As the action moves to inland waterways, the team meet up with another ‘future’ creature in the form of an evolved shark. Begging, stealing and borrowing from every water-themed horror scenario, the team go through every cliché in the book with things underwater bumping boats and members of the team falling overboard while a evil-looking fin draws ever closer. It’s all been seen before, but hey, it’s all fun and the future shark isn’t too bad, especially when the thing gets gutted. However, all is not what it seems and this sharky monster is really a decoy and diversion for the big bad of the week – which are actually other future creatures called the Mer who are a cross between orcs and, well, Mermaids (or should that be Mermen?).
Whereas last week’s episode was a bit off form, this week’s show really hits its stride with two great action sequences and the finale with the Mer is one of the highlights of the series. Again there are complaints about the CG with the Mer not really having the textures or detailing they should have, but on the whole the entire thing works quite well. Even though there is the occasional groan inducing moment the action on the whole is fun, fast paced and not too badly pulled off at all.
With the upping of the action the season’s arcs and overall story also hots up. We get to see Caroline’s true colours when she locks Rex in a fridge and tries all she can to split up Conner and Abby who are slowly but surely becoming an official item. We also get to see the mysterious guard again who seemingly got ripped to pieces in episode 1. We also get the hint that Leek (who I shall stop referring to as Martin from Green Wing) is actually in cahoots with Helen Cutter who once again makes a small appearance and seems to know a lot more of what is going on than she lets on. These slow reveals, with just enough conspiracy stuff happening each episode, adds a lot more to the overall Primeval universe and makes the show a lot better than it should be..
All in all, this was the best episode this season by far, with both the monstrous and conspiracy threats working nicely and even though the show snaffles cliché after cliché from every show, film and book out there, Primeval is still great Saturday evening telly.
