Primeval is a British science fiction Thriller Drama television programme produced for ITV by Impossible Pictures. Created by Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines, who previously created the Walking with... documentary series. Primeval follows a team of scientists tasked with investigating the appearance of temporal anomalies across Great Britain through which prehistoric and futuristic creatures enter the present, as well as trying to prevent end-of-the-world scenarios from occurring.
First broadcast in the UK on 10 February 2007, it has since expanded to an international audience. Overall reception of the programme was positive during the first and second series, maintaining a 25% audience share in the United Kingdom during both series to date. Before it was broadcast on 9 August 2008 on BBC America, the programme received generally positive reaction from American critics as well. The third series, which ITV announced on 30 January 2008, began on 28 March 2009. In the US, series 3 premiered on 16 May 2009 on BBC America.
On 29 September 2009, it was announced that a deal had been struck between ITV, BBC Worldwide, Watch, Impossible Pictures and the German broadcaster ProSieben to produce two new series of the show for transmission in 2011.
Five webisodes were announced prior to the fourth series of seven episodes, which started airing on New Year's Day 2011 on ITV, STV and UTV in the UK and on BBC America in the US. The fifth series of six episodes aired on Watch in May 2011 and was repeated on ITV from 16 June 2012. Impossible Pictures has made no announcements about the show's future since production of Series 5 wrapped in November 2010. A Canadian spin-off, titled Primeval: New World, was announced on 15 September 2011, to premiere on 29 October 2012 on Space. On 21 February 2013, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Primeval: New World had been cancelled after a single season. Low ratings for the series caused Space and Bell Media to decide against renewing the show for a second season.
Read more about Primeval: Cast, Episodes, Viewing Statistics, Reception, International Broadcasts
Famous quotes containing the word primeval:
“But we, in anchor-watches calm,
The Indian Psyche’s languor won,
And, musing, breathed primeval balm
From Edens ere yet over-run;
Marvelling mild if mortal twice,
Here and hereafter, touch a Paradise.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“How insupportable would be the days, if the night with its dews and darkness did not come to restore the drooping world. As the shades begin to gather around us, our primeval instincts are aroused, and we steal forth from our lairs, like the inhabitants of the jungle, in search of those silent and brooding thoughts which are the natural prey of the intellect.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The birch stripped of its bark, or the charred stump where a tree has been burned down to be made into a canoe,—these are the only traces of man, a fabulous wild man to us. On either side, the primeval forest stretches away uninterrupted to Canada, or to the “South Sea”; to the white man a drear and howling wilderness, but to the Indian a home, adapted to his nature, and cheerful as the smile of the Great Spirit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)