Primeval (TV Series) Concrete Menagerie (2008) User Reviews

A solid end to the second season

[Tweekums · 9/10 · 29 May 2016]

This episode follows on from the previous one with Nick and his team captured by Leek and Helen. While they are locked up pondering their fate Leek sets his plan in motion by releasing a giant sand scorpion onto a crowded South Coast beach which inevitably gets Lester's attention. Unable to contact the team he calls Stephen to deal with the creature. Back at Leek's facility it becomes apparent what he and Helen are plotting… and their different motives. She wants to use the anomalies to make selective changes to create a better world; he just wants a world where he has power and isn't looked on as the pathetic individual he really is. Of course Nick and the team will do everything they can to prevent this but it won't be easy when they are all trapped in a building full of dangerous creatures!

This was a pretty good finale for season two; it nicely wrapped up Leek's plot line while making Helen's more interesting for whatever the next season will bring. Having them trapped in Leek's menagerie provided a good excuse to show a wide variety of the creatures we'd seen in previous instalments. There were plenty of tense moments as the team faced the various creatures; this led to some good action scenes as well as a few deaths… including somebody viewers probably expected to survive. The action doesn't all involve monsters; Abby and Caroline finally have a fight; providing some amusement when Connor tries to stop them. The cast does a fine job; I particularly liked Karl Theobald's performance as Leek; the character is deliberately pathetic but he managed to make him genuinely menacing. Overall an exciting episode with a surprisingly sad end that sets things up for season three.

The Biggest Loser

[Johnny_West · 7/10 · 7 July 2020]

Nick Cutter (played by Douglas Henshall) has all the gravitas of a 45 year old stock boy at a supermarket. His wife, Helen (played by Juliet Aubrey) left him for eight years and let him think she was dead. She also had an affair with his co-worker, Stephen Hart (played by James Murray). In spite of numerous betrayals and blatant lies by Helen to both Nick and Stephen, they are both hopelessly in love with the smirking witch. So they keep falling for all of her traps.

Helen has been stabbing them both in the back by working with Oliver Leek to capture the prehistoric animals that pop through the anamoly and put devices into their skulls to control the creatures. The ARC team meanwhile has missed the boat on just about everything, as they spend most of their time being cute and dealing with their personal lives.

In this season two finale, the Oliver Leek story reaches its end, after Nick outsmarts Leek by spilling coffee on the keyboard of his computer. In the real world, that does absolutely nothing. In Primeval, it short circuits an entire mainframe system, and sets loose the wild animals to kill the humans. It just gets dumber from there.

Perhaps because of low ratings or because they needed to cut a salary, one of the ARC team gets killed off, because the device to close the door to the animal enclosure got damaged when Helen got her foot caught by an animal. Nick of course, smashed the door controls, because he is a really smart scientist and he could not figure out how to open the door.

Why they wanted to help Helen is another mystery that was not answered. After all, she was willing to get numerous people killed, including them. Nick stumbles and falls with the gun he has used to keep Helen as a prisoner, and she runs away. Once again, Helen has played Nick, and this time she cost Stephen his life.

The only good thing about this TV series were the prehistoric creatures.

Tragic Perfection

[tomgoodwin815 · 10/10 · 7 April 2016]

I don't normally cry as a result of a film or TV series. Perhaps it's because as a viewer, I'm not as emotionally attached to it as I really should be, or do not pay enough attention to be truly gripped by it. The finale of Series 2 of Primeval is an outstanding exception to that. I absolutely love this show. I watched the very first episode when it was broadcast on ITV back in 2007, and have loved it ever since. For me, Series 2 is the grand zenith of the entire show. In my opinion. it's a masterpiece from start to finish. Often the finale fails to live up to the rest of a show, and I'm glad to say that this was not one of those times. To recap the previous events, Nick had come to realize that there was a traitor on the team, and was working to uncover a conspiracy involving the anomalies. It was revealed to be Oliver Leek who was behind all this, with the assistance of (somewhat unsurprisingly) Helen. At the end of the last episode, Nick, Jenny, Connor and Abby were taken captive by Leek's men and found themselves in a facility where Leek was keeping dozens of prehistoric creatures, taken from the anomalies. Now that's over, we can move on to the actual review. The finale begins with a scene between Jenny and Nick in their cell, in which Nick reminisces upon his relationship with Helen. The sad music begins to play in the background, and it almost brought me to tears, because it's so effective on the viewer. As a result of this, I partially dreaded the ending scene, because I've watched it many times before and it's a hundred times as sad. Jenny also informs Nick that her fiancé has left her, but lately she's been feeling 'different'. It's not too difficult for the viewers to piece together what this might mean. It sets things up so well for a potential future relationship between the two characters in the next series, which makes it even more disappointing that, for some totally inexplicable reason, the writers decided not to develop this in Series 3 and just abandoned it. Throughout the episode, the actors' performances are top notch, as usual. One of the reasons the show is so fantastic and captivating is because the casting is perfect, and each actor suits their role so well. Oliver Leek (Karl Theobald) makes a very good villain. The special effects, including the creatures, are perfect. Although that part isn't exclusive to this episode, as they're always brilliant. There was a scene in which Abby was quite irritating, but that applies to many parts of the show and the episode will not be marked down based on this. I was really glad that Jenny was given an action scene, as the other characters have had their moments, and she's possibly the best character, in my opinion. The finale also ensures that all the actors are given an adequate amount of time on screen, as it's sometimes the case that a certain character appears for little or no time in an episode. Obviously, the creatures are all there too, so even if they're the only reason you watch the show, you certainly won't be disappointed. Then of course, there's the end of the episode, which I mentioned briefly before. Nick stares out of the glass window and is powerless to stop his friend, Stephen, from being killed by the creatures. It's a truly heartbreaking moment, and it's made even sadder by the fact that in the previous episode, we saw the total disintegration of Nick and Stephen's relationship, yet Stephen sacrifices himself to save his friend's life, which will surely cause Nick to regret the way he behaved earlier on. Like I said before, I did cry. There were already tears at this point, however we then see Stephen's funeral, which is even more tragic. It's one of the most touching things I've ever seen. After the service, Nick and Jenny walk across the graveyard together and Jenny asks if he'd like to go for a drink. He doesn't reply, and shortly afterwards, when he's alone we see him taking out the photo of him and Claudia, and he rips it up. It's hugely powerful, and the impact it has on the viewer is phenomenal. It's the main reason why the episode is a masterpiece. Overall, the Series 2 finale is a potential contender for 'best Primeval episode ever', and after seeing the competition, I know that's huge accomplishment. A solid 10/10 from me.

Nick is back!

[sinceverona · 28 July 2009]

After special forces had failed to capture Oliver Leek and instead Leek has captured the team, Lester was forced to negotiate with Leek. But Leek was setting a trap for Lester to be eaten by one of Helens future beings controlled by him through remote neurological devise implanted in their heads, luckily he escaped. In the cell Nick, Connor, Abby and Jenny meet Caroline who worked for Leek, pretending to be Connors girlfriend. She swears to them she had no idea what he was doing. Abby is angry at her because when Caroline received the message"it is over" from Connor through mobile, she hit Rex, Abbys prehistoric pet and brought him to Leek. Stephen is still thinking weather he should join Helen and unfortunately when she lies to him and says that Nick and the team has been killed by Oliver Leek he believes her. After team escapes they separate and Nick ends up in a room with Leek and those ugly black futuristic creatures. While one creature approaches Nick and shows him his big teeth and roars savagely, Leek gloats and points to a celling where other creatures are ready to attack. Leek controls them through device implants in their heads, but when Nick rips from creatures head the device, all other creatures go free and they kill Oliver Leek. When Stephen comes to the compound with Helen he sees Nick sitting at the steps and he finally finds out that Helen is a big liar. Nick advise Stephen that they must bring back all the creatures to their cells, and Helen advice them to use sound signal the creatures learned to recognize as signal for food. Seconds after they leave compound Nick notices that the door can't close and that someone has to sacrifice himself and lock the door from the inside. Nick looking weary starts to walk to the door when Stephen hits him and enters the room. Soon he is surrounded and Nick from a small window watches him die. After Stephens funeral Nick takes a picture of Claudia from his wallet and tears it up. The team is now consisting of Nick, Connor, Abby and Jenny and they leave immediately after a funeral on a new mission. But Helen appears at Stephens grave and place something that looked like prehistoric shell and says goodbye to Stephen.And after that she looks up and sees one of Leeks soldiers that died in prehistoric desert. He is a clone and several copies appears again and again. It is true that Jenny in second season episodes looked too posh and Helen had way too low cut cleavage of her t-shirt. As much as I wished that Jenny could change back to Claudia, I wished that Helen just leave Stephen alone. Nick from the first to the last episode grew more and more facial hear and looked like he hadn't slept for days. He looked better clean shaved, but I guess working that job was intense. Stephen was good looking but I wish that his character had more depth and that he didn't get involved with Helen. Abby looked sweet but no one ever explained how did she learn all those kick box moves she used on creatures. Connor was my favorite character. I am so glad he had his own action scenes. The episode was well written. The special effect were really good, the best. Acting was excellent. And I must say that the scene where Stephen gets killed and the expression of sorrow on Nicks face was the best acted scene in the whole second season. In the scene after the funeral when he walks to the his car, you can see expressions on his face and the way he walks is the greatest.