aelfgyfu_mead | Primeval 2.7: Thanks for the Memories (AKA I Prefer to Remember s1, Thanks)

Couldn't quite manage to post this yesterday:

Well, now you know! I feel like Olive after...well, that would spoil another show, and I won't do that.

I knew Stephen was going to die.--Raise your hand if you guessed the spoiler! BH came home the night I found the spoiler online, and I said, "I saw a spoiler for Primeval andit'snotuntiltheendoftheseason but canItellyou...." He sighed. "Who dies? Stephen?" So apparently it was obvious, at least to him.--Other than that, I knew virtually nothing, except that I saw one person say it was Nick's fault (huh? That's still a big huh? for me), and I know some s3 casting spoilers.

See also Mabi's post for other complaints; I'm not overlapping much.

I expected Stephen to find redemption. The fracking writers couldn't even give me that much satisfaction. That wasn't redemption! BH said, "He has finally figured out that he's too stupid to live." He died to save Nick, plain and simple. It wasn't so much to make up for anything he'd done, or even to save the world. Nick was about to do it, and he did it so Nick wouldn't die (paying him back for decking him on the way--nice touch). I'm not a slasher. I don't have to take this as slash (but y'all are welcome to take it however you want); I have friends I love too. I can get some small measure of satisfaction from Stephen's refusal to let Nick die, and from Nick's belated realization that Stephen means a heck of a lot more to him than Helen, and he doesn't want Stephen to die either, and there's absolutely nothing he can do.

So Teh Boyz get values clarification: they both realize they care more about each other than they do about Helen, and, really, than they do about much of anything or anyone else. Their mistakes are still smaller than their love for one another.

A bit late on the realization, don't you think? I want to give the writers some clarification! With the Clue Sword!

The writers are not only stupid, they are gutless. They think killing a character heightens the tension, reminds us people can die--Adrian Hodges said as much, so I'm not putting words in their mouth. But they didn't have the stomach to write it so that we'd care, so that we'd cry for Stephen, and for Nick and the others for losing him. I've cried for characters before, but mostly for the survivors (avert your eyes if you don't want Stargate spoilers!): Janet, Carson, even Daniel (I started in s7 so he was back before he died; I cried for Jack and Sam and Teal'c and General Hammond).

I didn't cry for Stephen. I didn't cry for Nick, or Connor, or Abby. I have anger aplenty, however.

Stephen was not even a coherent character for the final episode; the writers had so distanced themselves from him that he wasn't making sense. I was sure at the end of the previous episode his face showed that he didn't believe Helen when she told him she was seeing a reporter and he couldn't come (which leaves me wondering if the actor had any idea what was supposed to be happening from episode to episode, or if he, like Colin Baker in the "Trial of a Time Lord" season, was handed scripts and had any questions turned aside with, "Well, what do you think?"). When he answered Lester's call, I couldn't tell what Lester knew: did Nick even tell Lester he'd fired Stephen? (Verbally doesn't count in a lot of workplaces. There's mounds of paperwork.) Lester knew he was sulking, but I'm not sure if he knew what Stephen was sulking about! But then Stephen answers with what from Lester's point of view must be a total non sequitur (I'm not going back to the ep, so forgive me when I botch the quotes; feel free to correct): "All right, I trust you. But send anyone else, and I'm out of there." HUH? Why did Lester, easily the most intelligent person left in this season of errors, not ask, "What the h*ll do you mean, you trust me? Didn't that idiot Cutter tell you Leek's the traitor?" No, Lester just looks confused! I guess he's used to Stephen being stupid.

(By the way, if anything makes more sense in the uncut version before BBCA got hold of it and put commercials in, please tell me!)

Of course, from Stephen's point of view, it's even more of a non sequitur: Lester has said nothing to persuade him that he can trust him, just that people are dying. It makes far more sense for Stephen to say something like: "I don't trust you, but I'm not willing to let people die, so I'll do it only if you keep your men away from me."

Stephen then immediately believes Helen when she says Lester has killed the whole team and is looking to trap Stephen! Huh? Lester knew where you were, has sent no one after you, and you said you trusted him! Stephen, you idiot!

But would Cutter ever hire a man who's this much of an idiot in the first place? I have seen it mooted about that s2 Stephen is really considerably dumber than s1 because no one is quite the same (except Cutter, Helen, and apparently Connor). BH offers the possibility that s2 Stephen is truly desperately in love with Helen where we never saw that in s1. Even so....

Stephen's "but that doesn't make what you did right!" shouted at Cutter was also a complete "huh?" moment. Which bit? Firing you? No, you failed to show up with the Big Weapon when you were needed. While I wish Cutter hadn't done it, he wasn't wrong to fire you. Hitting you? Actually, I think you'd earned that one too. Not telling you about Leek? Well, there you have something, but you aren't really talking about that, because you still don't know about it, do you?

I couldn't feel sad to see Stephen go. I've been mourning s1 Stephen for at least three episodes already; I don't know who this look-alike is. Maybe Helen switched in a clone? No, wait--then he'd know more....

Nick was a far more coherent character, at least, which was a relief. BH said while Nick was on that cell floor that Nick knew they were bugged. Bout darned time Nick got his smarts back.

Wish Abby had had them. Even more than what they did to Stephen last night, the writers deserve to be put in a room with Future Predators for the stupid cat fight. Neither woman is that dumb. I was desperately hoping at any moment Abby and Caroline would both turn their self-defense lessons on Leek and his minions, but instead, they gave him a show. DO NOT WANT! And Abby is more concerned about getting Rex than getting out? Rex can FLY; he's safer than you are, kid.

And I'm supposed to believe that Jenny, Jenny of the two-days-in-a-ridiculous-engagement-party-dress (sorry,

hestia8, I know you like it), is a crack shot? Connor is a good enough hacker to put this incredible spyware package in place to be uploaded when the traitor contacts the mainframe, but apparently not good enough to realize his fake anomaly alert can be detected as fake? Oliver is good enough to hack in the first place and to know the anomaly alert is fake but has no protection against Connor's programming?

I want to rewrite the episode. Stephen isn't that stupid; I'll even give them the previous episode if Stephen tracks Helen and breaks into the warehouse(?) to help the others. I'll even handle Stephen throwing away the phone if he thinks Helen might be tracking him. But there's no way he believes Lester missed a great chance to kill him but has already killed the team, and Lester managed to capture Helen, but she can call Stephen and tell him exactly where she is. And she can guide him through a building full of predators.

(While I was composing this, I got a reply from

cordeliadelayneon one of her stories; she tells me that best as she and some other fans can work out, the writers meant to get rid of Stephen pretty much right away. ITV insisted they keep the actor for the season. That could explain a lot: the writers are stuck writing half a dozen or so extra episodes for a characters they just want to be rid of. Still: grow up, writers! Don't wreck the show because you're ticked you have to keep one person on!)

I do like that Nick was smart and saved them, but I don't like the cost of it. (And, did I mis-see that, or did Nick fry a keyboard but not the computer itself? That looked like Oliver could just swap out keyboards!)

We wanted Jenny to use her heels against the sabretooth. And why the heck did Abby move away from the group again? Self-sacrifice? I do appreciate that Jenny used the heel to drive the herbivore forwards, but you honestly expect me to believe the henchmen are too dumb and slow not to get trampled from an animal that Our Heroes are shuffling along behind?

On reflection, I think I don't want Helen to bring Stephen back. I'm afraid she's into cloning (that was a LOT of Cleaners), and a Stephen-clone bent to her will, or even a Stephen plucked safely from the past but persuaded that Helen is being persecuted and Lester and possibly Nick are enemies--I don't want to see either of those things. I'd happily settle for a Stephen who comes back by accident, or a Stephen who escaped (see links at the end). I don't want Helen having anything to do with Stephen.

I get that Stephen is pathologically loyal. He's desperate to believe in both Nick and Helen and working very hard to think that they both want to do the right thing. He knows Nick has kept things from him, but he still thinks Nick is good, and he's crushed when he thinks Nick is dead. He tries well beyond the point of reason to keep believing in both of them, and he leans too far to Helen--that's where it becomes unbelievable: He knows Nick has kept secrets, but he absolutely knows that Helen lies and that she wants to hurt him. She kept her affair secret from Nick (and how many people think Stephen was the only one with whom she had an affair? Thought so!), and she does her level best to hurt them both and destroy their friendship before she steps back into the anomaly at the end of s1. She never gives him any reason to believe that Lester is the enemy.

I did like that both Nick and Stephen immediately looked to Helen to go back in and close the door. She made this mess; she ought to have fixed it. They both realize that she won't. Nick does the noble thing, and Stephen does the more effective thing. I wanted more of this, writers!

I like that when Abby, Connor, and Claudia are in a room with the sabretooth, they stay in a bunch and insist on keeping Caroline with them and explaining why they're doing it. They even try to keep her calm. They could have let her be the first to go.

I like that Connor has finally gotten a gun--although I'm not sure when he was allowed a gun or given any training, because the last few episodes have had virtually no break between them.

I like that Lester is competent and not heartless, but not bargaining with Leek. He really doesn't want to see Nick die, but he looks, I think because it's a way of honoring Nick, whom he has come to respect--even if he's loath to admit it.

The second best part of the episode for me (thanks to BH for reminding me before I posted) came when Stephen walked away from the harpooned scorpion and turned his back on it to make his call to Lester. Of course it came down, and I went from, "It's behind you" to "STEPHEN, YOU IDIOT!" before twang! the scorpion snapped back because he'd tied off the other end of the line to a stanchion. Hart isn't good with people, but he is good with animals; I'd just gotten so used to him being an idiot....

The true high point of the episode for me was when Stephen walked dramatically onto the sand with his big harpoon gun--and Brilliant Husband began singing "Nimrod, the Mighty Hunter." That's a real song; BH took my look of incredulity to be incomprehension. Well, I didn't know there was a song, but I knew about Nimrod (Old Testament), and that he was a Mighty Hunter. If I figure out VoicePost, maybe we can play a short excerpt into the phone as an LJ post so you can hear it too. It was just such an amazing addition to the episode! I wish you could all have heard it right when I did! (It's Benjamin Britten, part of Rejoice in the Lamb.)

I'm really, really not happy overall with this season. I liked the first couple of episodes; with ep 3 it really went downhill. I still hope to get the s1-s2 set and rewatch the episodes I like, plus the DVD extras.

Most of all, I'm happy to have had such great friends to watch it with!

nialla42,

or_mabinogi,

lunachickk,

hestia8--I've had more fun discussing the episodes with you than watching some of them! I hope that's not damning you with faint praise! I've really had a lot of fun. Maybe we can even make s3 worth watching!

I was so going to title this entry "Operation This Cannot End Well" for you, Nialla, but then Stephen did not in fact come in with any kind of plan! I was right about the power to the cells being turned off, but it was Nick, with Connor's virus, who did it! In the immortal words of Jack O'Neill: "That's a bad plan!"

I do plan to tune in for at least the start of s3. Maybe now that they've worked out their problems, they can get one with a decent show. Hodges said he knew somebody had to die to make it real (hello? CGI dinosaurs? What exactly does "real" mean in your world? And Dashing Captain Ryan! We've already lost someone!), and he said he knew it would be Stephen as soon as he knew about the affair. Huh (again)? Are you writing this, or is this writing you? They've spent almost the whole season punishing Stephen for the affair--which they created in the dying moments of s1 (although there were clues earlier, I'll give them that). It's all about punishing the adulterer, is it? Then why is Helen not even really mourning? And I'll say it one last time: okay, Stephen's totally responsible for the last time he slept with her, but when he was a student and she his prof, she was way, way worse than he was. (The Evil Woman is so truly evil that she never really gets punished in some of these things. Ask me about Evil Women in Chaucer--well, Donegild gets hers.)

The writers also had to kill Stephen because he seemed bent on making the whole thing public, and they're too inept to write scenes in which he is persuaded it's better to keep it secret. The writers got to pretend they raised the issue of whether the public should know and that they treated it seriously, when they planned to kill the messenger all along. Heck, Stargate has done a better job with the secrecy issue!

End of rant for now, I think.

Discussion questions:
1. How should the writers die? I usually just shoot people with my rubberband gun, and even that metaphorically, but I'm thinking Future Predator. Might be too fast, though. How about raptor? The little ones, the ones that travel in herds and probably eat people more slowly.
2. Is Rex okay? (If he isn't, I'm really quitting this show.)
3. Did Helen drug people to make them stupid? That might explain why Stephen is most affected and Lester least, but no one gets off entirely scot-free.
4. Does anyone know why someone would blame Nick for Stephen's death? I basically chalk it all up to Helen and Oliver, with a dollop left for Stephen himself, because if he weren't such an idiot, maybe he and Nick could have put their heads together and averted the whole disaster. The amount of blame left for Nick fits in a tablespoon. (Okay, I'm not sure whether I've mixed two or three metaphors there. I'm sick, all right?) Really, I blame 100% on the writers.

Happy links!

primeval_denial, motto: "Where the bad things didn't happen." The Dashing Captain Ryan lives, some stories feature Claudia, and a lot of slash ensues. Okay, I've actually not read many of the stories because I'm not much of a slasher.

taricha's masterlist: I just read "Being Bait", a fix-it that only tweaks the very end of 2.07 but makes it work. It's slash but can almost be read gen if one squints (a lot). I suppose I'm the only one of you who needs to squint anyway. I'm into her in-progress "Stranded", which parts company with the series before the end of 2.05, leaving Nick and Stephen trapped in the past with the endlessly entertaining Taylor. I'm pretty sure it's going to be slashier than I want, but I'm reading anyway.

cordeliadelayne writes both gen and slash; masterlist here; Primeval masterlist here. I haven't read her slash (except "Visitors," crossover with Jurassic Park, very mild slash), but her gen "Reunion" and its sequel (link at the end of "Reunion") totally hit the spot as far as a fix--both, as I've told her, in the sense of a fix for my addiction, and as a fix-it to the ending of last night's ep.

I'm tempted to write some AU myself, which is truly unprecedented; I've only once played in an AU, and that was a canon AU, for SG-1. I suppose that leaves Discussion Question 4:
4. If I did write AU Primeval, and I make no promises (I'm too busy to write anything right now! I haven't touched a computer to commit fanfic since term started!), would anyone read it?