Primeval: New World

After the original Primeval was cancelled for a second time in the UK, Impossible Pictures turned to the international market to keep the show alive. In late 2012 we got Primeval: New World, a North American spin-off of the show that takes the action from London (and Dublin) to the rugged landscape of Vancouver.

I appreciate that New World is a spin-off rather than a complete reboot or remake of the series, though it largely ignores the events of Series 5 of the original show with only a short appearance of Connor and a nod to the ARC to tie the two shows together. As a result it's unclear if New World can be considered part of the same continuity or not.

The first (and only) season is 13 episodes long, making it even longer than Series 3 of the original show. This is not necessarily a good thing as it results in a lot of episodes feeling unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. It takes until episode 5 for the show to get going and until episode 8 for it to start getting good. I can't help but feel that cutting a lot of the earlier episodes would make the show more engaging and help the story flow better, especially when you consider that the first series of the original show managed to achieve far more in only six episodes.

The characters are fine and the actors do a good job playing them but they're not quite as memorable as the characters from the original. The standout characters for me are Mac Rendell who brings some familiarity with his British accent and Becker-like personality, and Lt. Ken Leeds who has some fun comedic moments and constantly tries to convince team leader Evan Cross that he's there to help, to no avail.

The creatures for me were a bit of a disappointment. Unlike the original show which made the effort to use varied and unique creatures in each episode, New World instead opts for using mostly generic dinosaurs. It may just be because of the higher resolution but the CGI creatures also didn't feel as convincing as they did in the original.

Overall Primeval: New World is a fine show and worth watching if you're desperate for more Primeval content but it lacks the heart and story that made the original work. It seemed to be getting somewhere with it's last few episodes and could have improved in subsequent seasons but as the show met the same fate as the original, I guess we'll never know.

It's never worked so far. Try bearing Coupling US remake, Being Human US remake or this Primeval Canada spin-off. They've never been better than originals but for an unknown reason they keep coming. Casting is usually worse (therefore the acting is far worse), character development is poor and special effects -if there are any- are generally cheesier. There might be high expectations when it's a remake or spin-off to meet the original's standards and it's clearly a downside of remakes and spin-offs but it's a goal easier to achieve if you're doing a remake or spin-off of a North American original-North American remake / spin-off (as in Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis) or UK original - UK remake / spin-off (as in Doctor Who). Primeval New World is a bit like watching Stargate Universe after Stargate SG-1 (skipping Stargate Atlantis). I liked Niall Matter in Eureka but here in Primeval New World -even if he tries his best in this poorly-written spin-off- I don't believe he can save the show. I liked Amanda Tapping as an actress in Stargate franchise, Sanctuary and Supernatural, but as a director in Primeval New World, I can't pay her a compliment. All in all, I wouldn't recommend you to waste your time watching this show or other remakes / spin-offs of UK TV series made by North Americans.

The original UK *Primeval* remains to this day one of my favorite guilty pleasures. And while some of the characters in that version left me a bit cold, and I found the ups and downs caused by poor network treatment frustrating, I never tired of the dry humor or complicated and mixed character motivations as they battled anomalies, creatures, and humans determined to use both to achieve greater power. The situations created suspense: You were always wondering how they were going to get out of this week's predicament. In this version, the motives are straightforward, all goodness all the time: Save the modern world from time anomalies and creatures that arrive through them. These creatures often predate humans, and, being out of place, generally cause trouble, including approaching humans an interesting new prey species. The problem I have is that we have not yet (as of July 2013 on the SyFy run of the first season) been given a clear reason as to why these particular characters are doing this; there is very little to motivate them to do this work, and the context does not make the need for them doing it particularly critical nor gripping. There's no scientific researcher like Cutter, driven by pure scientific curiosity about the phenomenon, just a entrepreneur who lost a loved one to an anomaly creature and who finds the experience an adrenaline rush. We have no sense of what he hopes to achieve long-term. There are no hard-core nerds like Connor, no animal lovers like Abby, and apparently no interest in obtaining the tech that enabled the UK team to put anomalies in a holding pattern to prevent more wayward creatures from getting lost in the wrong time (while of course dealing with those that had slipped through before they could be stopped). (Which means there is always at least one character left "guarding" the anomaly. Boring....) And when this team discusses tech, it's in the context of the tech expert providing a nice app for their phone as a done deal, whereas the process of creating tech in the original was suspenseful: Will it work, will it help, how much does it need to be tweaked, etc. Sometimes tech failures contributed to the action.

So every week we're introduced to a new creature that must be returned to its time, and we watch the characters do relatively boring things to figure out how to accomplish this. Civilians are tangentially involved, but with the exception of one episode, rarely do we see their involvement in any depth. (And that episode's civilian was not depicted in a manner that even made us worry about her or collateral damage in general, as we always did in the original, which even included a character who had grown to adulthood by traveling through alternate times after being drawn into an anomaly as a child.) Meanwhile, as the creatures are being tracked, the characters tell us their life stories, which gets very old very quickly. (Seriously, why would we be interested, beyond the basic reason they're involved in the first place? Backstories are for storyboards to guide the actions of a character in the current situation, but it's the current situation where the focus for the audience exists.) For example, in an episode that should've ratcheted the suspense to the rafters, main characters being stalked by raptors similar to the velociraptors of Jurassic Park, we're being bored to death listening to one character talk to two others about their feelings about the death of loved ones. The ultimate capture was so anti-climatic, it was hard to believe they were in any danger to begin with. And there is no "big bad" here, either, a character with a hidden agenda, wanting to use the phenomenon to achieve bigger goals, like the original's Helen Cutter and her first quest to start a prehistoric zoo, and then ultimately end humanity because humanity was destroying the planet. (Granted, her character was a bit of a mess, but at least she kept things interesting, and kept viewers guessing.) While the butterfly effect is alluded to, no one seems particularly interested in either changing history, nor showing concern that others might want to.

Ultimately, even if they want to limit this version to a weekly creature feature, they need to up the action, reduce the chit-chat, and make the process of capturing the creatures suspenseful. If they really want to make this sci-fi in the tradition that the original followed, they need far more depth to the characters and the stories. The UK *Primeval* was not a perfect show by any means, but by comparison to this show, it was imaginative and action-packed. It's as if these showrunners have found a formula and are sticking to it, even if it is boring as hell.

There is potential here. The actors are good, and the characters have the potential to be interesting. Now they need to add more imagination, suspense, and action. i.e., they should ask themselves the question that it was clear the original's creators asked, what would I do if I were in this situation? It is, after all the question that every good sci-fi story wants its audience to ask.

I strongly believe in story/the idea, and I tend to believe that the story is everything. That this is not the case is proved by remakes. I am not in general against remakes, but most remakes do not add to the story, but take things away. Perfect examples are the remakes of Life on Mars and Primeval. Primeval may be overdoing it, but it does not add something more, quite the opposite, the new version has more gore, but no new ideas and the viewer painfully misses the charm, the fun, the soul and heart of the original version. This does not mean that the idea isn't still strong, but the original version is just a lot better. But as with all things: in the end it is a matter of taste and therefore there will be and should be fans for each version. I, personally, e.g., prefer the US-Version of Being Human, which is criticized by many fans of the original. I think the creators of the remake made great casting decisions in this case and the US-version has (still) a lot of soul and fun and charm. This is not (and cannot be) true in the case of Life on Mars - if something is this perfect, why change it? It is not 60 years old and outdated and even the language (and pretty much of the culture) is the same, so why bother and make things worse? So: the new Primeval has nothing on the original, but the idea is still strong and tastes differ, so a well-meant 6.

I felt this was a good North American transfer of an English television series. The appearance of the character Temple from the original series helped the integration into this series for myself.

As spin offs go this one does a good job of following in the originals path but making sure it isn't a copy of it.

If you expect this to be exactly like the original then I am sorry it isn't and its all the better for that. I wouldn't say it is as good as the original Primeval however it is a solid addition to the world.

It's emotional, exciting, and decently acted. Test it out yourself.

GLHF. Hope you enjoy the show.