The third series of the British science fiction programme Primeval began on 28 March 2009 and concluded on 6 June 2009 after airing ten episodes. Primeval follows a team of scientists tasked with investigating the appearance of temporal anomalies across the United Kingdom through which prehistoric and futuristic creatures enter the present. The third series featured dramatic changes to the main cast, seeing the departure of lead actors Douglas Henshall, Lucy Brown and Juliet Aubrey and the introduction of several new lead characters, played by Jason Flemyng, Laila Rouass and Ben Mansfield.
During the production of the third series, the production team saw it as the most ambitious series of Primeval yet, owing to its greater length (the first and second series being six and seven episodes, respectively), its changes and surprises, and its more concentrated effort to have the featured creatures to be unique from what had been shown before and to serve story functions. The departure of Douglas Henshall, who played the main character Nick Cutter, forced extensive revisions to the intended storyline which left several plot threads ultimately unresolved. The visual effects of the third series were improved over the two preceding series owing to new techniques and technologies, as well as the effects team being granted more production time.
During its initial broadcast, the third series was accompanied with extensive online integration, including the online game Primeval Evolved wherein players could become active participants in the storyline. The series was watched by an average of around five million viewers, down from the over six million of the previous series but still considered a success. Critical reception of the third series was highly positive, with critics praising its more extensive characterisation, that the actions of characters had repercussions, and its greater focus on tension and suspense. Several reviewers considered the third series to be the strongest of Primeval yet and some favourably compared it to the Jon Pertwee era of Doctor Who (1970–1974) on the basis of the suspenseful storylines and new team dynamic. Despite its success, Primeval was cancelled shortly after the broadcast of the third series for financial reasons, though it would ultimately be revived a few months later with a fourth series being broadcast in 2011.
Episodes
Cast
Main cast
Guest cast Appearing in more than one episode
Single-episode appearances
Production
Development and writing
The storyline of the third series of Primeval was deeply influenced by the decision of the lead actor Douglas Henshall to leave the show. Though Henshall felt that the first series was exciting, he felt that Primeval had become more standard and a "little simplified in its ambitions" in the second series and "more of a monster-of-the-week type thing". Series co-creator Adrian Hodges had intended for Nick Cutter to have had an arc stretching throughout the third series, terminating in the final episode leaving Nick Cutter stranded in the past with his wife. Henshall's early departure from the third series meant that Cutter's intended arc and the end of his storyline in the series 3 finale had to be nearly entirely scrapped and rewritten. Though Hodges was disappointed that Henshall left the series, he also saw it as an interesting opportunity; Cutter's death in the third episode was never intended to be written but Hodges was still very proud of the episode. Nick Cutter's death was envisioned as an alternate fitting end to his and Helen Cutter's arcs and as something unexpected yet realistic and credible.
The departure of Henshall also impacted other plotlines. The third series would also have more deeply explored who Jenny Lewis was and how she had replaced Claudia Brown. It was intended to reveal that Jenny Lewis was Claudia Brown, just "evolved in a different way", and that this had happened to several people across the world. Furthermore, small timeline alterations would have slightly altered the course of evolution, causing several prehistoric animals to develop slightly differently. The storyline would have seen Cutter realise the small differences and go to change things back. Though Hodges was happy with the idea and Brown was also receptive, Henshall's departure meant that it was impossible to realise. The Claudia Brown/Jenny Lewis plotline was never fully resolved in Primeval.
Henshall was replaced as lead actor by Jason Flemyng, who played the new character Danny Quinn. The production team wished to replace Nick Cutter with a leading man who was very different; whereas Nick Cutter was an academic and driven loner who only thawed somewhat in the company of his team, Danny Quinn was a policeman with little to no expertise on prehistoric animals but a natural leader and good at making decisions and seeing the big picture. According to Hodges, whereas Henshall had "patented a kind of passionate intensity", Flemyng was "naturally very warm and outgoing", which they wanted to reflect in his character. Hodges also stated that whereas Cutter was more of a "stern patriarch", Quinn was a "firm but fair big brother".
The third series is ten episodes long, greater than both the first (six episodes) and second (seven episodes) series. The greater length was used to go off in more different directions, including playing into the idea that some mythological creatures could be the result of prehistoric animals stepping through anomalies. The choice to do ten episodes also meant that it was possible to not go through as much material as quickly as in previous series and that it was possible to create two- or three-episode stories rather than central stories throughout the series or self-contained episodes. At the time of production, Hodges considered the third series to be the most ambitious series of Primeval yet, particularly on account of its changes and surprises.
Further new characters were introduced in the third series, partly since an altered team balance was believed to be able to help keep the series refreshing. Sarah Page, played by Laila Rouass, was brought into the third series mainly as a replacement of Stephen Hart (played by James Murray in the first and second series). Page's line of work as an egyptologist was written to fit in with the theme of prehistoric creatures inspiring mythologies. Another new protagonist was the military figure Captain Hilary Becker (played by Ben Mansfield). Primeval had a key military figure in the first series, Tom Ryan (played by Mark Wakeling), put lacked one in the second series due to the producers not wanting to replace Wakeling instantly and due to a wish to see if the series could work without too much military intervention. As the series went on, the production team felt that a lack up back-up made no sense in the context of the programme, especially considering that the main team was a quasi-government organisation. The third series also introduced Christine Johnson (played by Belinda Stewart-Wilson) as the head of a rival government department to the one run by James Lester (played by Ben Miller, Steward-Wilson's husband at the time); the idea of the character was that there is rivalry between different government departments in the real world and that the production team wanted to see Lester in new and different situations where he would not be as sure of himself as in previous series.
Creatures
The choice of which creatures to portray in Primeval was made during the pre-production phase of each series. By the third series, finding creatures that were sufficiently unique and different from what had previously been used in the programme was beginning to present a problem. For the third series there was also a more concentrated effort to make the creatures have a story function and a function for the relationships to and between the characters.Genesis of a Creature (featurette on the Primeval series 3 DVD) As a result, the third series saw a mixture of more novel creatures. Herbivores were rarely used in earlier series due to not presenting as many opportunities of being dangerous to the characters but the ninth episode featured a herd of Embolotherium, not particularly dangerous animals in of themselves but presenting a danger due to their large size and moving around in a herd. The fourth episode featured Giganotosaurus, one of the largest creatures to ever feature in Primeval, and the fifth episode introduced a species of future fungus different from anything that had previously appeared in the series. Another new addition was the "Camouflage Beast", a future creature capable of blending into any surface, which appears in the haunted house-horror inspired second episode.
In 2008, the producers launched a competition for fans of the show to design their own creature for Primeval. The competition ran from 30 January to 7 April and the winning entry was the "Megopteran", a future carnivorous giant insect designed by then sixteen-year-old Carim Nahaboo. Nahaboo's design was picked from the over 5000 submitted entries by the executive producer Tim Haines and other members of the production team. Nahaboo mainly based his design on a mantis. The design was altered only slightly for Primeval, being given greater wings and shorter, stabbing forelimbs. Nahaboo was happy with the final design, liking the altered limbs and noting that it was still very much the same creature. The Megopterans first appeared in the eighth episode of the third series and also reappeared in the tenth episode. Nahaboo was given a tour of both the Framestore office (Framestore being the company responsible for the visual effects of the series) and the set during the filming of the eighth episode, and met with directors, producers, artists and the actors.
Visual effects Framestore began working on effects for the third series in April 2008, with a pre-production period a month longer than during previous series Though Primeval only ever had a fraction of the budget of theatrical films with similar scopes, Framestore were for the third series able to make use of techniques learnt and resources gathered during the work of some employees on bigger budget theatrical film projects. The process of creating the effects for the third series was also more streamlined, owing to experience gained from the work on the first and second series, and the Framestore effects team had greater input in the series, being involved very early in the scripting stage and as a consequence were able to offer advice on what was achievable and what was not. A new method for creating the creature models was used during the production of the third series; instead of making physical models which were then scanned in, the team tried out a method in which the concept work for the creatures was done in-house at Framestore. This creative process not only intended to speed up the process but also circumvent previous issues when some models at times had been impossible to animate convincingly.
Initially, Framestore signed on to produce 720 visual effects shots for the third series but the company ended up contributing around 100–1000 shots per episode, out of which around 600 were effects for the different creatures. In addition to creature shots, visual effects were also used for some vehicles (including a plane and a helicopter), the anomalies, and some environments (including a post-apocalyptic future city). Framestore made use of several new technologies for the third series, including a dynamic system to fluff up feathers and fur originally developed for the film The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008), 3D motion blur, custom shaders for all the creatures and a newer version of the 3D rendering application Mental Ray.
Filming