After the unexpected huge success of the return of Doctor Who, ITV needed to try and find their own show to attract a family audience. To do this they have come up with a series about time anomalies and dinosaurs.
From the opening scenes the show hits the ground running with a woman running through a supermarket car park late at night pursued by a dinosaur. To have a dinosaur in the opening scenes was a brave decision and a bit of a gamble. If it looked bad it could make people switch off before they had given the show a chance. Luckily it looked far from bad so the gamble paid off.
After an pretty average set of opening titles the story starts to pick properly eight years later introducing the lead character Nick Cutter, a professor at the Central Metropolitan University as well as two other main characters Stephen Hart, Cutter’s friend and aid and Connor Temple, one of Cutter’s students at the university, with the name that sounds like an old Hollywood actor.
Cutter seems nice enough but lacks the charisma that David Tennant brings to the role of The Doctor on the BBC series Doctor Who. Being also an older actor than Tennant it was an interesting choice fo casting. Will he be able to get over with the younger viewers and make them care? Connor Temple is obviously going to do a lot of the silly comedy stuff in the series. He loves a good conspiracy, believes in aliens from other planets. Actor Andrew-Lee Potts needs to tread carefully with the role because he could alienate the older viewers. Stephen Hart appears to be given the task of being the action man covering for Cutter’s shortfalls. He’s younger, good looking, he looks physically fitter. Hopefully he will turn out to be more than just eye-candy for the female audience.
Connor brings Cutter a picture from the newspaper of a supposed photograph of a dinosaur which is automatically dismissed as being a fake. It isn’t until The Forest of Dean is mentioned that Cutter becomes interested. It was in The Forest of Dean that Cutter’s wife, Helen disappeared many years ago. With his interested piqued the three of them are hitting the road.
We next get to meet Abby Maitland a keeper at Wellington Zoo, played by former S Club member Hannah Spearritt. This is an interesting bit of casting. It could attract the fans of S Club, but it could also alienate a lot of people that won’t take her serious as an actress. From the outset her character came over very likeable and more importantly believable. Never in the episode was Hannah given anything that could really stretch her acting ability which is a good thing as it allows people to get used to seeing her as a character and not as the former pop star. If Hannah was stretched and unable to deliver it would be really hard for her to win people over, so her role in this episode was just right.
To have her character introduced sitting watching a couple of lizards not having sex in an show that is partially aimed at children was a bit strange. Finding she was about to lose her job thanks to cuts in funding Abby should have been really upset, but she has other things on her mind when she sees a photograph of a boy holding a lizard. He impending unemployment can wait, she has other business to attend to.
Arriving at The Forest of Dean the trio of Cutter, Connor and Stephen discover that if this is a hoax it’s a very well done one as it would take a great deal of effort to pull this one off. It’s also revealed that Helen Cutter disappeared eight years ago nicely linking up the pre-titles sequence and who the woman in the car park was.
Abby gets to meet Ben, the kid with the lizard in his too large bedroom. For the first time in the episode they got something wrong. The boy’s bedroom looked far too big to be true. The reason for this will be revealed later, but little things like that need to be sorted out. They will only get away with things like that so any times.
The lizard has been given the name, Rex. He is cute enough, but as a seasoned sci-fi and fantasy genre watcher alarm bells are ringing for me, merchandise opportunity! Usually anything cute turns into cuddly toys and t shirt prints. Is this the beginning of the subliminal selling?
Ban takes Abby into the forest to show her where he found Rex and finds a dead cow in a tree. There is no blood which is a good thing. Too often blood and gore is used when not necessary just for effect. The animal was obviously dead so it would have been so if it had been used here.
In a nearby we get introduced to another regular character, Claudia Brown from the Home Office. Her introduction to Nick Cutter is quite an interesting one she walks up to him at the bar and kisses him. I’m sure that isn’t standard Government procedure. Claudia seems to be an Ok character. She isn’t an annoying pen pusher or a confrontational character. Perhaps if she were she would be more interesting. Hopefully she will get more to do soon or she will be just space filler on the series.
Back to the forest and we get to see our first look at the anomaly. Visually it looks very basic compared to the effects you see on Stargate and Star Trek, but it works really well and doesn’t look out of place within the budget of the show. It also makes sense to do something cheaper and easy to use if you are going to use it over and over again.
Slowly everyone is descending into the forest allowing the first look at all of the team together for the first time. Before we get that we get to see why Ben has such a big bedroom. Having been scared by the roars of a creature he has run off leaving Abby in the forest and is in his bedroom.
Having cut his finger climbing over a fence on the way home the creature comes a-hunting on the trail of the smell of blood. This is where we have to dispend with any sense of reality. You have an dinosaur smashing its head through a bedroom window roaring loudly partially smashing the room yet neither the mother or any of the neighbours investigate and see the animal. Unfortunately the “unseen” monster/dinosaur stupidity is going to be a regular occurrence that we are just going to have to accept and let it go. Had the bedroom been an normal size that kid would have been killed and likely eaten, but the big room allows him to escape its clutched and live. The visual gag of him standing in his room holding a toy Lightsaber ready to fight a dinosaur off does work well.
Back to the forest and more “I can’t see this huge monster standing in my eye line about 10ft from me until I turn my head about 20 degrees to the left” nonsense, but we’ll ignore that. Hooray! For the first time all the team are together. They just need to work out what to do with this big monster in front of them. Luckily it solves the problem by going back through the anomaly for them.
This allows everyone to head back to London and our final introduction to a regular character, James Lester. As with the casting of Hannah, the Producers have also decided to cast an unlikely person in the form of comedian Ben Miller. Had he been a comedic character but he isn’t. Lester is the officious face of the Government and the person that is going to be the antagonist of the series. You would expect him to sell out his Mother if it suited him and got him what he wanted. Ben Miller plays the character really well by underplaying in the lighter moments such as being pooped on. Already the seeds of the impending conflict between Cutter and Lester are starting to show.
Connor and Stephen head back to the forest for a few scenes to set up the subplot that Connor fancies Abby and who can blame him for that? Also thanks to Connor we get to learn that the big creature that they saw wasn’t the same one that was going after Ben and had killed the cow. That was a plant eater and this other one was definitely carnivorous, most likely a Gorgonopsid. Speaking of which, it’s after Ben again. This time it’s wandering around a school which by pure luck is after school hours so there is only Ben and a teacher in the building. At least you won’t have a whole school “not seeing it in front of them.” This allows Stephen to finally get something to do even if it is distracting the creature and making it chase him so they can get away. As good as it was it hardly made Stephen look much more exciting than before. He has the look but he does seem a bit dull.
Back to the forest, it’s all go isn’t it! Cutter is going through the anomaly to search for his missing wife and to see what is on the other side. Accompanied by Captain Ryan they find the remains of a campsite and a camera that belonged to Helen as well as the skeletal remains of a human, but it turns out it isn’t Helen. If it isn’t her, who is it?
After being forced to return back through the anomaly before it closes they find themselves jumping out of the frying pan into the fire when the Gorgonopsid attacks causing panic. Fortunately Stephen is back to save the day taking it out with a truck and a gun.
Ending the day Cutter is in his office at the university when he finds a shell placed on his desk. Hearing movement outside he rushes out of the office only to be confronted with the sight of his wife Helen standing down the street, then she is gone.
For the launch of a new series they are off to a good start. The creatures look great, giving a glimpse of the other side of the anomaly and the mystery of Helen Cutter have created a few different hooks to get interest in the show. After such a good pilot episode, are they capable of maintain interest for the rest of the first series? I hope so.
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