgetary concerns, or simply a lack of ambition, they have rarely been realised. But with last week’s effective submarine larks, and this effective jaunt in the past, the show seems to have finally embraced itself somewhat, and that can only be a good thing.
Emily, it transpires, has been keeping herself busy since being returned to her own time. Kitted out in an identity concealing cloak, and with a few nifty blades up her sleeves, she’s been out hunting the raptor herself, and lending more than a little of herself to the Spring-Heeled Jack legend. Emily should be the most interesting character the show has ever had, given her history in the future and all she must have seen, but that never comes across. It’s probably a combination of performance and script (“I’ve finally got my life back! A normal life!” she says, cloaked, and armed, and hunting a raptor in Victorian back-streets…), but the character has never really come alive, and unfortunately this episode doesn’t really change that, despite the fun of the setting.
Meanwhile, back in the present day, Connor is still plugging away on the New Dawn project at Prospero, while Abby is being pressured into going behind his back and uncovering what it is he’s up to. It’s hard to really empathise with Abby’s moral dilemma, given that the show has never really sold the idea that she and Connor are in love – let alone the fact that the fate of the world could hang in the balance, in which case surely she’d just ask him what he’s up to – but it does at least give Hannah Spearitt something to play other than fret over mistreated creatures and glare at Connor’s childishness.
As good as it is to see Primeval being more adventurous with its plotting, there is always the nagging sense that, well… Doctor Who simply does it better. Perhaps that’s why the writing team were loath to attempt such time-travelling jaunts in the past, but they shouldn’t; they should embrace the possibilities of their show, but making the characters a little more compelling along with it. In fairness, there has been some progress on this front recently, with Matt almost feeling like a real person these days, rather than a plank of MDF with a back-story.
All in all, this is certainly a fun episode, and it’s nice to see Spring Heeled Jack get some screen-love, when normally it’s that other Victorian Jack – the Ripper – who gets all the fun. With Connor and pointless assistant April finally succeeding in their New Dawn project at episode’s conclusion, hopefully this solid run that Primeval is on will continue as events at Prospero move forward next week.
Aired at 8pm on Tuesday 7th June 2011 on Watch and at 6pm on Saturday 30th June 2012 on ITV1.