Miss Marple: They Do It With Mirrors

Miss Marple and PBS's run of six Agatha Christie adaptations concluded this Sunday on Masterpiece Mystery, and due to a variety of reasons I am once again, way behind in blogging. :P They Do It With Mirrors was the third entry in this series, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Here's the story summary from the PBS website:

Glamorous Ruth Van Rydock (Joan Collins) is convinced her sister Carrie Louise is in danger, and confesses her suspicion to Miss Marple over tea. Carrie Louise, a quirky philanthropist with a string of ex-husbands, runs a correctional facility for young men on her estate. Miss Marple arrives to make some gentle inquiries and finds chilling danger lurking surprisingly close to home. When murder is the real-life plot twist during an amateur theater rehearsal on the estate, Miss Marple has to separate theatrical tricks from reality in an attempt to save Carrie Louise from the dire final act that awaits her.

Of the three episodes shown so far in this series, this one is by far the best showcase for Julia McKenzie's take on the role of Miss Marple. She's prominently featured throughout the film, and it's this performance that's finally, fully won me over into the ranks of McKenzie-Marple fans. Here McKenzie manages to be sharp and intuitive all while coming across as extremely warm and personable. Very well done. :)

The "stunt" casting is pretty spectacular for one hour and a half program. Let's start with the Rydock sisters, the flashy Ruth (Joan Collins) and the shy, universally loved Carrie Louise (Penelope Wilton). I haven't finished reading the novel yet (which is an actual Marple story BTW), but I can tell you that Joan Collins was pitch-perfect casting for the role of Ruth. It's uncanny. Penelope Wilton is a veteran of several of my favorite British programs and films. She played Mrs. Hamley in Wives and Daughters (a role quite similar to Carrie Louise), Mrs. Gardiner in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice, and Harriet Jones, former British Prime Minister, in Doctor Who. Carrie's husband is played by Brian Cox, most recently seen in the FREAKING FANTASTIC series Kings as Silas's prisoner, King Vesper. I will have to do a write up on that show when the DVDs come out in September - it was a wonderful drama that really deserved a second season renewal (if renewals were based on quality merits anyway).

Carrie's daughters are played by Emma Griffiths Malin (Gina), who starred opposite JJ Feild in the Poirot mystery Death On the Nile, and Sarah Smart (Mildred), who was also a Poirot alum. She appeared in the mess that was Mrs. McGinty's Dead a few weeks ago, as well as the AMAZING Wallander, where she played Anne-Britt Hoglund, a member of Wallander's team. To round out the household we have Tom Payne appearing as Edgar Lawson - he was also seen in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day as the producer Phil Goldman and the most recent version of Wuthering Heights as Heathcliff's son Linton. Maxine Peake plays Jolly Bellever, Carrie's friend and housekeeper, and also a Little Dorrit alum. It was so very, very weird seeing her play a "good" character after she made such an impression as the wicked Miss Wade. Oh - thought not a member of the household, I have to mention Alex Jennings's portrayal of Inspector Curry. So far from my reading of the book he's nailed the character. Jennings may look familiar to fans of Cranford, where he played the Reverend Hutton.

My favorite bit of casting deserves its own paragraph. :) Elliot Cowan plays Gina's husband Wally, and AMERICAN, and I have to say this Brit pulls off the role of former American G.I. quite well. I absolutely fell in love with Cowan when I saw Lost in Austen, where he put his own unique stamp on the role of Mr. Darcy (the man broods quite nicely, just have to point that out). Cowan's also appeared in episodes of Foyle's War, Poirot, and the first (and best) Sally Lockhart mystery, The Ruby in the Smoke. The man's got a rather uncanny ability for disappearing in roles, all the more unique I think because he's really got rather striking features IMO. I had to do a double take when he first appeared on-screen (thank goodness for pausing & rewinding live TV, HA!), because it was so hard to wrap my head around his appearance as a blonde American. Love, loved the fact that he got a great kissing scene at the end of this episode. :)

This film is a great example of the Marple series at its best, and an excellent showcase of all the reasons I love the program - great cozy mystery feel and TONS of wonderful guest stars. The story takes a bit of attention to follow - it's one of Christie's more convoluted plots IMO. I think it's a bit easier to keep track of how everyone is related to everyone else in the novel - a bit hard to follow on-screen, especially since some roles are compressed or omitted for the sake of time. My review of the book and the book vs. film comparison will follow shortly!

Primeval 3.10

Spoilers...

Well, the fabulousness that is (was - SOB!) the show Primeval came to an end tonight. As a season finale, I thought it worked spectacularly well. As a series finale, however - it was bloody awful. :-( This episode showcased so many of the elements that made this show so much fun, and showcased all of the growth the cast and storylines had accomplished over the course of the previous 9 episodes. It's CRIMINAL that the network axed Primeval without giving the showrunners the opportunity to give it something remotely resembling closure. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad for the 23 episodes we got, but the show deserved a proper send-off.

The team was on fire this episode. Danny (Jason Flemyng) has strangely shown more interest in stopping Helen (Juliet Aubrey), than Cutter - her freaking ex - ever did. Cutter was always more interested in stopping her on some sort of academic plane, I suppose, but what I like about Danny is that he just wanted to get it done. Boots on the ground, guns, tenacity, whatever it took he was going to do it to stop her. It would've been nice to see a bit of that fire in Cutter, but oh well that was not to be.

So Danny decides to follow Helen into the future anomaly, taking Connor (Andrew Lee Potts) and Abby (Hannah Spearritt) with him for backup. Those two have never worked so well as they have under Danny's leadership. Before taking off there was an interesting moment in the warehouse with Sarah (Laila Rouass) and Becker (Ben Mansfield). Sarah's ready to go with them - in fact she seems afraid not to - but Danny orders her to stay with Becker, assuring her that he (I mean they) will be back. So the hopeless romantic in me can't help but wonder, would a hypothetical series 4 have led to a Sarah-Danny romance or a Sarah-Becker romance? Becker's definitely not one to put himself out there at this point, but he seemed to take an unusual interest in hanging out with Sarah this episode, I'm just sayin'. Example: going to Christine's anomaly center with no backup? Very out of character soldier boy. ;-) However, I have got to say that hanging out with Becker one-on-one and bonding while fighting off giant flying wasp thingys really brought out the best in Sarah. This may very well have been her best episode yet - showing off the triple threat of smarts, compassion, and butt-kicking, all in one hour.

I was really glad that only Connor and Abby went Helen hunting with Danny through the anomalies. They all get to be Macgyver-y when they restart Helen's (very cool touch-screen) computer. Connor got to show off his dinosaur knowledge and mad computer skills, and still got to be silly Connor when he talks himself into falling out of the tree during the stun grenade scene. This opened the door to some very nice Connor-Abby moments at the end of the episode (seriously I cannot lie, at the very end when they're all up in a tree I couldn't help going "Connor and Abby, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G"...that has got to be some new personal low, HA!!). While there are a TON of unanswered questions, I am so happy that I got to see some measure of closure to the Connor and Abby romance question.

After episode 6 aired, my friend Kaye and I were discussing the show and she made some reference to Danny's James Bond-like qualities (very true BTW). I love the fact that Danny's like James Bond in plaid flannel shirts. LOL! When he takes off after Helen, that was the kind of action I always wanted to see Connor take - but honestly that probably wouldn't have been half as satisfying show-wise. Connor would've probably let Helen talk him into something stupid. *rolls eyes* So Danny got to show off his James Bond qualities, along with a healthy dash of young Charlton Heston (seriously doesn't Flemyng look a bit like Heston?), as he gets to go chasing Helen through Planet of the Apes-land.

Helen is an excellent example of the true believer psycho who is so far gone she's completely stupid. So she kills a couple of the poor ape people, and then she gets crushed by a raptor that got through the anomaly because she lost her stupid glass anomaly closing device. Hoisted on her own petard, to bring Shakespeare into the discussion. ;-) Very sweet way to have her go...and the icing on the cake was when Danny finds twice as many ape people as Helen just poisoned, still alive and doing whatever it is ape people do.

With Helen out of the way it would've been fascinating to see where the show would've gone villain-wise. Would a past incarnation of Helen have come out of the woodwork, or more government craziness? The possibilities were endless. Really, you could've spent a whole series exploring 1) Danny becoming king of the ape men, 2) Abby and Connor going all Swiss Family Robinson and making their home in a tree to avoid being eaten by raptors, and 3) Sarah going all Cutter-like and figuring out how to get the three of them home. Because she was on fire by the end of this episode, and I think her character might've started to get really interesting by a (sadly hypothetical) series 4. Oh, and another thing - 4) Becker dating Sarah or something (because in one of the funniest moments of the series, when Danny loses Becker's gun to a future predator, Connor comments how that won't go over well, and they decide they have to get the guy a girlfriend...hilarious!!) and in general being fabulous because he will not lose three teammates to anomalies, because that's just not done. :-)

Good-bye, Primeval team...thanks for the memories and all that. You deserved so much more (stupid, stupid, STUPID ITV network!).

The Enclave by Karen Hancock

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
The Enclave
Bethany House (August 1, 2009)
by
Karen Hancock


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Karen Hancock has won Christy Awards for each of her first four novels--Arena and the first three books in the Legends of the Guardian-King series, The Light of Eidon, The Shadow Within, and Shadow over Kiriath. She graduated from the University of Arizona with bachelor's degrees in biology and wildlife biology. Along with writing, she is a semi-professional watercolorist and has exhibited her work in a number of national juried shows. She and her family reside in Arizona.


ABOUT THE BOOK

When Lacey McHenry accepts a prestigious research fellowship at the world-renowned Kendell-Jakes Longevity Institute, she sees it as a new start on life. But a disturbing late-night encounter with an intruder leads to an unexpected cover-up by Institute authorities, and she soon realizes there's more going on than she ever imagined.

She finds a supporter in genetics researcher Cameron Reinhardt. However, Reinhardt is a favorite of the Institute's director, and she can't help wondering if he, too, is in on the cover-up. The brilliant but absentminded researcher turns out to have his own secrets, some of them dark and deadly. The Enclave is characterized by adventure, intrigue, spiritual analogy, and romance, all set in an unusual but fully realized world--one that may have its foundations on earth but which, the more one learns of it, doesn't seem much like the earth we know at all.

If you'd like to read the first chapter of The Enclave, go HERE

Summer of Hitchcock: Spellbound

This week's entry in My Friend Amy's Summer of Hitchcock film festival is the 1945 psychological thriller Spellbound, starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. It's been several years since I've made time to watch this film, so I feel like I was able to approach it with fairly fresh perspective this time around. Spellbound was meant to capitalize on the public's newfound fascination with psychoanalysis, a fact the filmmakers make abundantly clear by a proclamation on the screen before the film even starts, extolling the virtues of psychoanalysis in healing the disturbances of sane minds.

A bit about the story...

Ingrid Bergman plays Dr. Constance Peterson, who works at a mental hospital called Green Manors. (Seriously, why do asylums in movies always have words like "green" or "manors" in their names? It cracks me up...) She is completely devoted to her work, until the new head doctor, Anthony Edwardes, arrives - played by a positively yummy Gregory Peck in only his fourth film role. The two are, of course, instantly attracted to each other - you can almost see the sparks fly when they first meet - and wonder of wonders, Constance the ice queen begins to thaw. But Dr. Edwardes' strange behavior jeopardizes Constance's newfound romance he has this strange, almost violent aversion to parallel lines, and then a breakdown in the hospital operating room follows, raising the suspicions of the entire staff. Edwardes is not who he claims to be, and Constance must use all of her skill to discover whether or not he's a victim or - perish the thought! - the perpetrator of the crime that's tormenting his mind.

I don't think Spellbound has stood the test fo time quite as well as some of Hitchcock's other efforts (such as Rear Window). Admittedly I am the last person who could accurately judge the psychology as its presented on-screen, but I'll go out on a limb here and say the methods come off as a little dated. Plus there's the rather bipolar style of the film. On one hand you have scenes (such as when Constance and Edwardes ditch work and go for a picnic lunch) that are filmed in a highly romanticized style, very much like "women's pictures" of the time period (think Dark Victory or Now, Voyager), with soft focus lenswork and swelling, romantic music. Miklos Rozsa's score is undeniably beautiful, but more often than not it feels out of place and distracting within this film. And then you have the sharp, tense clarity of the Salvador Dali-designed dream sequence. I've never been one to gravitate towards surrealist art, but the sequences are undeniably striking, particularly in how they treatment of those scenes differs from the rest of the picture.

All that aside, the main reason I still enjoy this film is Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman's off-the-charts chemistry. As Tasha points out in her review of Spellbound, it's a surprisingly sexy movie, especially considering it was made over 60 years ago! Maybe it was the Freudian references that let the double entendres get by the censors, LOL! ;-) One of my favorite scenes is when Constance visits Anthony's rooms in the middle of the freaking night, wakes him up and makes some lame excuse about wanting to read his book on the guilt complex. Then they kiss - and really, it's a great screen kiss - but Hitchcock had to cut away to a scene of all the "locked doors" in Constance's mind blowing wide open. That scene cracks me up every time I see it, it's so delightfully random by today's standards. Any cheesiness aside, I just love watching Bergman and Peck together on-screen. Peck still had a real boyish charm to his good looks that would only become more rugged and defined over time, and Bergman positively glows - the camera just loves her here. Some of their scenes together are still a bit swoon-worthy. :)

The Spellbound DVD is chock-full of interesting special features that (since I bothered to watch them, HA!!) really enhanced my appreciation of the film. "Dreaming with Scissors: Hitchcock, Surrealism, and Salvador Dali" delves into the making of the dream sequence (for example, the original sequence was about 20 minutes long, but was deemed "too disturbing" for the final cut), and the touches on some of the trouble Hitchcock had with producer David Selznick of over this project. The "Guilt By Association: Psychoanalyzing Spellbound" featurette gives some really interesting context to this project in terms of just how ground breaking the subject matter was back in 1945. Widespread public interest in psychoanalysis stemmed from (at least in part) soldiers returning from war with post-traumatic stress disorder (as its now known) and how they were treated. Fascinating stuff! There's also a short featurette on Rhonda Fleming ("A Cinderella Story"), giving her perspective on the film and her start in Hollywood (Spellbound was her first credited role). I rolled with laughter when she talked about being assigned the part of the nymphomaniac patient seen at the beginning of the film - only since she & her mother didn't know what a nymphomaniac was, they had to look it up. Her mother was relieved to discover that the studio wasn't typecasting her daughter (LOL!!). ;-)

While Spellbound may be a bit dated, especially when compared to some of Hitchcock's other films, it's still worthy viewing - particularly as a document of the time, and first and foremost for Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman's fantastic love story. :)

Review: Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie

Murder Is Easy

By: Agatha Christie

Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur

ISBN: 978-0-312-97982-9

About the book:

It was just Luke Fitzwilliam's luck to be stuck next to a dotty old woman like Miss Fullerton on the London-bound train - although he found himself quite entertained with her tall tales about a series of perfect murders in the quaint village of Wychwood. But when he reads the next day of the freak accident that killed her, too, Fitzwilliam's amusement turns to grave concern. A visit to the isolated village confirms his worst fears. For Wychwood seems to be divided by an eccentric lot of locals: those who are in on a dark and dangerous secret - and those who don't live long enough to share it.

Review:

In many ways Murder Is Easy reminded me of one of my favorite Christie novels, the Miss Marple outing The Moving Finger. Both books draw back the curtain on seemingly tranquil, "ideal," English village life where everyone has secrets and no one is as they seem. Luke Fitzwilliam, newly retired from overseas police work, has a chance encounter with the eccentric Miss Fullerton on the London train. She tells him a fantastic tale of a murderer running loose in her village, knocking off people left and right - really too incredible to be believed. Or so Luke thinks, until he gets the news that his elderly informant was killed in a freak accident on the way to report her findings to Scotland Yard. He hatches a plan to pose as a friend's cousin writing a book on local customs, and goes to stay with his cousin Bridget, who turns out to be a stunning beauty engaged to the local bigwhig, Lord Easterfield. Not knowing who to trust, Luke joins forces with Bridget - but the murderer could be craftier than they think...

Most of my Agatha Christie reading has been confined to the Poirot or Marple novels, so it's always a treat to discover one of her standalones that delivers a good corker of a mystery. The pacing is excellent, and the way Christie introduces the cast of suspects, only to dismiss each in turn, is supberbly handled. Being something of a hopeless romantic (LOL), I loved the romantic, but atypical subplot between Bridget and Luke. They sparred and fought like crazy, but couldn't help falling for each other. :) And the last few chapters, where the murderer is revealed, are absolutely un-put-downable. With this book Christie created one of her creepiest, most disturbing villains, proving the revenge is a frightening dish best served cold. For all the pros, I did think the dialogue is a bit "clunky" and just does flow as well as some other Christie efforts I've read. But that's a small quibble, and certainly shouldn't detract one from reading what is a thoroughly enjoyable puzzler from Dame Agatha Christie.

Book vs. Film:

The differences between the book and the recent film version of Murder Is Easy absolutely boggle my mind. I don't think I could even keep all of the changes straight to the point where I could list them and have them make even some sort of sense. The first change is, of course, the insertion of Miss Marple - what's shocking is that it's far from the most glaring change to the plot. Most of the townspeople are present, but their history and motivations are completely mixed up or changed wholesale. I think it's a real shame that the culprit's history and motives were completely rewritten for the screen. In the book, the murderer's motives are so creepy and disturbing as is, Christie didn't need to fabricate an incest/rape plot. The bottom line is, changes to Christie's novels typically don't bother me - when they make sense. But this film pretty much completely rewrote the novel from the ground up, and the filmmakers went for an ick factor rather than the psychologically disturbed, way more creepy, villain Christie created. I will give the filmmakers credit for building up the character of Constable Reed (Russell Tovey). The constable is only mentioned in the novel, never really introduced, and Tovey made the character a lot of fun to watch (not that I'm biased or anything, HA!). And while the filmmakers completely rewrote Bridget's character, the romantic tension between Bridget and Luke (Benedict Cumberbatch) is pretty true to the way the two characters are written in the novel. The bottom line, though, is that this film pales in comparison to the book.

Miss Marple: Murder Is Easy

Spoilers...

Considering a new Marple episode is on Masterpiece Mystery tonight, I know I'm really late in posting about last week's episode a week late. But I was left, quite honestly, slightly freaked by last week's episode (I couldn't get my head around the idea of Christie writing an incest/rape plot), and wanted to read the novel before I blogged about the film. So now that that's accomplished, on to a bit about the film from the PBS website (because trust me, the film and the book are two entirely different things!):

Miss Marple coincidentally meets a woman on the train who confides that she is on her way to Scotland Yard to report two murders. "Murder is easy," the woman says conspiratorially. "As long as no one thinks it is murder." When Pinkerton herself is found dead, Miss Marple travels to the quaint village of Wychwood to pick up the trail. The village is populated with any number of suspects — a beautiful, young American on some sort of mission, a successful politician and an ambitious lawyer. But even with the help of retired policeman Luke Fitzwilliam (Benedict Cumberbatch, The Last Enemy) will Miss Marple be able to unlock the secrets of this sleepy village?

In many ways this film resembles one of my favorite entries in the rebooted Miss Marple franchise - The Moving Finger. Both stories take place in what are, apparently, peaceful, tranquil little villages - the most unlikely locale for homicidal maniacs, right? Or not, as the case is proved here once again. To start with, I should say Murder Is Easy isn't actually a Miss Marple book. Before I'd even read the novel this week, it was easy to spot that Miss Marple co-opted at least half of the role of Luke Fitzwilliam (Benedict Cumberbatch). Miss Marple has been quite successfully inserted into non-Marple books in other episodes of this series (particularly By the Pricking of My Thumbs, which is a Tommy & Tuppence novel). I'm all for inserting Miss Marple into non-Marple books, since those are rarely, if ever, filmed. And, at least to date, they remain fairly faithful adaptations of the original stories in basic essentials in spite of the new investigative presence. So, let's start off by talking about the "stunt" casting in this episode. :)

First up we have the aforementioned Benedict Cumberbatch (Amazing Grace, Atonement) as Luke, recently returned from policework overseas, and attempting to recalibrate to English life. As the main character in the novel, in order to "make room" for Miss Marple he loses half of his role. Luke's character isn't as compelling as I would've liked to see, given that I think Cumberbatch is a fantastic actor, but I did enjoy the scenes where he got to play off Julia McKenzie's Marple. Which brings me to my second favorite piece of casting - Russell Tovey (Little Dorrit) as Reed, the local constable. Tovey does a terrific job of playing Reed with the right balance of go-get-'em smarts and uncertainty at being caught way out of his depth investigatively. My favorite scene in the film is, I think, the sequence where Reed interviews several townspeople, and it turns out that Miss Marple is listening in from the next room, coaching him along with the occasional note. Tovey and McKenzie played off each other really well here, and were a lot of fun to watch.

It was great to see Anna Chancellor in a new project. Anyone familiar with the "Colin Firth" Pride and Prejudice will recognize her as the one and only Miss Caroline Bingley. She plays the doomed Lydia Horton, who "stole" the Major from Shirley Henderson's character, Honoria Waynflete. Hands down the creepiest bit of casting is Henderson (Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter films, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day). Henderson plays creepy and disturbing extraordinarily well. It's freakishly uncanny!! The woman is 44, apparently, but she looks a good 15 years younger than that at least, and her height (only 5'1/2") only reinforces her waif-like appearance. The idea of someone, who looks like Henderson, killing five people, just boggles the mind.

I ended up appreciating this film a bit more on the second viewing as a creepy show. The first time I watched it I went in expecting more of a creepy, cozy-style mystery, along the lines of The Moving Finger. You get that, of course, but then for reasons I've yet to figure out the filmmakers had to go for the low, salacious angle of having all of these crimes stem from the results of Honoria's mentally retarded brother getting drunk and raping her, resulting in a pregnancy which led to the randomly inserted American orphan angle, Bridget searching for her roots. (Speaking of Bridget, when she discovers her roots why is she not more...disturbed?! Just sayin'...) I'm not completely naive - I get that the 1950s weren't all Donna Reed, and a lot of crappy things happened then as happens today. But this movie seemed determined to show that veneer of gentility everything crappy and awful that could happen, did. I mean there's a fine (okay, sometimes it's a neon flashing sign, but whatever) line between a nicely mysterious, creepy story and outright distasteful. And I guess what I'm trying to say, is this show ended up more on the "eewww" distasteful end of the scale for me than not. Book vs. film comparison after my review of the novel, which will be in the next post.

The Philanthropist

So is anyone watching The Philanthropist on NBC? It hasn't exactly been appointment viewing with me, but I've enjoyed the four episodes that have aired thus far enough to keep my DVR set for a season pass record it. The #1 reason the show works is James Purefoy. The scripts can be a bit middling and/or contrived, but Purefoy's talent and attitude always seem to elevate the material and make it occasionally compelling viewing (for me, anyway).

What's to like about the show, besides the fabulousness that is James Purefoy you might ask? ;-) I luv the globe-trotting scope of the series. Four of the eight scheduled episodes have aired, and we've traveled to Nigeria, Myanmar, Paris, and back to Nigeria again. Purefoy's character, Teddy Rist, has delivered vaccine to a disaster-struck village, investigated government corruption, and broken up a sex-trafficking ring. I also love the soundtrack to the series, the world music used throughout the show. It is fantastic - gives the show a bit, just a bit, of a James Bond-esque globetrotting feel.

Back to the Teddy Rist character - he's a playboy in more ways than one. Loves money and women (was fun to see Lucy Brown, a.k.a. Claudia/Jenny from Primeval make an appearance in the Myanmar episode as a doctor doing humanitarian work) and is haunted by demons from his past, namely the death of his little boy a few years prior. He's not a wholly moral, upstanding hero with no faults - he definitely has his vices, but that makes him kind of real, know what I mean? Purefoy plays Rist a lot like Bruce Wayne, only without superpowers (or batwings). I think that's another reason I like the character - everything he does, he does under his own power, just using his ingenuity and bravado, a "superhero" who really puts his life on the line.

The only thing that annoys me about this show are the voiceovers. Each episode is always told in retrospect, so there are these little annoying voiceover interjections throughout the episodes. I don't really understand why the show can't take place in "real" time, but whatever. Not sure if this show is a candidate for getting picked up for a 2nd season, and honestly I'm not sure it would work well for very long. But I'd be willing to give it a shot - anything to give James Purefoy a chance to save the world every week, right? :)

Primeval 3.9

Spoilers...

I can not believe that this is the next-to-last episode of Primeval. There were several moments in this episode that were absolutely fantastic, starting with all of the "Do Not" do this and that signs that Lester (Ben Miller) put up all over his apartment to keep Connor (Andrew Lee Potts) from wrecking his pristine place. The "caution" tape keeping Connor's stuff crammed in a small area of the living room was the icing on the cake. HILARIOUS! I am telling you, there is a whole unexplored concept for a TV show in the whole Lester-Connor situation.

As I talked about in my write-up of episode 8, since the show is ending I am so freaking happy that Connor and Abby (Hannah Spearritt) at least hint at taking their relationship to the next level. This episode opened with some really cute awkward moments which I loved because Connor was so stinking cute but HATED because, you know, the show ends next week. Grrr!!

Danny (Jason Flemyng) got lots of nice solo time this week as he takes it upon himself to break into Christine's (Belinda Stuart Wilson) headquarters. As much as I loved Cutter, Danny has, I think, surpassed him as my favorite ARC team leader. He and Cutter are both rather loose cannons, but Danny's just funnier and more sarcastic, know what I mean?

So while Danny is tied up with Christine and the mystery woman, Connor, Abby, Sarah (Laila Rouass), and Becker (Ben Mansfield) get called to this week's anomaly where rhino-like creatures were wreaking havoc around a campsite. While I didn't think Becker got a chance to really shine this week (boo!), I thought Sarah got a chance to show some real gumption in the field which was nice to see. And it was too funny when Abby goes to rescue the guy who was out there for his stag party, and he asks her if she's the stripper. The look on her face was just priceless!! And I loved how Becker and Sarah needled her about it, that was cute.

The set up for next week...so the mystery woman is Helen (Juliet Aubrey). And as much as I hate Helen, and she's probably in my top 10, maybe top 5 most hated television villains of all itme, I LOVED the fact that she's the one who gave Christine her comeuppance. Christine was so freaking annoying this series. Helen's turned out to be a really interesting character. I used to think she was just power mad, but this episode hints at just how insane she's become. Apparently she doesn't want to be some sort of world dictator with unlimited riches, and she doesn't have an altruistic bone in her body when it comes to saving people. Helen's completely jumped the shark into the waters of insanity...and there is no negotiating with her type of true believer.

If the trend holds, next week will be fantastic television and horribly depressing because we're probably not going to get any closure thanks to ITV's insane decision not to renew Primeval. Off to bang my head against the wall... ;-)