Primeval Episode Eleven (Episode 205)

Important Stats:
Terrifying Dinosaur Count: 0 (It’s almost like they’ve given up on dinos completely!)
Anomalies: 2
Soldiers Lost: 3
Number of Times a Kid Knows Best: 3
Big Beastie: Sarlacc

In what has to be the ugliest apartment block I’ve ever seen, a young girl, Taylor, looks to be doing all the chores around the flat, while her stepfather, Steve (I’m assuming stepfather, as the photo shows only Taylor and her mother), sits with his ass in his easy chair.  The chore she has to do next is taking her dog, Sprat, out to piss on the car.  Careful, kid, Steve’ll probably make you clean that up too.

Sprat takes off, probably looking for a bit of grass to pee on, since I haven’t seen anything other than a couple of sickly trees.  Eventually, Sprat winds up in an alleyway, and running straight through an anomaly.  Taylor follows Sprat through, and although I would usually yell at the kid for wandering into things she has no idea about, it is for her dog.  I would follow mine through an anomaly, considering I know what the rescue crew looks like.  I save my dog and have Stephen come looking for me.  It’s a win/win!

She winds up on some sandy dunes, and realizes that not only doesn’t she belong there, but something under the sand is imitating the Wicked Witch of the West.

Opening Credits.

ARC:  Considering we’ve already seen an anomaly is open, why didn’t Connor’s ADD alert.  Was it distracted?  Antsy?  Not able to focus on what it is supposed to?  Are the ADD jokes ever going to get old?  When the sirens do go off, I love how Connor’s ADD momentarily prevents him from looking at his technological ADD.  

Without warning, the ADD (the technological one) shuts down, leaving the team without any knowledge where the anomaly, Taylor or Sprat are.  When it’s rebooted, everything seems fine, until Connor runs a diagnostic.

The ADD is completely infected with Spyware. Connor and Cutter guess it’s the creepy guy who has been following them all season but we know better.  Okay, we know better because they showed us last week that Leek is in league with Helen.  In case we forgot, we get a quick shot of Leek in the car looking at the anomaly’s location.

For once, Connor and Cutter may finally get ahead of Leek, because now they know that someone is watching, while Leek doesn’t know that they know.  Wow, that sounded so much clearer in my head.  

Anomaly Site:  What I think is the SAS dog-catching team arrives, complete with dog carrier and catching-pole, and fugly dude.  Can I just say that the SAS, under Captain Awesome Ryan, wouldn’t have stooped to dog catching?  (Or sneaking around and being generally bad, but then, they took orders from Claudia at that time.)  Leek orders them through the anomaly and not to be spotted like fugly dude did last week.  Oh, how I wish fugly dude had a serious temper.

ARC:  Jenny arrives, dressed to the nines and Cutter and Connor take a moment to roll their tongues back up into their mouths.  She was at her own engagement party and I love how Connor is quick enough to pick up on how that might affect Cutter because the young man takes a quick glimpse at Cutter in a really sweet moment of concern.

Cutter, because he’s too emotionally screwed up to admit he wants to punish Jenny for not being Claudia and looking that good for someone else, insists she doesn’t have time to change.  As she exits (with threats as to what will happen if she breaks one of her impractical heels), both Cutter and Connor openly gape.

“She looks amazing!”  Connor says.

“So does a velocraptor,” Cutter replies.  Ouch.

Desert:  Back through the anomaly, the SAS is playing dogcatcher.  They don’t think there are any life forms but we all know better.  They spot Taylor on the rocks, but turn away.  Hold on, what are they doing then?  Are they out for Sprat and not Taylor?

Meanwhile, in a great moment of irony, Taylor doesn’t need rescuing; the SAS does. She’s screaming at them to get off the sand.  At the moment, some tentacle from the Sarlacc (there’s sand and tentacles trying to kill people – that makes it a Sarlacc in my books) appears.  Once of the soldiers quickly loses the fight against it, while Taylor sits on the rocks, with her hands over her ears, humming to herself.

Stephen’s Flat:  He’s come home from a run all sweaty and hot.  Personally, I think he should strip right now and take a long shower, while I watch, but he can’t.  So, what is preventing me from getting a good view of an almost naked Stephen?  Helen is taking up all the space in the shower.

She was slimed by something and Stephen’s shower was the only one within a million years that she could find.  Okay, there may be some moments where I can’t stand Helen, but I can’t fault her selection of showers.  

Her real purpose is to convince Stephen to betray everyone and reveal the existence of the anomalies.  At first, she tries claiming it’s Nick who is personally betraying his scorching hot assistant / pit bull / bloodhound / bodyguard / excuse for slash Stephen Hart but Stephen’s not buying it.  She changes to implying it’s Lester.  While I know Stephen is a guy, and Helen is a naked fairly hot woman, conveniently letting the bathrobe not cover everything it should, but he should try looking directly in front of him to find out who is betraying him.

Later, Helen is all dressed and Stephen’s cleaned up.  He somehow misses her talking on her cell, even though she wasn’t being that quiet and he’s an excellent tracker.  Considering she kisses him goodbye, I’m going to assume that there was something else between the last scene and this one that is only done right if everyone gets a little messy.

Anomaly Site:  Okay, I’m given a little bit of hope that perhaps nothing happened because Leek is still waiting for the SAS to return.  Although, he’s looking at his watch, meaning it’s been more than the allotted time.  Certainly long enough for Stephen and Helen to – damn.

Leek has to take off as he sees Nick, and the still improperly shod Jenny (who you think would keep an extra pair of shoes in her office by now) making their way towards him.  Making a quick call to Helen, Leek says there are contingency plans if the SAS men are seen coming back through.  I have a feeling that it means the end of our intrepid Nick Cutter and improperly shod Jenny so now I have to hope all the soldiers are dead, even that nice one who wanted to help Taylor.

As Jenny comes up with ways to shut down the building site, weird howling can be heard through the anomaly.  Suddenly, the most terrifying creature ever emerges.

Passing Sprat off to Jenny (in her new white dress) Cutter has to explain two fundamental things to her.  1)  The owner is probably on the other side.  2)  Sprat is a girl.  

The rest of the team arrives and while Abby is busy with some equipment, Connor takes a moment to ask his honourary big brother about the whole confession of love thing last week.   Stephen advises him to be confident, and won’t play the high school thing by telling Abby that Connor really meant it.  Plus, he has to remind his little brother that it’s polite to break up with one girl before asking another one out.  That is, as long as you haven’t been bitten by Skip as then manners don’t have to count so much.  You can always claim amnesia later.

Later, the entire team is standing around waiting for Connor’s big day.  For half a second I thought he was going to have to confess his love for Abby in front of everyone – only to face a critique of how well he does it.  Talk about a nightmare but luckily it’s not going to happen.  Nope, instead Connor’s built a robot to do some reconnaissance before sending in people where they might be eaten by terrifying dinosaurs.  It’s made out what looks to be the feet of a droid from Star Wars, several remote controlled cars and Abby’s hair dryer (Abby confirms this last part).

Like the ADD, it works well and it is nice to see Connor having a few successes and producing something that can be sold as merchandising.  Cutter quickly establishes it’s the Silurian period and that the little girl sitting on the rocks is Sprat’s owner.  No one debates him because he’s Cutter.  As long as it isn’t about women, he’s always right.

The rescue team is Cutter and Stephen and I so volunteer to go to the Silurian period if the creatures eat SAS team members and I get to be rescued by sexy men.  

I could even get past the Sarlacc and badly CGIed bugs if I’m promised Stephen in return.  

In the present, the B Team is sitting, awkwardly talking about how Caroline and Connor would never work out as a couple. It’s probably because he’s a geek involved in top-secret projects and she’s too full of her own attractiveness.  Plus, there’s the whole he loves Abby thing but the B Team stays as far away from that as possible.

Connor decides the best way to dump her is by a text message.  I know someone who was dumped that way and let me just say Abby is so right in recommending not dumping Caroline in such a fashion.  Although, for most women, they’d appreciate if but I don’t think Caroline will be able to accept not being the dumper whether it was sent by text, carrier pigeon or serenading mariachi band.

Flat:  Steve pretends to care about Taylor “falling down a pipe.”  At least, that’s the story Jenny is feeding him.  Considering how he behaved at the beginning, it wouldn’t surprise me if he was just acting concerned because there is a hot woman in a pretty dress standing in front of him.  He even wants to try and do something for Taylor at which point I suggest a call to Children’s Services might be useful.

Silurian Period:  Cutter and Stephen find all the SAS equipment, including the carrier and their night-vision goggles, which also record everything they saw.  We get a replay of what happened earlier with the Sarlacc attack, only from the POV of the nice member of the team that was the first one eaten.  The fugly dude is clearly visible, and Cutter realizes that something else is happening around him.

Cutter’s reaction sends the wrong message to Stephen.  All it does is confirm what Helen had said, even though Cutter doesn’t really know much more than Stephen.  The younger man throws suspicion on Lester, but since Cutter doesn’t confirm it and through the wonders of dramatic irony, we know it’s really Leek.  When Stephen blames Cutter for shutting everyone out, Cutter makes the most astute statement ever, “You sound like Helen.”

I now understand why Stephen has always been the scorching hot assistant / pit bull / bloodhound / bodyguard / excuse for slash – he’s so easily influenced by others that he’s really not strong enough to be a leader.  He believes Helen and he hasn’t seen her in 8 years.  He’s so easily persuaded that he now believes Cutter is hiding something, where if Stephen hadn’t been quite so quick to prove he was right last week; Cutter would’ve shared with him, just like he did with the B Team.

Once they’re closer to Taylor, the girl yet again shouts her warnings to get on the rocks.  The atmosphere, the heat and the headache from lack of oxygen prevent the two men from hearing her properly.  It doesn’t prevent them from feeling the ground moving beneath them, causing them to hightail it to the rocks anyway.

Taylor looks at her rescue team like they’re morons.  She’s much more appreciative once they share their oxygen and water but she still doesn’t need them.  She’d been planning her own way back and usually, I get annoyed by a know-it-all kid but this one has been the only person thus far to realize the whole rocks=safety thing.  

The kid’s had it rough as she thinks Sprat’s been eaten, only to realize she’d been abandoned.  I bet that’s a feeling the kid is used to.  Plus, she twisted her leg, and now getting back to the present just got that much more complicated.  Oh, and that kid so hasn’t reached the appreciation of boys stage yet because she refuses Stephen’s offer to carry her.  I’d be jumping at the chance, literally.

She also believes that this is all some huge practical joke for a reality TV show, much cooler than Big Brother.  I don’t know about Big Brother, but I’d love to seen the next Survivor try out this place.  It’d make tribal council way more interesting.

In the present, Connor, completely ignoring some sage advice, texts Caroline that their relationship is through.  

Just as Connor finishes, Skip’s little cousin (Skippy) has come through the anomaly.  I don’t think this one is in danger of biting anyone, causing them to ask questions they’ll conveniently forget later.  

While Abby and Connor chase after Skippy, the anomaly weakens.

On the other side of the anomaly, Cutter sees it is closing thus Stephen reacts by picking up Taylor, who screams in such a way that I totally volunteer to switch places with her.  Geez, in a couple years’ time this girl will be slapping herself on the forehead over how she reacted to Stephen.

Meanwhile, the B Team is still chasing Skippy through the alleyways and right into a restaurant.  I have to give Connor props for covering well, claiming it’s a spot check.  Anyway, Skippy is easy to find as they just need to follow the chorus of screaming.  

That chorus of screaming leads them to a ball pit and now they have to find one large bug, while searching through a lot of balls.  You know, that sounds dirtier as I reread this than I originally intended.

They get back to the anomaly just in time to throw Skippy back in and watch it close.  Connor even tries to rush the anomaly, in concern for Cutter and Stephen and a realization too scary for Connor and the audience.  You know who this leaves in charge the anomaly project now?  Connor.  

Run for your lives.

Cutter, Stephen and Taylor remain on the other side.  It’s probably for the best if Connor’s in charge.  Someone should pick them up, eventually.

ARC:  What is this?  I’m confused?  Is James Lester showing something resembling concern over the loss of Cutter and Stephen?  He’s inquiring about how long they can survive and when the anomaly might reopen so it certainly sounds like concern.

Lester orders the anomaly site to have a permanent watch and Taylor’s stepfather to be informed they’ve lost the girl.

Abby’s Flat:  Caroline, who seems to practically be living at the B Team’s flat, gets Connor’s text message and reacts in the most reasonable way possible.  She packs up all her stuff calls out for Rex.  I guess she wants to say goodbye to this show’s adorable mascot.

Past:  Since we can’t have shot after shot of Cutter, Stephen and Taylor wandering without hope, cue some pointless drama!  While Cutter’s trying to be positive about getting back to the present, we get Taylor’s back story about her dead mother – who said she was going to be all right.  Therefore, according to Taylor, all adults lie.  I know I should feel bad about the poor, motherless child but really, it’s such pointless melodrama shoehorned in when there’s already enough drama (hello, trapped in the past, Claudia or Jenny, Connor/Abby, best friends ripped apart by the evil Helen) they could’ve played on but no, the kid gets the dramatic scene.

Once Cutter promises that they aren’t going to die (which they aren’t allowed to – do you hear me people in charge!?) I feel better because this has nothing to do about women.  Therefore, he must be right.  Thus, this scene ends with a promise from Taylor to bite Stephen if he picks her up again.

Abby’s Flat:  Remember what I said about Caroline being reasonable?  What I actually meant was pounding the snot out of Rex with a tennis racket.

Past:  Previously, I thought Taylor was fun.  Now, she’s getting irritating because she’s trying to figure if she’d rather be eaten or die of thirst.  I think Stephen should risk getting bitten just to throw her onto the sand and find out if she really means she’d rather be eaten.

Even Cutter’s had enough of her, suggesting she sing, or whistle, or shut the hell up instead of talk about being eaten by Skippy.  Okay, maybe that last thing about shutting the hell up was what I would’ve said in that situation.

Off in the distance, Stephen sees something shiny.  I, on the other hand, see something very, very pretty.  

A little while later, Connor’s new and improved portable anomaly detector gives them some hope.  Somewhere nearby, an anomaly is opening.  Cutter and Stephen are grateful at the news, proving how much more stoic they are than me.  I’d be hysterical in gratitude and there would definitely be some crying involved.

The hope is short lived as a sudden sandstorm descends upon them.  While Stephen manages to crawl into a crag to protect himself, Cutter drops the anomaly detector.  He can’t retrieve it before the storm is upon them, and can I just say, haven’t we had enough pointless drama with Taylor’s earlier sob story?  Cutter’s a smart guy who I’m sure understands he’d rather have the anomaly detector super glued to his hand while trying to avoid being devoured by the Sarlacc, than drop it.

Present:  Jenny is worried and so is Connor.  He’s afraid that he can’t run the team alone.  In what has to be the worst backhanded insult, ever, in Connor’s direction, Abby assures him he won’t have to do it alone because Cutter and Stephen will be back.  Nothing the least bit reassuring as she’d rather cling onto some out-there hope that senior team will be back before she can even comprehend Connor being left in charge.

ARC:  Again, Lester does a great job of imitating concern when he asks for news from Leek.  He takes out his frustration on Leek by verbally bitch-slapping him for being sentimental.  Oh Lester, don’t ever change.

Past:  After digging themselves out, they discover that Connor didn’t prepare for every contingency.  He didn’t build and anomaly detector detector.  One would’ve come in handy at this moment.  Although, Connor did build it strong enough to withstand a sandstorm and be loud enough to hear a distance away.

Cutter, Stephen and Taylor look up to find a gun pointed at them.  Of all the soldiers to survive the initial Sarlacc attack, it had to be fugly dude.  He demands the anomaly detector and the water, which Cutter tosses to him.

There’s a tense standoff as Cutter approaches fugly dude, only to have a hail of bullets around his feet.  The sound attracts the Sarlacc, and Cutter just keeps making fugly dude back up further, closer to his impending death.  Thus, the fugliness of fugly dude ends with him being dragged underground to be digested slowly, over the course of 1000 years.

Just before his demise, Stephen demands to know who sent fugly dude but the dying man won’t give it up.  This whole scene says more about Stephen than it does about fugly dude as Stephen goes with Helen’s versions of events (thinking Lester sent the other man) instead of thinking on his own.  He even asks Cutter if he’s holding out on him.

Cutter’s figured out that vibration on the sand is what cues the Sarlacc to their position.  This means, of course, that somebody’s got to fall soon and the winner is – Taylor!

For some reason the Sarlacc tries to take Stephen instead.  No!  You cannot have the hotness!  Somebody’s got to save him!  Do you understand me, writers?  You cannot take my Stephen away from me!

Stephen’s sucked under the sand, and Cutter frantically digs to save his scorching hot assistant / pit bull / bloodhound / bodyguard / excuse for slash Stephen Hart, but to no avail.  Thus Taylor, in a moment completely redeeming her character, jumps up and down on the sand, attracting every Sarlacc from wherever it is on Tatooine in the desert.  Not only does she get the attention of one Sarlacc, but two, who actually bear more of a resemblance to giant scorpions when they’re above ground.  Wow, I would never have expected that from Return of the Jedi.

One of the Sarlaccs is holding Stephen, and the other one thinks Stephen looks as tasty as I think he is, just in an actually food source sort of way and tries to take it from the first one.  In order for the fight to commence Sarlacc one has to drop Stephen, giving the potential food a chance to run away.

While Stephen and Taytor are ready to run for their lives, Cutter ditches the anomaly detector in favour of a really big gun (and the camera he found earlier), to prevent everyone from getting killed.  What’s weird is that while Cutter is shooting at the Sarlacc, Stephen’s found some random shell that also doubles as a sand dune toboggan.  

At the bottom of the hill, they run the final few metres to the anomaly.  They make it through just before the winning Sarlacc realizes it has lost its dinner.

They find themselves in a forest near a primitive encampment.  Taylor remembers to limp over to the fire (as she forgot to while running to the anomaly) and Cutter deduces they’re in the Paleolithic era from the tools present.  

Suddenly, they’re surrounded by cavemen and Cutter punches one smack in the kisser, only to find that the caveman is wearing brightly coloured underwear.  “That don’t look right,” Stephen astutely points out.

And now we find ourselves not at the end of Primeval but at the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail – where the show becomes a set and the punching of the cavemen become the crime of assault.  

The B Team emerges from the forest.  Connor is happy to have his hero and his big brother back, while Abby is glad not to have Connor be her boss.

Lester arrives, and Cutter quietly tells Stephen not to say anything.  You know, I’ve been so blinded by his hotness that I’ve totally missed up until now how easy it is to play Stephen.  Not that this is a bad thing as it totally gives me hope.  It’s probably not great for his career though.

Stephen walks away while Lester is relieved not to have to leave Daphne and Scrappy in charge.  Except as usual, even when Cutter does something right, there’s still a mess for Lester to clean up and in this case it’s making sure the neon-pants wearing caveman doesn’t sue.

At Taylor’s apartment, Jenny is just telling the stepfather about Taylor’s demise when Cutter comes up with the girl.  Sure, the stepfather is all emotional about seeing Taylor again and there’s some supposed to be heartfelt reunion.  They bond over missing her mother and the stepfather really loves her.  I couldn’t possibly care less if I tried.  In fact, the reunion could even include accidentally pushing Leek off the balcony (he’s not there, but if he was, that would be the only acceptable reason) and I’d still feel meh about the whole thing.

On the other hand, Jenny and Cutter playing off one another, I can get interested in.  She was “inconsolable” at his potential loss (inconsolable, a word which here means, as meh as I was about the previous bit) and he was totally stalling to make sure he could stare at her in the skimpy dress a bit longer.  In fact, I feel a bit robbed when Taylor pops back outside to ask for a job when she’s older.  I haven’t had enough Jenny and Cutter snark recently.

ARC:  In Cutter’s office, our intrepid team leader gets distracted from watching the footage from the camera he brought back by watching the fake news report on Taylor “falling down a pipe.”  

Abby’s Flat:  The destruction from earlier and the missing Rex is readily apparent to the B Team.  Not much escapes them!

ARC:  Returning to his office after going to get a vital part of any workday (coffee) Cutter discovers the camera is missing.

Next week:  A mammoth on the M25!  Lester with a gun!  Bob!