if you wrote Primeval, I'd read it. Thanks! I will certainly let people know if I ever finish this story! (I've passed 35,000 words, so I think it will qualify for Big Bang. It's rather long on dialogue and short on plot, though!)
Helen doesn't get punished? I think in the grand scheme of things, she deals out a lot more suffering than she herself experiences.
I did think Lester was wrong to kidnap her and lock her up! I was glad she escaped. But I'm not certain she was "trapped" for eight years; do we know for sure that was her first time back? Leading a future predator to our time is an accident, and I give her full marks for doing her best to make up for it. I also liked that she saved Claudia, at great risk to herself. I had some sympathy for her through most of season 1 and was glad they wrote a strong, interesting female character who had her own code and wasn't sympathetic but wasn't simply The Evil Woman either (though she verged on it at times). That fell apart for me at the very end of s1.
Even in s1, she's callous: it must be heart-wrenching for Nick to see the shell and catch a glimpse of Helen but not be able to talk to her. Then she leaves a message with a dying Stephen, doing nothing to help him! She seems unconcerned about how much Nick has suffered these years or what he might want; she just wants him to come along for her ride.
It's at the end of s1 that Helen starts truly wreaking havoc. Her words are designed to hurt both Stephen and Nick as badly as possible--and while Stephen deserves some of it, Nick doesn't. (As a university professor myself, I put the vast majority of the blame on Helen for the original affair.)
Do we have any indication that working with Leek is anything other than a free choice? It must be annoying, but I think that hardly rates as punishment compared with a) finding out that your wife had an affair with your best friend only when she revealed it as publicly and humiliatingly as possible; b) being taken prisoner by a maniac who then attempts to feed you to creatures; or c) locking yourself in a room full of carnivores knowing you'll die. For all his horrible, stupid mistakes, I think Stephen does quite adequate penance. Helen lives to ruin other lives on other days.
I'm not sure if the tone of my "Stargate has done a better job with the secrecy issue" remark came through properly or not; I've long been of the opinion that Stargate does a pretty lousy job with the secrecy issue.
(here we go again). so did Stephen. My original post was aimed at an audience of four of my friends with whom I'd been commenting back and forth. I thought I'd just put the links here if anyone wanted to read. I know I've missed a lot of discussion and don't mean to rehash it all.
I may have a rather different take on the show than others. I love team shows and friendship, and when I got into Primeval, I fell in love with the original characters and their friendships, both well-established and new. I even found myself rooting a little bit for Nick and Claudia to find romance, which surprised me, because I'm very much a gen person. I was very disappointed to find that the second series had so little of what I loved about the first series; I kept rooting for Nick and Stephen to work things out, for Nick to share that photograph with his whole team, for Stephen to remove his head from the aperture he'd stuck it in.... So I disagreed very much with the direction the show took, and I know that's really just my opinion; I am doubtless too mean about the writers. I don't mean to diminish anyone else's enjoyment of the show.
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Date: 2009-01-02 05:55 pm (UTC)Thanks! I will certainly let people know if I ever finish this story! (I've passed 35,000 words, so I think it will qualify for Big Bang. It's rather long on dialogue and short on plot, though!)
Helen doesn't get punished?
I think in the grand scheme of things, she deals out a lot more suffering than she herself experiences.
I did think Lester was wrong to kidnap her and lock her up! I was glad she escaped. But I'm not certain she was "trapped" for eight years; do we know for sure that was her first time back? Leading a future predator to our time is an accident, and I give her full marks for doing her best to make up for it. I also liked that she saved Claudia, at great risk to herself. I had some sympathy for her through most of season 1 and was glad they wrote a strong, interesting female character who had her own code and wasn't sympathetic but wasn't simply The Evil Woman either (though she verged on it at times). That fell apart for me at the very end of s1.
Even in s1, she's callous: it must be heart-wrenching for Nick to see the shell and catch a glimpse of Helen but not be able to talk to her. Then she leaves a message with a dying Stephen, doing nothing to help him! She seems unconcerned about how much Nick has suffered these years or what he might want; she just wants him to come along for her ride.
It's at the end of s1 that Helen starts truly wreaking havoc. Her words are designed to hurt both Stephen and Nick as badly as possible--and while Stephen deserves some of it, Nick doesn't. (As a university professor myself, I put the vast majority of the blame on Helen for the original affair.)
Do we have any indication that working with Leek is anything other than a free choice? It must be annoying, but I think that hardly rates as punishment compared with a) finding out that your wife had an affair with your best friend only when she revealed it as publicly and humiliatingly as possible; b) being taken prisoner by a maniac who then attempts to feed you to creatures; or c) locking yourself in a room full of carnivores knowing you'll die. For all his horrible, stupid mistakes, I think Stephen does quite adequate penance. Helen lives to ruin other lives on other days.
I'm not sure if the tone of my "Stargate has done a better job with the secrecy issue" remark came through properly or not; I've long been of the opinion that Stargate does a pretty lousy job with the secrecy issue.
(here we go again). so did Stephen.
My original post was aimed at an audience of four of my friends with whom I'd been commenting back and forth. I thought I'd just put the links here if anyone wanted to read. I know I've missed a lot of discussion and don't mean to rehash it all.
I may have a rather different take on the show than others. I love team shows and friendship, and when I got into Primeval, I fell in love with the original characters and their friendships, both well-established and new. I even found myself rooting a little bit for Nick and Claudia to find romance, which surprised me, because I'm very much a gen person. I was very disappointed to find that the second series had so little of what I loved about the first series; I kept rooting for Nick and Stephen to work things out, for Nick to share that photograph with his whole team, for Stephen to remove his head from the aperture he'd stuck it in.... So I disagreed very much with the direction the show took, and I know that's really just my opinion; I am doubtless too mean about the writers. I don't mean to diminish anyone else's enjoyment of the show.