TV is the New Reading

‘Primeval’ is a trip

BBC America’s sci fi dinosaur drama
brings prehistory to life in a big way

Eight years ago, Prof. Nick Cutter lost his wife, Helen, when she encountered a time anomaly while being chased by a dinosaur and ended up millions of years in the past.

Welcome to “Primeval,” which premiered Saturday on BBC America.

She’s still alive, however, making occasional appearances and dropping gifts of ancient shellfish on his desk, but refusing to make contact.

The years have made her a little shy.

Certainly she’s more shy than the little dinosaur that appeared in the village adjacent to the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, England, and flies about with a friendly little chirp. The little dinosaur, Rex, is domesticated by a village lad named Ben Trent and carried about by Abby Maitland, a young woman who, until recently, looked after reptiles at the local zoo.

And Helen is far less in evidence than Connor Temple, the young buck trying to horn in on Cutter’s fieldwork. Cutter’s real assistant, James Lester, tries to put up with Temple, but he’s not the only distraction, with Claudia Brown from some supersecret branch of the government trying to swoop in and take over.

Because even with much larger, less chirpy and far less friendly dinosaurs making guest appearances in the present day and time portals opening and closing mysteriously, letting people and animals travel back and forth in completely ungoverned ways – the main thing, as far as Cutter is concerned, is that his wife is still alive.

Well, no, in fact Cutter manages to put even her into perspective. But even so, as a professor of archaeology – see how perfectly that works out? – he’s intent on finding out who is opening these portals, and how, and how to get them to stop.

Naturally this show operates on a lot of speculation, including the notion that the past is something mutable. Current theorists insist this must be so, and that it’s only a matter of time, math and technological know-how before we’re reaching back into our own past and changing things – leaving cameras, bones, pens and metal boxes filled with chocolate bars, for instance, millions of years in the past.

Eighty years ago, the best and brightest scientific minds widely believed all matter was made up of atoms that were indestructible, and time and space had no direct relationship with one another. So it’s just foolish to use words like “impossible.” And surely doorways to the distant past with people and creatures passing back and forth through them are intriguing constructs, and a perfectly good basis for speculative fiction.

If you’re into that sort of thing, that is. For one thing, common sense usually comes third or fourth in the decision-making hierarchy for this group. The characters make boneheaded and rash mistakes you can’t imagine any thinking person making. Even the creatures don’t seem to behave sensibly all the time, either.

Even so, as stories go, “Primeval” is more interesting than not and it’s pretty well put together, so watchability is less of an issue than it can be for shows like this.

“Primeval” airs at 8 p.m. Saturdays on BBC America.

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