Primeval: New World 1.01 The New World REVIEW

Primeval: New World 1.01 “The New World” REVIEW

Episode 1.01
Writers: Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Director: Martin Wood

THE ONE WHERE In the series premiere, a new, good-looking team of scientists and animal predator experts discover anomalies, and that dinos are running amok in the Vancouver.

VERDICT Primeval: New World can take us anywhere, anytime – the story can shift between the past, present and future – and with this Canadian spin-off, there’s hope that new life will be breathed into the Primeval franchise. The premise is the same: anomalies are opening, allowing dangerous creatures from the past and future to threaten modern day civilisation and it’s up to a team of geniuses and animal experts to keep the world safe. Only this time the anomalies are in Vancouver, and it’s a little more serious.

In the opening scene, a pterandon hunts the skies of the city, which becomes tragically unfortunate timing for one young thrill-seeking base-jumper. It’s this scene and the next few minutes that follow that really set the tone of the episode: daring, suspenseful, and a little scary. So far this is not a show you would want to sit down and watch with toddlers… unless you want them to have an irrational fear of dinosaurs.

The body count soars throughout the episode, with two cyclists, a homeless guy, and Predator Control Officer getting ripped to shreds and eaten. And the show's not afraid to try to gross out its viewers, with grisly descriptions and gory images of the human leftovers that the dinosaurs didn’t find tasty enough to eat. With all the body bags and yellow tape it does verge on feeling like you’re watching a crime drama, lacking the humour and loveable characters that were found early on in the British series.

There was a familiar face: Connor Temple (Andrew Lee Potts) makes a welcome comedic appearance. Connor’s guest appearance may have just been a christening for the show, but it also helped to form a lot of questions for team leader Evan Cross, and give the show a bit of direction. Hopefully we will see Connor again, and until Evan and Dylan and the other New World characters start really working together as a team to send the creatures to through to their own timeline, it’s still nice to get a little help from an original Primeval cast member.

But the show has just been born, with a new team but in the same universe, which means if you haven’t watched the British series then you probably won’t be too lost trying to figure out what the Fukuisaurus is going on. There’s action, suspense, character drama, blood, comedy, time travel, and dinosaurs! It’s not a bad start.

DID YOU KNOW? National Geographic reports new research that suggests prehistoric predators were covered in feathers, and would therefore appear more bird-like than reptilian. This new way of thinking is used in creating the dinosaurs in the show; the Utahraptors in this episode were noticeably decorated with fluffy feathers down their backside.

TRIVIA The state-of-the art visual effects are thanks to whiz Mark Savela, who was the visual effects supervisor on Stargate Universe.

OH, CANADA! They’re not hiding the fact that it’s a science fiction show filmed in Vancouver. The Pterandon made his nest in Stanley Park.

CSI: PRIMEVAL It’s definitely starting out grim for the team, with the human body count at 7 (including those in Evan’s flashback), with two creature casualties. So far the team doesn’t seem at all concerned about the welfare of the dinosaurs, but could you blame them?

BEST LINE
Connor: “I’m here about the… internet. We had a report that it was… slow.”

Kell Harker

Primeval: New World airs in the UK on Watch, Tuesdays, 9pm.

• Watch our exclusive Primeval: New World interview with the stars