Primeval series 1 episode 2 review

Here's what you need to know; Conner gets into trouble after spilling the beans on the Anomalies to his nerd friends, but a more pressing matter arises when a subway worker is attacked by a creature in the Underground, the team investigates, and finds an entirely new threat that has made itself at home in the abandoned tunnels, one that has a stingy trick up its sleeve.

This episode takes a different approach to the first one, swapping the Forest of Dean for the middle of the city, and swapping the open and expansive woods for the dark, tight tunnels of the Underground, this translates to a very different tone to the first episode, while the first went more for a mood of wonder and mystery, this goes in with the effort to make your skin crawl, and it does it's job for the most part. I'll say the creatures in this episode are far more interesting than the ones from the first episode, as is the place they comes from, which you, surprisingly, never actually see in this episode, there's that element of mystery, a world from which giant spiders and centipedes scuttle is surely one to behold. As for the giant bugs, yet again the effects are a bit of a mixed bag, looking better on their own, but the interactions between them and the characters looking surprisingly bad, at times even laughable, by that I mean a soldier swatting a giant spider off his friend's back, and clearly just swinging at thin air where a bug will eventually be added in post. The creatures are also more interesting looking than the Gorgon from the first episode, with their pincers and their scuttling; the Arthropleura in particular is very menacing and cool. The stories on offer here are, however, weaker than the first episode in my opinion, it's cute how Conner has a crush on Abby, and I understand that it's intended to be awkward, but he comes on a little strong in this episode, in some ways it works, it is clearly meant to be cute and awkward, and it is awkward. The side plot with Abby having a crush on Stephen is less cute, and the situation's burnout conclusion really makes it all feel a bit pointless. equally as pointless feeling is the side plot of Conner getting in trouble after going on an anomaly goose-chase, like the Abby crush, it ultimately leads to very little by the end of the episode, other than Conner finding a new respect for security and Cutter finding a new respect for Conner. The main story that brings these loose threads all together though is good, with the anomaly in the Underground and the new security threat posed by an army of giant venomous bugs. And the mystery of Helen is only deepened here, as she makes another ghostly appearance and delivers another cryptic message. The only thing here that I feel was an improvement here was Lester, who, while getting less screen time, gets to flex his sarcastic and cynical muscles again, and that's always cool. And this episode plays more with the relationship between Cutter and Claudia, planting a predictable, but never-the-less interesting seed.

All in all, while this episode definitively has more shortcomings than its predecessor, it makes up for that with an unsettling new setting and creatures, and an interesting story with said creatures running loose in the subway, and while some side plots amount to very little, that central story and the enigmatic side plot of Helen makes this an episode that's just as interesting to watch, definitely worth watching.