Primeval (series 3)

The third series of the British science fiction programme '' Primeval'' began on 28 March 2009 and concluded on 6 June 2009 after airing ten episodes. ''Primeval'' follows a team of scientists tasked with investigating the appearance of temporal anomalies across the United Kingdom through which prehistoric and futuristic creatures enter the present. The third series featured dramatic changes to the main cast, seeing the departure of lead actors Douglas Henshall, Lucy Brown and Juliet Aubrey and the introduction of several new lead characters, played by Jason Flemyng, Laila Rouass and Ben Mansfield.

During the production of the third series, the production team saw it as the most ambitious series of ''Primeval'' yet, owing to its greater length (the first and second series being six and seven episodes, respectively), its changes and surprises, and its more concentrated effort to have the featured creatures to be unique from what had been shown before and to serve story functions. The departure of Douglas Henshall, who played the main character Nick Cutter, forced extensive revisions to the intended storyline which left several plot threads ultimately unresolved. The visual effects of the third series were improved over the two preceding series owing to new techniques and technologies, as well as the effects team being granted more production time.

During its initial broadcast, the third series was accompanied with extensive online integration, including the online game ''Primeval Evolved'' wherein players could become active participants in the storyline. The series was watched by an average of around five million viewers, down from the over six million of the previous series but still considered a success. Critical reception of the third series was highly positive, with critics praising its more extensive characterisation, that the actions of characters had repercussions, and its greater focus on tension and suspense. Several reviewers considered the third series to be the strongest of ''Primeval'' yet and some favourably compared it to the Jon Pertwee era of ''Doctor Who'' (1970–1974) on the basis of the suspenseful storylines and new team dynamic. Despite its success, ''Primeval'' was cancelled shortly after the broadcast of the third series for financial reasons, though it would ultimately be revived a few months later with a fourth series being broadcast in 2011.

Episodes

Cast

Main cast

Guest cast

Appearing in more than one episode

Single-episode appearances

Production

Development and writing

The storyline of the third series of ''Primeval'' was deeply influenced by the decision of the lead actor Douglas Henshall to leave the show. Though Henshall felt that the first series was exciting, he felt that ''Primeval'' had become more standard and a "little simplified in its ambitions" in the second series and "more of a monster-of-the-week type thing". Series co-creator Adrian Hodges had intended for Nick Cutter to have had an arc stretching throughout the third series, terminating in the final episode leaving Nick Cutter stranded in the past with his wife. Henshall's early departure from the third series meant that Cutter's intended arc and the end of his storyline in the series 3 finale had to be nearly entirely scrapped and rewritten. Though Hodges was disappointed that Henshall left the series, he also saw it as an interesting opportunity; Cutter's death in the third episode was never intended to be written but Hodges was still very proud of the episode. Nick Cutter's death was envisioned as an alternate fitting end to his and Helen Cutter's arcs and as something unexpected yet realistic and credible.

The departure of Henshall also impacted other plotlines. The third series would also have more deeply explored who Jenny Lewis was and how she had replaced Claudia Brown. It was intended to reveal that Jenny Lewis was Claudia Brown, just "evolved in a different way", and that this had happened to several people across the world. Furthermore, small timeline alterations would have slightly altered the course of evolution, causing several prehistoric animals to develop slightly differently. The storyline would have seen Cutter realise the small differences and go to change things back. Though Hodges was happy with the idea and Brown was also receptive, Henshall's departure meant that it was impossible to realise. The Claudia Brown/Jenny Lewis plotline was never fully resolved in ''Primeval''.

Henshall was replaced as lead actor by Jason Flemyng, who played the new character Danny Quinn. The production team wished to replace Nick Cutter with a leading man who was very different; whereas Nick Cutter was an academic and driven loner who only thawed somewhat in the company of his team, Danny Quinn was a policeman with little to no expertise on prehistoric animals but a natural leader and good at making decisions and seeing the big picture. According to Hodges, whereas Henshall had "patented a kind of passionate intensity", Flemyng was "naturally very warm and outgoing", which they wanted to reflect in his character. Hodges also stated that whereas Cutter was more of a "stern patriarch", Quinn was a "firm but fair big brother".

The third series is ten episodes long, greater than both the first (six episodes) and second (seven episodes) series. The greater length was used to go off in more different directions, including playing into the idea that some mythological creatures could be the result of prehistoric animals stepping through anomalies. The choice to do ten episodes also meant that it was possible to not go through as much material as quickly as in previous series and that it was possible to create two- or three-episode stories rather than central stories throughout the series or self-contained episodes. At the time of production, Hodges considered the third series to be the most ambitious series of ''Primeval'' yet, particularly on account of its changes and surprises.

Further new characters were introduced in the third series, partly since an altered team balance was believed to be able to help keep the series refreshing. Sarah Page, played by Laila Rouass, was brought into the third series mainly as a replacement of Stephen Hart (played by James Murray in the first and second series). Page's line of work as an egyptologist was written to fit in with the theme of prehistoric creatures inspiring mythologies. Another new protagonist was the military figure Captain Hilary Becker (played by Ben Mansfield). ''Primeval'' had a key military figure in the first series, Tom Ryan (played by Mark Wakeling), put lacked one in the second series due to the producers not wanting to replace Wakeling instantly and due to a wish to see if the series could work without too much military intervention. As the series went on, the production team felt that a lack up back-up made no sense in the context of the programme, especially considering that the main team was a quasi-government organisation. The third series also introduced Christine Johnson (played by Belinda Stewart-Wilson) as the head of a rival government department to the one run by James Lester (played by Ben Miller, Steward-Wilson's husband at the time); the idea of the character was that there is rivalry between different government departments in the real world and that the production team wanted to see Lester in new and different situations where he would not be as sure of himself as in previous series.

Creatures

The choice of which creatures to portray in ''Primeval'' was made during the pre-production phase of each series. By the third series, finding creatures that were sufficiently unique and different from what had previously been used in the programme was beginning to present a problem. For the third series there was also a more concentrated effort to make the creatures have a story function and a function for the relationships to and between the characters.''Genesis of a Creature'' (featurette on the ''Primeval'' series 3 DVD) As a result, the third series saw a mixture of more novel creatures. Herbivores were rarely used in earlier series due to not presenting as many opportunities of being dangerous to the characters but the ninth episode featured a herd of ''Embolotherium'', not particularly dangerous animals in of themselves but presenting a danger due to their large size and moving around in a herd. The fourth episode featured ''Giganotosaurus'', one of the largest creatures to ever feature in ''Primeval'', and the fifth episode introduced a species of future fungus different from anything that had previously appeared in the series. Another new addition was the "Camouflage Beast", a future creature capable of blending into any surface, which appears in the haunted house-horror inspired second episode.

In 2008, the producers launched a competition for fans of the show to design their own creature for ''Primeval''. The competition ran from 30 January to 7 April and the winning entry was the "Megopteran", a future carnivorous giant insect designed by then sixteen-year-old Carim Nahaboo. Nahaboo's design was picked from the over 5000 submitted entries by the executive producer Tim Haines and other members of the production team. Nahaboo mainly based his design on a mantis. The design was altered only slightly for ''Primeval'', being given greater wings and shorter, stabbing forelimbs. Nahaboo was happy with the final design, liking the altered limbs and noting that it was still very much the same creature. The Megopterans first appeared in the eighth episode of the third series and also reappeared in the tenth episode. Nahaboo was given a tour of both the Framestore office (Framestore being the company responsible for the visual effects of the series) and the set during the filming of the eighth episode, and met with directors, producers, artists and the actors.

Visual effects

Framestore began working on effects for the third series in April 2008, with a pre-production period a month longer than during previous series Though ''Primeval'' only ever had a fraction of the budget of theatrical films with similar scopes, Framestore were for the third series able to make use of techniques learnt and resources gathered during the work of some employees on bigger budget theatrical film projects. The process of creating the effects for the third series was also more streamlined, owing to experience gained from the work on the first and second series, and the Framestore effects team had greater input in the series, being involved very early in the scripting stage and as a consequence were able to offer advice on what was achievable and what was not. A new method for creating the creature models was used during the production of the third series; instead of making physical models which were then scanned in, the team tried out a method in which the concept work for the creatures was done in-house at Framestore. This creative process not only intended to speed up the process but also circumvent previous issues when some models at times had been impossible to animate convincingly.

Initially, Framestore signed on to produce 720 visual effects shots for the third series but the company ended up contributing around 100–1000 shots per episode, out of which around 600 were effects for the different creatures. In addition to creature shots, visual effects were also used for some vehicles (including a plane and a helicopter), the anomalies, and some environments (including a post-apocalyptic future city). Framestore made use of several new technologies for the third series, including a dynamic system to fluff up feathers and fur originally developed for the film '' The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian'' (2008), 3D motion blur, custom shaders for all the creatures and a newer version of the 3D rendering application Mental Ray.

Filming

The third series of ''Primeval'' was filmed in middle to late 2008 over a period of about six months. Among the many filming locations were La Palma in the Canaries, where the cast spent two weeks, the British Museum, the St Pancras railway station, and Wokingham. By the filming of the third series, the cast of ''Primeval'' mostly did their own stunt work. For Flemyng, doing the stunts was a fulfilment of his childhood dream to be a stuntman.

Release

Broadcast and ratings

The production of the third series was announced by ITV on 30 January 2008, during the broadcast of the second series. The broadcast of the third series in 2009 was somewhat delayed, beginning later in the year than previous series, owing to the transmission of the vampire series ''Demons'' (3 January – 7 February). The later broadcast meant that unlike for previous series, there was no remaining additional work being done on the later episodes while the earlier ones aired.

The third series averaged about five million viewers per episode, seen as a successful run but down from the more than six million of the first and second series. The most viewed episode was the first episode, with 5.89 million viewers, and the least viewed episode was the third episode, with 3.28 million viewers. The series ended with the tenth episode being seen by 4.95 million viewers.Weekly top 30 programmes on TV sets (July 1998 – Sept 2018)
''Broadcasters' Audience Research Board''. Retrieved 13 May 2022.

Online integration

The third series was accompanied by the tie-in online game ''Primeval Evolved'', in which new content was released weekly after each episode had aired, referencing the events in the TV series. The game was commissioned by ITV as part of their efforts to create online content to attract audiences to their websites. ''Primeval Evolved'' was promoted at the end of each episode on ITV. In the game, players were recruited by the mysterious Eve and greeted by a cast member of the fictional Anomaly Research Centre (ARC) and could interact with various items in the home lab. The game extended the ongoing narrative of the series and allowed players to become active participants in the storyline. The game won the 2010 International Emmy Award for Digital Program: Fiction and nominated for the 2010 BAFTA television award for New Media.

In addition to ''Primeval Evolved'', ITV's "online push" for the third series also involved embedding a Twitter window beneath its online player. On March 26, two days before the first episode aired on ITV, the first seven minutes of the first episode were aired online, with viewers being able to share their thoughts live through the Twitter feed. ''Primeval'' had during preceding series been much discussed by fans on Twitter and the integration of the feed on the ITV website was done to make this a more visual experience, showing the comments alongside the content itself.

Home media

The DVD release of the third series included the 20-minute behind-the-scenes documentary ''Cutter's Odyssey'', which tracked the character development of Nick Cutter and Henshall's own thoughts on the making of ''Primeval'', and the 20-minute documentary ''Genesis of a Creature'', which focused on the development of Carim Nahaboo's competition-winning Megopteran creature design.

Critical reception

Elliot Thorpe of ''Den of Geek'' gave the third series a positive review, noting that although it had even though it incorporated "clichéd set pieces", cheesy and clunky dialogue and wood acting, he still greatly enjoyed the programme. Thorpe felt that the greater number of episodes did not mean that the series outstayed its welcome, but that it instead was able to incorporate more characterisation and expand on its central story. He gave particular praise to the actions of characters having repercussions and impact, noting that ''Primeval'' was not limited by the story constraints of many shows in similar genres, and that the third series took the characters the audience had learnt to know in the first two series and made them suffer and strive. Thorpe liked the addition of Sarah and Becker to the roster of characters and also felt that Jenny's departure was "a necessity" after Nick Cutter's death. He found the swift appointment of Danny Quinn as team leader to be more questionable, however, but noted that Quinn "successfully added a new element to the team". Matt Barber, also of ''Den of Geek'', was less positive and unfavourably compared ''Primeval'' to the new series of ''Doctor Who'' but also felt that the third series played into his nostalgia for the Jon Pertwee era of ''Doctor Who'' (1970–1974) and noted that the efforts of some of the episodes of the third series to shift the focus away from "dinosaur-of-the-week spectacle" to tension, suspense and creepiness was encouraging.

Paul Simpson of ''Sci-Fi Bulletin'' reviewed each episode of the series individually and strongly praised the third series as a whole, referring to it as "''Primeval'''s strongest year by far" and gave particular praise to episodes three, five, six and eight, all of which he rated 8/10. Simpson also repeatedly compared the feel of the third series to the Jon Pertwee era of ''Doctor Who'' in that it featured "scientists and the military working together, with a maverick in the middle", the maverick in this case being Danny Quinn. Simpson found Quinn's introduction to the series to be a "breath of fresh air after the occasionally angst-ridden Cutter". The more varied sides shown by some of the characters, including James Lester, also received praise from Simpson.'''' Both Simpson and Thorpe of ''Den of Geek'' criticised the character Jack Maitland, Abby's brother, and the subplot involving him late in the series as "not working" and being a "weak link".

Eamonn McCusker of ''The Digital Fix'' also praised the third series as perhaps the best of ''Primeval'' yet, noting that the series had "hit something of a stride". He particularly praised the episodes that took more of a horror inspiration and "freed hemselvesfrom the dinosaur-shaped noose around heirneck to have fun with creatures that are clearly the invention of hewriters" and how many of the episodes served to develop the characters. Simon Cole of ''CultBox'' gave the third series three out of five stars, noting that the series was entertaining and did not take itself too seriously but also finding the cast changes strange and that the CGI creatures, though "perfectly serviceable for a TV show", needed a higher budget and needed to interact more with the actors. Craig Byrne of ''KryptonSite'' gave the third series a positive review, noting that "almost every episode is an enjoyable romp" and that the series was good entertainment. Byrne lamented the departure of Nick Cutter due to the series almost revolving around him but also felt that Danny Quinn was a "worthy replacement character".

Cancellation and revival

Although the third series still received good ratings, ''Primeval'' was cancelled after its broadcast by ITV executive Peter Fincham for financial reasons. ITV was at the time of ''Primeval'''s cancellation, due to the Great Recession and declining advertising revenues, only two weeks from going bankrupt despite already cancelling several programmes. Although Impossible Pictures, the production company behind the series, looked at a number of different options to ensure a fourth series could be made, including producing the series cheaper (for £600,000 per episode) or offering first-run rights to a rival channel, ''Primeval'' was officially cancelled on 15 June 2009, a decision likely motivated at least in part by the budget required for the effects. Costing around £8 million per series, ''Primeval'' was expensive to make and ITV could not claim all of the money earned by the series due to it being produced independently by Impossible Pictures.

Upon receiving the news of the cancellation, the production team of the series stated that they had "every intention of keeping ''Primeval'' alive in other ways". During the production of the third series, the producers had at no point expected that ''Primeval'' would not return for a fourth series, stating in subsequent interviews that they would not have left as many of character's fates up in the air had they known of the threat of cancellation.

Three months after the cancellation, Fincham recommissioned ''Primeval''.'''' The "resurrection" of the series was made possible through a new deal made by Impossible Pictures, in which the series would be co-produced by both ITV and UKTV (with the costs shared), with additional funding also being provided by BBC Worldwide and ProSieben. The deal secured the making of thirteen new episodes, split into a fourth and fifth series. The fourth series would air on ITV and then on the UKTV-owned channel Watch whereas the fifth series would air first on Watch. Most of the third series cast was announced to return for the fourth and fifth series, though Laila Rouass announced her exit due to being a single parent and the fourth and fifth series being filmed back-to-back over a ten-month period.

Notes

References

{{Primeval

Primeval (TV series)
2009 British television seasons