Review: Primal “The Night Feeder”

 

 

Overview:

A dangerous predator stalks the land, and it has Fang shaken up. The screams of the predator’s victims terrorize the T-Rex each night. 

And the scenes left in the morning make things even more frightening. Fang will not even allow Spear to go hunt the unseen enemy out of fear.

When the two survivors are left out in a vulnerable position, they are left with no choice but to go face-to-face with the villainous monster. They quickly discover that the villain is much faster and stronger, but with some luck, they may find its weakness.

 

Our Take:

This penultimate episode of the first season of Primal may have dropped the ball when keeping up the momentum of the series. Last week’s “Coven of the Damned” was a rousing success hitting the mark and proving what this show is capable of. Unfortunately, this episode failed to deliver the same level of storytelling and innovation.

There are some substantial things of note that this episode did well.

For one, the theme of the story focused on making Fang less of a dominant figure. The threat upon them caused the ferocious t-rex to become timid and weak. This forced Spear to step up to the plate as it were and protect their safety. Though Spear is never a pushover, the episode did prove that the man can be just as dangerous as the beast.

As always, the artwork is on another level. Specific moments involving the new predator eviscerating its prey were some of the best scenes out of the series thus far. And detailed shots of the gory aftermath were reminiscent of those graphic hand-painted shots that made The Ren and Stimpy Show a memorable classic.

The artwork did take a step back in this piece allowing the subtlety to build drama for the plot. This opened the door for the music and sound effects to take centre stage. And while it is so easy to get caught up in all the other masterful things this show accomplishes, this is your evidence that the audio matches the effort of the series.

However, this episode lacked the depth that we have become accustomed to with Primal. We have seen Fang and Spear meet multiple formidable enemies. Dedicating an entire episode to them facing one unseen dinosaur felt like a waste.  

We have seen how much the series can pack into a singular episode. The simplified plot caused there to be many tiresome scenes with repeated themes and emotions. And for the first time in this series that lacks any dialogue, there were completely dead scenes that offered nothing to move the show forward.

At one point, Spear and Fang are left vulnerable due to extreme wind, but by the next scene, they were comfortably settled into camp. Besides being pointless, it brought up the question of why the weather does not play a more significant role in the series overall. These are wild creatures left to the wills of Mother Earth after all, should the environment not cause more significant issues?

Probably the biggest disappointment of all was the lowly climax. A final battle that lacked the usual visual prowess the series is defined by. 

A solution that was not only obvious it did not teach our heroes a thing about their survival as they would already be aware of it. And in the end, we didn’t even receive a good look at the enemy that caused all of this commotion.

This is where the risk of having a show without dialogue hurts the series. The biggest concern is that the story would move slow and the plot couldn’t develop fully. While the emotion that they were looking for translated, there wasn’t enough range for the episode to match what the series has already been able to accomplish. Although it may be on the bottom of the list of episodes to watch again, “The Night Feeder” will not hurt the series overall.