TV REVIEW - Primeval Series 5 Episode 2 (Spoiler-free)

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Created by: Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines
Directed by: Robert Quinn
Written by: Steve Bailie
Starring: Ruth Kearney, Ciaran McMenamin, Hannah Spearritt, Andrew-Lee Potts, Ben Miller
Genre: Sci-Fi
Air Date: 31st May 2011 (Watch), 23rd June 2012 (ITV)


In this weeks episode of Primeval, the team went on board a nuclear submarine in order to close an anomaly submerged in the North Sea. While trying to complete their mission, the team pass through the anomaly and are faced with an attack from a swarm of Lipleurodon. On top of this, their is also a rogue Theropod on board that passed through the anomaly and was captured by the crew. Can the team cope with both these dangers and also return home?


This episode took on a real disaster movie look. Scenes showing the team running around the submarine with water squirting out of the walls was very reminiscent of films such as Titanic and Poseidon. Visually the episode was cleverly put together to look like one of these traditional styled films (thumbs up to Quinn).


Unfortunately, this is the only real thing that sets this episode apart from the rest of Primeval. And even the idea of recreating a disaster movie within a sci-fi seems to have been taken from Doctor Who's Voyage of the Damned. Primeval has recieved alot of criticism for ITV trying to recreate the success of Who and playing to the same audience, which it has achieved to an extent. But unlike Who, Primeval is grounded on Earth, and is almost entirely based on modern day, so isn't anywhere near as versatile. Having said this, next week's episode will include elements of Victorian England, which I'm looking forward to.


Overall, the episode maintains it's usual standard of tense moments and light humour, and the dinosaurs as always look great for a TV show, but the show is getting too samey now. Admittedly this episode was paced better than last weeks, but these changes are just mild fluctuations. Maybe we should just let a sleeping Lipleurodon lie?


5/10


You can watch this episode of Primeval on ITV Player here.


What did you make of this weeks episode of Primeval? Let us know in the comments.
Tom :)