BBC America Bring Primeval Back

Received an email the other day from BBC America touting the return of Primeval. The return places the show in it's previous Saturday 9pm slot. I must say I was pretty happy to hear(read) the news.

Season 3 premieres May 16th.

If you haven't watched the show yet I'd suggest you get caught up in time. The first two seasons were fantastic and I suspect the third could only be better.

The premise for the series is really quite fun: Mysterious time anomalies, basically time portals, begin appearing throughout Britain with disastrous results. Humans sometimes stumble into these portals and past creatures, dinosaurs and the like, and future species, also make their way out. A team of paleontologists and scientists, lead by paleontologist Dr. Nick Cutter, is tasked with trying to figure out if there is a pattern to them in order to predict when and where they will open up.

Each episode brings new suspense, never knowing what's going to come out of the portal or how to get it back in. The paleontologists are often in awe, as well, while witnessing the sometimes friendly, though usually vicious creatures they've spent their lives studying in books, never believing they'd ever have a chance to witness a real life T-Rex or 10 ton sandworm.

There's also small bits of crushes and heartbreaks and such, but never enough to drown out the main story line.

The cast is lead by Douglas Henshaw who portrays Dr. Nick Cutter, a paleontologist with a painful past who's awestruck with the wonders of the anomalies while also very aware of the dangers. His team, a group of pretty young things, consists of Andrew-Lee Potts as Connor, a former student of Dr. Cutter known for being a bit quirky and not always on top of things, a cutesy zoo keeper, Abby, specializing in amphibians played by Hannah Spearitt and Stephen Hart, a former protege of Dr. Cutter. The two share a strained relationship due to his part in Cutter's painful past. Hart sacrificed himself in the finale of season 2, though I don't think we've seen the last of him.

Ben Miller, who I've come to enjoy via Moving Wallpaper joined the cast in season two as the head of government operations, which is a treat. He doesn't really care why or how the anomalies are happening, nor for what knowledge can be gained from them - he just wants to stop them. There's also Lucy Brown who played two characters: Claudia Brown and Jenny Lewis (an ode to Rilo Kiley, perhaps?). The series began with Claudia Brown acting as the government liaison and crush interest for Dr. Cutter but disappeared due to a timeline change caused by an anomaly. She re-appeared as Jenny Lewis, a PR officer hired by the government to smooth over the press and keep the anomalies a secret. This was really confusing for Cutter as he was the only one to remember Claudia Brown.

There's also various bad guys and conspirators but the main jerkface is Helen Cutter, steely played by Juliet Aubrey. She's Cutter's paleontologist ex-wife who disappeared years ago while working. Turns out she had discovered an anomaly and decided to pull a Doc Brown, living in the past. She's jumps in and out of the anomalies, causing grief and trouble for pretty much everyone while also giving Cutter one hell of a rough time.

BBC America was added to my naughty list this year for not bringing back a number of shows I've enjoyed. It would be one thing if the shows were canceled but they're still airing in Britain, BBC America has just stopped importing them...I think. Getting news out of BBC America is really hard. They keep things close to the vest and you just never know what's coming back until a month or so before it reappears, so I was happy and a bit surprised to hear Primeval would return.