After last week’s brilliant ‘Next time…’ trailer and a wedding planner’s grizzly fate at the start of this penultimate episode of Series 4, hopes were high that this week’s instalment would deliver the goods, but unfortunately, Primeval fails to live up to expectations once again.
The episode sees Connor, Matt and Abby crash a wedding to deal with an anomaly and a pack of dogs. The fact the wedding is for old Primeval favourite Jenny Lewis (Lucy Brown) is a double edged sword. It’s certainly great seeing Jenny again, chatting with Abby and Connor and getting involved in stopping the creatures, but it also underlines just how disappointing the new characters are. Let’s face it; we’d all prefer a permanent comeback for Jenny over another series of Jess sliding up and down her fancy desk.
The creatures of the week are also slightly below par. As the episode opens, and when Connor is left holed up in a basement, the prehistoric dogs seem like ferocious beasts and certainly give off a sense of danger. However, when they later come into contact with a group of wedding guests, they turn into mere puppies, instead just staring at them. While the show is obviously family orientated and is never going to show people being graphically harmed, it would be nice to occasionally have the threat of danger ramped up a bit more.
The Becker and Jess strand also fails to excite. It’s been obvious for a while that the show’s writers are trying to oh-so-subtly hint at a love blossoming between the pair, but the old cliché of an impending bomb blast (complete with the old “which wire do I cut?” scene) doesn’t help the viewers warm to the idea.
All this dissatisfaction is not to say that the episode doesn’t have its good points. It really is great to see Jenny back (here’s hoping that it’s not just a one-off) and the Ethan mystery continues to bubble along nicely. But it’s the small scenes between Matt and Gideon that are the real highlights. The glimpses of their “home”, Matt’s revelations to Emily, and Matt’s final words of the episode do suggest that there are, hopefully, some great scenes to come as the series reaches its finale.
Airs at 7.20pm on Saturday 29th January 2011 on ITV1.