Primeval - S03E05 - Funky Fungi Creatures

It's the fifth episode of Primeval and the cast continues to fluctuate with each passing week. This week, after starting at a picture of her that isn't her, Jenny Lewis decides to retire from the anomaly-tracking life. Personally, I think Danny Quinn's touchy-feely hand holding was creeping her out a bit too.

I have to say though, Jenny's departure was such a small part of this episode - how could it compete with freaky primordial spores that transform people into scary mutant fungus creatures?

In a really smart way of bringing the fungus to modern day London, an anomaly opens in a well-to-do art collector's pad and his assistant inadvertently tumbles into a pre-historic jungle, sucking up a mouthful of poison when a pod explodes in his face. I shall refrain from making spit/swallow jokes here.

Anyway, the rich dude himself - who we're instantly led to dislike - touches some of the fungal residue and it starts to display on his skin. Feeling unwell, he decides to take a stroll through King's Cross station. Meanwhile, the team belatedly detect the anomaly, take a sample back to the ARC and a sneaky dude who's visiting with Christine Johnson gets infected. Shockingly, he turns into a frightening spore-monster, hell bent on destruction! They turn up the temperature in the room and bake the critter and he explodes, leaving a rather unpleasant mess behind.

Naturally, the gang are a bit shocked by this turn of events, and redouble their efforts to catch Sir Fungus Monster.

I'm afraid, while I loved the creatures and the idea of a pandemic-style threat of everyone in London becoming enraged beasties, the creatures didn't appear to play to any rules. First, we assumed that the fungus was only passed on by being touched by the monster or touching a sample of the spores. So why didn't the monster leave spores on everything it touched? For instance, the monster was trapped in a transit van, but after it escaped, Jenny and Danny just sat in the back of the van without worrying about catching anything.

Also, I found the second transformation a bit improbable - one minute the guy's walking through the sewer, the next he's become a monster. Didn't they ever see The Fly? It takes a while to effect a complete physiological change, for God's sake!

Connor - I have mixed feelings about this character. I applaud his geekiness, but I detest TV wimps who are infatuated with a woman but can't tell them how they feel. How yawnsome. Grow a pair of balls, son and speak up. I believe he's engaged to Hannah Spearmint in real life too.

All the same, as predicted in my last review, Sarah Page had a bigger role in this episode and Danny Quinn became a permanent member of the team. Through sheer perseverance, I might add. That's a heartwarming story, isn't it? Watch the obituaries, find someone with a cool job who's just died and pester their boss until they give you the job. Well done Danny, although I hear the wages are crap and you face certain death every week. Still, I think this guy is a fantastic, unlikely action hero - he's got such funny facial expressions, but his gung-ho attitude in the face of pre-historic critters is brilliant fun.

So for that, I'm prepared to overlook the patchy execution of how the fungal monster's spores worked. I'm not going to miss Jenny/Claudia that much, although I suspect she may return at some point.