There must be some kind of term for un-jumping the shark, but I'm afraid to check TV Tropes.

If you read my commentary (I hesitate to call it a "review") on the third series of Primeval, you'll know I wasn't exactly enthused. But we already owned series 4 and 5 on DVD, so onward we plunged-- hey, at least they'd killed off the villain who rapidly decayed from interesting and enigmatic to maniacal and annoying.

At the end of the first episode of series 4, I turned to my wife and was like, "Actually, that was pretty good." Then at the end of the second episode, I did it again. And then again in the third! I don't know what exactly happened-- production moved to Ireland to save costs, but as far as I can tell, the head writer stayed the same, as did most of the freelance writers and directors. Yet with series 4 came a higher level of seriousness and more of a focus on character that had been lacking from the show, as well as a feeling of reality. It's hard to explain, but the show became suddenly, noticeably better. And not just better than it was in the bizarre series 3, but better than it had ever been. (I know some people out there aren't big series 4/5 fans, but I find that perspective unfathomable.)

On the other hand, the webisodes have this
whole thing about how they aren't going to
wear black uniforms in the field anymore...
and they still do.

The increase of quality was evident even before we began watching series 4 proper-- to bridge the gap between series 3 and 4 (which was eighteen months), there was a series of five "webisodes," each about five minutes long, covering a lot of the changes, as two of series 3's main cast didn't return, and two more team members were got rid of. In my commentary on series 3, I complained that Captain Becker, the Sexy Man of Action character, was so devoid of personality that the writers couldn't even land a joke about how devoid of personality he was... and then in one thirty-second scene in a single webisode he displayed more personality than in all ten episodes of series 3 put together!

The main cast is definitely one of the most prominent areas of improvement, and given that the plots on Primeval were never exactly things of genius, this is a pretty essential area. The two worst characters from series 3 don't come back-- team leader Danny Quinn and historian Sarah Page. Danny was lost in time at the end of series 3, and series 4 keeps him out of the way by reiterating that, but series 4 actually kills Sarah off with a quick line about a mission gone wrong! I didn't particularly love her character, but whoa, harsh!

Cutest moment of series 4: how worried Lester is for these
two.

Connor and Abby were stranded in time at the end of series 3, but series 4 begins with them making it back to the present day and they rejoin the team in short order. I was a little skeptical about them being in a romance at first (during the will-they-won't-they stuff of earlier seasons, I kind of felt like I liked them better as goofy friends), but series 4 and 5 do a good job with the romance, portraying them as both good friends and real lovers, but still finding room for genuine character conflict. Mind you, Connor's ascent into nerd-genius-dom is completed: an undergraduate biology major in series 1, whose main skill was having a really nice historical database, he's now a physics supergenius whose skills are sought by the head of a major tech corporation. There is a really good episode about one of Connor's undergrad buddies from series 1, who's descending into being a conspiracy theory nut in his absence-- it was one of the surprisingly good ones.

Lester annoyed me in the first series, but each series has found a way to make him a little bit better than in the previous-- 4 and 5 get the mix of humour, affection, and pompousness just right for Britain's best bureaucrat.

There's a really good moment in one episode that shows how the writing of series 4 is much more character-based: with one team member stranded in the past, there's a debate about whether to go through the anomaly to rescue him or to lock the anomaly to reduce the danger. Becker thinks a rescue can't be risked-- thinking about the death of Sarah on a similar mission. Abby, fresh from a year-long exile to the past, thinks every chance has to be given for a rescue. Each has their own, perfectly reasonable perspective. It's not a big thing, but it's more sophisticated than previous seasons gave us.

That said, the new characters are great. A new team function is added with Jess, who stays back at the base and co-ordinates while everyone else is out in the field. As a result, she (usually) doesn't play a big role in missions, but she was a fun character. (Weirdly, there's a subplot set up about her, Abby, and Connor all living in the same apartment which never comes up again. As this would be the third Connor-rooms-with-another-team-member subplot in four seasons, maybe this would be for the best.)

First team leader on this show I'd actually trust with my life.

The new team leader is Matt Anderson, who I am relieved to say is not a cop who doesn't play by the rules. He's a refugee from an apocalyptic future who came back in time undercover to prevent that future, but even though that plotline is pretty well done, what impresses about Matt is that he's just a really good leader, much moreso than Cutter or Danny ever were. There's one episode where the team accidentally takes a submarine into prehistory(!), and Matt doesn't really do anything flashy, he just calmly works with the other characters to organize them, keep them on task, and give them the confidence and space to do their jobs. That nice, subtle writing did a lot to warm me up to Matt. Plus, Ciarán McMenamin is just very likeable. He doesn't seem to have done a lot post-Primeval, which is a shame.

(Danny does make a one-episode return. This didn't exactly fill me with cheer, but it does tie off an old dropped plot, and the writers purposefully/deliberately foreground his ridiculousness, as he immediately begins fighting prehistoric creatures with a giant stick named "Molly"! Jenny also returns for one episode, which was a lot more welcome.)

Oh my, Julian!

The other new main cast member is Alexander Siddig of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fame as Philip Burton. Honestly, he feels a little wasted-- it could have been an interesting role, but the character is written pretty flatly, and his agenda is a bit too obvious. Still, I think Siddig's salt-and-pepper look here is probably peak sexiness for him. Ruth Bradley, who played the eighth Doctor's companion Molly O'Sullivan in the Dark Eyes audio dramas also has a recurring role as Lady Emily, a Victorian adventuress, though I felt like they never quite delivered on her potential. (And there's one subplot with her that's just left forgotten.)

If you'd asked me at the end of series 3, I might've suggested on giving up on it all-- or only watching it to delight in the bad television of it all. But I persevered, and series 4 and 5 turned out to be a pretty solid team-based adventure show. If only they'd kept this set-up going! But other than a short-lived Canadian spin-off, that was it for Primeval.

(Series 5 needed more Rex, though.)

Well, if you can't get a tenured professor, why not just hire the next guy to break into your headquarters?

My wife and I must be watching tv unusually briskly, because it's been less than a month since we finished series 2 of Primeval, and we're already done with series 3.

It's just not the same without him
saying "anomalies" in his Scottish accent.

You know how television programmes go off the rails sometimes? Just, like, they totally abandon what kind of sense underpinned them? Series 3 of Primeval is like that. You may recall that it's about a crack team of evolutionary biologists hunting temporally displaced animals. Well, one of those biologists (Steve the Sexy Postdoc) died at the end of series 2. Another one (the professor and team leader) dies in episode 3. This leaves just Connor and Abby as the biology experts on the team-- and Connor, I should point out, has suffered the kind of character drift that takes someone from "knows a lot about dinosaurs and Star Trek" to "knows how to hack things and build incredibly complicated technological devices." I mean, he looks geeky, obviously he can do anything the plot requires.

Do military officers really carry
shells on them at all times?

There's a whole sequence of tumultuous cast changes during the series. At the beginning of series 3, Captain Hilary Becker debuts, replacing Steve the Sexy Postdoc as the Sexy Man of Action. Only I could never even remember his name, so nondescript is his character, and generally just called him "Captain Sexy." They make a joke in episode 10 about how he's obsessed with guns and nothing else-- and the joke doesn't land at all because his characterization doesn't even rise to the level of "obsessed with guns and nothing else," as mostly he just stands there.

Danny Quinn first appears in episode 2 of series 3 as a policeman who doesn't play by the rules-- he then forces his way into the team's adventure in episode 4 and ends up becoming the new team leader. Look, I know Primeval was never a sophisticated television show to begin with, but it's completely impossible for me to take seriously. Like, this guy's only credential is that he's a stereotypical television cop, and you're just like, "sure, this guy's suitable for replacing a professor of evolutionary biology as the head of our crack animal-hunting team." In his second episode, he steals a helicopter and fights a Gigantosaurus rex with it. And he's hired! I can't say I ever really warmed to Danny.

Even if you give her a gun, she's still
just too dang nice.

At the end of series 1, Primeval did something genuinely clever: because of a timeline change, Claudia Brown was erased from history and replaced by a new character, Jenny Lewis, played by the same actress. The characters were intended to contrast, I think: Claudia was a mild-mannered civil servant, warm and supportive, while Jenny was a sparky P.R. specialist focused on glamour and with a disdainful attitude toward the team's scientists. Unfortunately, Lucy Brown is, I suspect, just too dang nice, and it never comes off quite like it should, no matter how many times they dress her up in power heels and pencil skirts. By series 3, they seem to have given up on the Claudia/Jenny differences completely, as Lucy Brown is just basically playing the same nice character she played in series 1. Additionally, her role as the team's interface with the lay world seems to have been completely forgotten-- she's just another character. She leaves in episode 5 in any case: the third main character departure in six episodes, meaning the show is down 50% of its original cast.

Sitting around: the only power of the historian.

There's one more new character this season: episode 1 introduces Sarah Page, an Egyptologist who is brought onto the team to help them identify anomaly openings in the historical record. She promptly spends five episodes staying at the base contributing nothing at all, and only one of the ten episodes makes any use of her historical abilities (an almost decent episode where a medieval knight comes through to the present day). I really don't get the point of her character, as she builds almost no rapport with the other team members until the last couple episodes. It's like the writers added her to the team and then forgot about her. Partially I think this is because of the death of Nick: Nick spends the first two episodes of the series obsessing over this time map he's creating with her help, but it's destroyed when he dies. I feel like something was being set up there that was derailed by the unexpected departure of the actor who plays Nick.

The post-Nick team never really clicked for me, and series 3's background plot is terrible. It partially rehashes series 2's, in that the team is up against a conspiracy led by an evil civil servant, but her goals make no sense, and seemingly significant actions have no consequences. In one episode, she actually takes over the ARC, abusing her authority... at the end of the episode, everyone just takes their old jobs back! Like, she ordered them killed on a flimsy pretext, and everyone laughs it off and goes back to work. Long-running villain Helen Cutter completes her descent into irrelevance as well. Early in series 1 she seemed to be working to some kind of mysterious agenda not necessarily contrary to Our Heroes'; by series 3, she just does random shit that's evil (including building a clone army!?).

My wife pointed out that while series 1 and 2 had a succession of exotic locations, series 3 seems to have a succession of interesting vehicles: we have a racecar episode, a dirtbike episode, a helicopter/airport baggage train episode.

Couldn't get their money's worth out of this cast shot, huh?

I guess what I'm saying here is that the third series was not very good. I mean, how many times does their impregnable top-secret facility get broken into?

It's like I've gone crazy and woken up in a new, darker universe.

I speak, of course, of the way the first series of ITV sci-fi show Primeval comes to an end.

My wife is making me watch this through with her; I think it's payback for subjecting her to seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She has an innate bias toward it, as it's about a crack team of evolutionary biologists, which I guess is not a thing you see on television very much. (She's an evolutionary biologist.) The basic premise is that portals have opened up in contemporary England, linking it to times and places all along Earth's past and future-- and giant extinct animals are coming through, hungry for human flesh. Seriously, every animal across history apparently thinks humans are the best to eat.

I'm not sure I've ever met a postdoc this badass.

I'm not an evolutionary biologist, but as an academic, I still do appreciate that the core team is made up of a professor, his postdoc, an undergraduate, and a zoo attendant (I'd guess she must have a Master's, though no one says that). There are not many tv shows with postdocs in them, so I get a kick out of this, though the show often raises questions for me that it will never answer, like how does a postdoc afford an apartment that nice, and is the government paying for the professor's course release so that he can go hunt dinosaurs, and will the professor's wife have to go up before the university ethics board for having a sexual relationship with the postdoc back when he was a graduate student? I've also hung out with enough research biologists to know they really wouldn't give a shit about saving the life of a single ancient animal / making sure it got back to its own time. They'd want to dissect the thing, or at least study it!

Apparently being able to quote Star Trek II
is all the skill you need to be on a top-
secret government team.

The first series ranges from dumb to silly. Basically every episode is set in a different location, and the whole thrill of the show is seeing an ancient life-form where it doesn't belong. At the point I'm up to we've seen forest/suburbs, the London Underground, underwater, a kitchen, a country club, a zoo, a mall, a skyscraper, an amusement park, underwater (again), a housing estate, and a motorway. Are there enough visually interesting locations in England to sustain three more series? I mean, they squandered the Underground in episode two!

It has a very procedural feel (each episode begins with a random jerk who gets eaten to prove the situation is serious), and the characters are written with all the subtlety of a brick to the head: there's the scientist one (because he's a professor, he knows all sciences, including physics), the attractive male action one, the nerdy one, and the girl one (the show contrives to get her into her pants in most episodes of the first series). There's also the boss one, who I feel like I should like, but mostly he just stands there. At the end of the first series, I wasn't exactly enthused.

Would you give this man tenure?
(I've met worse-dressed professors of
ecology.)

The second series makes a couple interesting move: during Professor Nick Cutter's trip into the past at the end of series one, he accidentally changes history, which is both a really clever way to have a couple status quo changes (I spent the whole first series saying the team should have an SGC-esque base; in the new timeline, they just have one, no moving necessary) and to kill a character off without killing her off. She just never existed, and only Cutter remembers her. (This doesn't really go anywhere in the end.) There's also a conspiracy introduced around the same time, which connects a background threat to each monster-of-the-week, which really works to raise the stakes and make the episodes feel more consequential. I also think the direction gets better-- it feels very lightweight and corny (in a bad way) in series one.

It all falls apart in the finale, though, because the conspiracy turns out to be dumb, the bad guy revealing himself for absolutely no benefit, and his plan not really making any sense. Also Cutter's wife goes from havining-a-possibly-mysterious-yet-interesting-agenda to always-performing-the-most-evil-action-for-no-readily-apparent-reason-but-with-cleavage. The characters are still very simple, though I assume the guy playing the professor said his favorite emotion to play was "haunted" because he spends the whole series freaking out and yelling at people because the timeline change threw him off so much.

But seriously, why isn't there a physicist on the team?