 “Primeval: New World – The Complete Series” is a series with a cool concept but its execution was at times good and at times, a bit ridiculous. While I enjoyed the characters, I just felt the storyline made it too limiting with its few characters and it led to more problems of its storyline which often wasn’t consistent. But by no means is this a bad series, in fact, I did enjoy “Primeval: New World” and its potential. But unfortunately, due to the series cancellation, it’s another sci-fi series that we will never know of its true potential. For those who enjoyed the series on television, I recommend “Primeval: New World – The Complete Series” as it looks and sounds amazing on Blu-ray!
TITLE: Primeval: New World – The Complete Series
FILM RELEASE: 2012
DURATION: 13 Episodes (572 Minutes)
BLU-RAY DISC INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition, 1:78:1, English DTS-HD MA 5.1, Subtitles: English SDH
COMPANY: eOne
RATED: NR
Release Date: October 22, 2013
Directed by Andy Mikita, Martin Wood, Amanda Tapping, Mike Rohl
Written by Katherine Collins, Jon Cooksey, Sara Dodd, Tim Haines, Dennis Heatin, Adrian Hodges, Gillian Horvath, Peter Hume, Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Judith Reeves-Stevens
Produced by George Horie
Executive Producer: Mcihael Chechik, Jonathan Drake, Tim Haines, Brian Hamilton, Gillian Horvath, Katie Newman, Gabriela Schonbach, Martin Wood
Co-Executive Producer: Peter Hume
Consulting Producer: Jon Cooksey
Music by Andrew Lockington
Cinematography by Ryan McMaster, Michael C. Blundell
Edited by Gordon Rempel, Brad Rines, Ron Yoshida
Casting by Corrine Clark, Jennifer Page, Jaye Riske
Series Production design by Rachel O’Toole
Art Direction by Nigel Evans, Brian Kane
Series Set Decoration by Louise Roper
Series Costume Design by Carla Hetland
Starring:
Niall Matter as Evan Cross
Sara Canning as Dylan Weir
Danny Rahim as Mac Rendell
Crystal Lowe as Toby Nance
Miranda Frigon as Ange Finch
Geoff Gustafson as Lt. Ken Leeds
Louis Ferreira as Colonel Hall
Adrian Holmes as Det. Harlow
Jodi Balfour as Samantha Sedaris
Dan Payne as Major Douglas
Kimberly Sustad as Brooke Cross
Andrew Lee Potts as Connor Temple
Eric Breker as Sergeant Macready
When an invasion of prehistoric creatures terrorizes North America, visionary inventor Evan Cross (Niall Matter) assembles a team of highly-trained scientists and animal experts to handle the threat. From their cutting edge headquarters, The Tank, they hunt these deadly predators and investigate the anomalies that bring them through time.
In 2012, a Canadian-British sci-fi spinoff of the British series “Primeval” was created.
“Primeval: New World”, created by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens is a co-production between Impossible Pictures and Omni Film Productions for Space in Canada and shown on Watch in the UK as well as the SyFy Channel in the U.S.
As 13 episodes were commissioned for 2012 and would feature a darker and scarier tone compared to the original British version, unfortunately, the series was not renewed for a second season.
While the series did not do well, ratings-wise, the series did have a following and now “Primeval: New World – The Complete Series” will now be released in the U.S. on Blu-ray courtesy of eOne.
“Primeval: New World” is a series about a company known as Cross Photonics, led by owner Evan Cross (portrayed by Niall Matter), who try to find temporal anomalies that show up in random parts of the country and literally is a portal to prehistoric times and vice versa, as pre-historic creatures have now come into present-time North America.
While Evan wants to make sure that the dinosaurs are brought back into the temporal anomaly, so it does not affect the timeline of evolution, unfortunately, the dinosaurs are killing people and now a group of conservation officers who are experts in predatory behavior, have been called in to neutralize the dinosaurs.
But for Evan, his job of finding these anomalies and tracking down these dinosaurs or creatures from pre-historic time has become personal as his first contact with an anomaly was in 2006 and a day when an Albertosaurus killed his wife.
Meanwhile, Evan works with computer expert Toby Nance (portrayed by Crystal Lowe) and hired his friend Mac Rendell (portrayed by Danny Rahim), an expert in firearms. Also, trusting the running of his business to CFO, Angelika Finch (portrayed by Miranda Frigon), who is worried that Evan’s inability to do business work is hurting the company and its raising of funds to keep the business up.
So, Angelika feels she has no choice but to work with the military and directly work with Lt. Ken Leeds, a Royal Canadian Air Force officer and the head of the government’s “Project Magnet” program.
As for the conservation officers, Dylan Weir (portrayed by Sara Canning) had seen her team wiped out by the dinosaurs and because of her expertise in predatory behavior, she joins Evan’s team to help track down the dinosaurs/creatures that have come into the human world.
But as more and more anomalies are coming into the world and killing people, including people close to them, it becomes a debate of whether or not the dinosaurs/creatures should live (in order to not change time) or put the creatures down as they have caused harm to humanity.
VIDEO:
“Primeval: New World – The Complete Series” is a series that looks magnificent on Blu-ray. From the detail of a character’s face and seeing skin pores or the hair on someone’s beard to the detail of one’s clothing is evident when watching the series on Blu-ray, but probably what stood out for me are the outdoor scenes. “Primeval: New World” benefits from the various locations the series was shot at and there are scenes with luscious greenery, breathtaking environments and for the most part, the detail of these areas look great in HD.
Outdoor scenes are vibrant, even the opening sequence of the series features amazing detail, sharpness and clarity. But for the most part, the series looks fantastic on Blu-ray and fans of the series should be happy with how gorgeous this series looks in HD!
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“Primeval: New World – The Complete Series” is presented in English DTS-HD MA 5.1. For the action sequences, the film features times of immersion and good use of the surround channels and LFE. While not thoroughly immersive, the fact that the series does use the surround channels is a positive (as most series are primarily central and front-channel driven).
Subtitles are in English.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
 “Primeval: New World – The Complete Series” comes with the following special features:
- Behind the Scenes – Episode 1 – (1:44) The making of the parachute scene.
- Behind the Scenes – Episode 2 – (1:51) Filming in West Coast British of Columbia.
- Behind the Scenes – Episode 3 – (2:28) Stunt coordination in “Primeval: New World” episode 3.
- Behind the Scenes – Episode 4 – (2:22) Production of the Grow Op.
- Behind the Scenes – Episode 5 – (2:02) Actors talk about fighting and acting with something that is not there in reality but added in post-production.
- Behind the Scenes – Episode 6 – (2:14) Director Amanda Tapping discusses the episode 6.
- Behind the Scenes – Episode 7 – (1:38) Shooting the series in the mountains.
- Behind the Scenes – Episode 8 – (2:34) The revelation episode and interview with Danny Rahim.
- Behind the Scenes – Episode 9 – (2:28) Shooting episode 9 in North Vancouver at a skate park.
- Behind the Scenes – Episode 10 – (2:42) Shooting the hockey rink scenes.
- Meet the Cast – (5:59) Cast and crew discuss working on “Primeval: New World”.
- Inside the Tank – (1:19) Visiting the set of Cross Photonics.
Watching the first and only season of “Primeval: New World”, I can say that I did enjoy the series and its season finale did make me want to see more.
But the more I thought about the series and how events played out, there were situations that were very cool to see and others that were just ridiculous. So, lets start with the things I didn’t like about “Primeval: New World”. Part of the problem that I had with the series is the concept of blaming the deaths of people due to a bear.
You have dinosaurs that savagely kill humans and there is so many times that a corporation can get the “get out of jail” card, so many times. Especially with temporal anomalies showing up, it’s quite obvious that humans must have had contact with this beings much more and that there are others who have seen these anomalies or that more of these prehistoric creatures have escaped to the real world.
The idea that so many of the anomalies were found near Cross Photonics made the series a bit hard to believe. Why only in Canada or Britain. I would like to believe for the storyline that the anomalies are not just one region but it’s happening all over the place. That the beliefs that Evan has towards killing a species and altering time would become a worldwide discussion than one man’s belief, which was revealed way too late in the storyline.
While I did enjoy the storyline for its standalone episodes, it would have been much better if there were infestations of dinosaurs coming into the real world all around the planet. Almost how alien invasions or zombie infestations are handled on television or film, growing infestations than having it limited to a certain region(s), just didn’t make the problem so big. And the fact that a staff of people handling this massive problem, especially those who are untrained and have to go out in battle, just didn’t seem right.
When the series started to utilize Toby (the computer hacker/builder) and the CFO in missions with firearms, right away, I just didn’t feel too good about the series and immediately, felt that Cross Photonics should have had it share of hunters and specialized force to handle beats of this magnitude. Not send out someone who never used firearms to be part of the search and capture party. While the concept may have worked on a series such as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel”, of humans taking on vampires, against huge dinosaurs, it didn’t make sense. Granted, the writers made it work for the series but it was a bit too farfetched.
So, what did I like? I did enjoy the concept of dinosaurs coming into present-time U.S. through the temporal anomaly. Some of the missions were enjoyable to watch and the episodes featuring major tragedies were also fascinating and very entertaining.
I enjoyed the character of Dylan Weir and the chemistry she and Evan had throughout the series. Strong independent female character and it added to the series, a character that would balance out Evan’s character, because he is too flawed. It’s one thing to make the man the owner of a major corporation, a man who is on a mission to capture these prehistoric creatures and send them back and not mess with time. But is he that selfish that he couldn’t hire trained people or develop a special force than use his team that are not well-equipped to handle dinosaurs that he puts them out as fodder. I had a big problem with that and really had a problem of seeing people of his team becoming part of the mission and had to be armed.
The character of Mac Rendell was well-developed, a flirtatious expert in firearms and Toby Nance was also a fascinating character. And both were fun too watch whenever they were seen together.
And the character of Angelika, it seemed as if they were trying to have a Tony Stark and Pepper type of relationship, with Angelika concerned about Evan and the company but the writers then trying to find out how they can make her character go from office worker to holding major weaponry. The character of Angelika as concerned friend and confidant and the person running the business was good to have, having her on mission didn’t seem right at all.
I enjoyed the series when it utilized various regions of Canada and showcase the beauty of natural environments such as in the mountains or some beautiful region, was well-planned. Having creatures show up at a college campus where only one person sees the creature and hundreds don’t, just didn’t seem right.
And last, the season finale was awesome but yet again, a feeling of disappointment that there is no furthering of the storyline because the series was canceled. All these issues or problems I have mentioned, many series have their problems during the first season and some are able to fix the problems by the second season. Unfortunately, “Primeval: New World” will never get that chance and that is unfortunate. Because this series did have potential if the series creators and writers were able to tweak the series if they were given a second season.
As for the Blu-ray release, “Primeval: New World – The Complete Series” looks great on Blu-ray. Outdoor scenes are vibrant, the series is well-detailed during close-up scenes and there is good use of lossless audio as well. Special features were a bit limiting but for the most part, the series looked and sounds great!
Overall, “Primeval: New World – The Complete Series” is a series with a cool concept but its execution was at times good and at times, a bit ridiculous. While I enjoyed the characters, I just felt the storyline made it too limiting with its few characters and it led to more problems of its storyline which often wasn’t consistent. But by no means is this a bad series, in fact, I did enjoy “Primeval: New World” and its potential. But unfortunately, due to the series cancellation, it’s another sci-fi series that we will never know of its true potential.
For those who enjoyed the series on television, I recommend “Primeval: New World – The Complete Series” as it looks and sounds amazing on Blu-ray!
