1.5 Undone But it’s not long before the creature does appear, a small canine-like Lycaenops, a dog-sized descendent of the Gorgonopsid, the very first creature to appear in the original Primeval. It’s not long before, in horror tradition, the naïve blonde girl is running across campus, chased by the foe, activating panic points but not actually answering them to get security over, instead deciding to half-heartedly whimper for help as she locks herself in a bike storage facility before the creature tries to make an attack for her but fails. After a strong episode four, the writing appears on the surface to be taking a down-turn with a slightly clichéd set-up but this is an episode worth sticking with for what comes later. But if you watch it as a tongue-in-cheek horror film university cliché set-up there’s much to enjoy. Back in the centre and Toby offers us more insight into the workings of the anomaly detector and how it reads cell phones, but also suffers delays due to a lack of server capacity, detail that was never really delved into in the UK original. It adds more plausibility into their set-up, which mirrors the feeling of UK series one with their use of the Home Office as a make-shift office and containment facility as opposed to the purpose-built ARC, adding a sense of rawness to the action. Naturally, the plot device of the delay in crunching the data almost immediately comes into relevance as the machine finds an anomaly that opened thirty-four minutes previously on the University campus but has since closed and it’s off to the site for the team. We get the first great bit of interaction with the creature as it goes for Evan in a very realistically done jump-and-punch-away by the team’s leader. Mac’s alert to him may be a bit awkward but we do get more realistic dialogue from a group investigating a killer canine and the creature’s reaction to being Tasered is equally as believable. Undone is not as big on the CGI as, say, the last episode – though there is plenty of it – but what is there is exceptionally well done. With nowhere to put the creature now the anomaly has closed it’s taken back to Cross Photonics to be temporarily stored there until a solution can be found, taken via the CGI-saving rolled up carpet trick and then in a van brought by the eager-to-please Sam, who is keen to find a place onto the team. Mac finds himself, in the series first gross-out joke, covered in animal urine but it’s not just a cheap laugh as we will find out later. With the Lycaenops now tranquilised and stored in the back of a van in a loading bay – surely there would be a safer location? – Evan makes the decision to have it guarded by the two nightwatchman, Sam and other guard Bill who while away the night playing poker games whilst Toby tries to solve the delays in the detector. With the team split between the campus and base, and with the anomaly briefly re-opening again to spit out a second creature, a slightly clichéd episode redeems itself in one tense, well-constructed scene. The captured animal, it seems, has a faster-than-expected metabolism and thus the tranquiliser doesn’t have the long-term effect on it Dylan hoped and it’s soon up and about. Whilst Sam is on the phone to a fawning Mac, Bill is approaching the van to investigate what is making the noise in a great don’t-open-it moment whilst Sam runs Baywatch style down an increasing number of corridors to get back to him. But it’s too late and in the most visually strong death scene in the series so far – and much more than we ever saw in the original series – we see the creature killing Bill. But then we get an even more surprising twist. In a series that, unlike its competitor counterpart Doctor Who, Primeval has never been afraid to kill off cast members big and small and we see, in another tense moment, Sam fail to Taser the creature and has to run away but the safety of a called lift eludes her and the creatures pounces and kills her. Now, this certainly took me by surprise as Sam seems to have been set-up to have a longer story arc than this and her death at the hands of the creature comes out of the blue and is a well-done twist and redeems the more expected early elements of the show. We now get another well constructed horror scene of chasing the creature around the building – a spin on the monster loose in their “safe” base that was employed several times in the UK original – with technology playing its part in the use of CCTV on tablet PCs. During this scene no one feels safe with Toby at one point in the line of fire and there is a fear that anyone could be killed off at any moment, but instead it’s Mac – after a shower-scene to give the viewers a little bit of eye-candy to enjoy and a neat slow-motion section that shows off the CGI – who shoots dead the creature, leading to an unexpected element of pathos from the episode as the second creature discovers the dead body of its mate and tries to coax it back to life in a touching scene that parallels Mac’s reaction to Sam’s body and, amazingly, helps us feel something for the creatures. That is until Mac shoots that dead too. The episode does go a little Home and Away at the end with a montage of shots of the team dealing with the events to a heart-tugging indie-ballad soundtrack, though admittedly a very touching song: it may be a little cheesy but it works, showing especially how much impact the events had on leader Evan who seeks solace in the arms of Angelika while Mac comes to terms to the death of Sam and the episode fades out as the team reflect on what’s happened. The death of Sam in the episode certainly comes out of the blue and lifts this episode up and though it curtails the plot arc of a character only appearing twice, it shows that no one is safe and we had enough of a connection with her for this to make an impact. Adult-wise the series continues to step-up with much more death seen on screen and dealt with realistically and it was actually quite a mature episode once you got past the clichéd first ten minutes, with how the incidents affect Evan and Mac. PNW is also not afraid to mention how the deaths need to be covered up and what to do with the creatures so they do cover those bases. Read Philip’s review of the previous episode, Angry Birds, here. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here
