But there appears to be nothing new here.
It’s never a good sign when you can identify every episode of a new show by the movie they are ripping… er, borrowing from. I miss tivoing the pilot, but since the premise is pretty obvious it wasn’t hard to just start watching.
Episode two was an “homage” to Hitchcock’s The Birds. At least they did have a clever solution to the problem, and the crusty military commander didn’t just order them to start shooting and wipe out an entire dinosaur species. On the personal front there is the wife of the cop’s former boyfriend showing up, and trying to smooze back in. There are teenagers with dating issues, and an “adorable urchin”. *sigh*.
What I don’t understand is why there is _one_ cop for the entire compound? And why do they have cops at all when there are all these military guys with really big guns who seem to be in charge of the compound? There also appears to be no civilian governance of the joint. Okay, I’m thinking about this way too deeply.
Episode Three was Andromeda Strain, and boy were the clues REALLY OBVIOUS. Adorable urchin gets sent home from school with A COLD. Daddy CATCHES THE COLD. Mommy and crazy military commander go check out a remote base that has broken off contact. There is a mysterious virus that destroys your memory and then puts you in a catatonic state. More shenanigans with former boyfriend, and then — Oh Gosh, the cold has made the cop resistant to the virus. Slapping self on forehead. Didn’t see that coming. Oh, wait. Yes, I did.
I have two more episodes to watch. Question is do I want to spare those minutes out of the rest of my life just to see which movies they mine next? Probably not.
And one final plaintive question. If you are trying to save the human race from certain doom why do you go back to a time _before_ a giant asteroid hits the Earth, and makes life very uncomfortable for living things for quite some time? Maybe that was explained in the pilot, but it still seems a short sighted choice. Me, I’d vote for long view ships, and heading out to the stars. I guess space ships aren’t as sexy as dinosaurs.
Bottom line. Primeval gave me cool dinos and more interesting people.
