BBC America sent us DVDs of the first two episodes of Primeval season three, and the show about monsters and rips in the fabric of space/time has continued to develop. The cast of monster-hunters is a bit different than in season one, and there are monsters from the future, plus there are mysterious artifacts, conspiracies within conspiracies, and a healthy amount of romantic intrigue.

In the first episode of the season, there's an ancient Egyptian shrine thingy in the British Museum, and it turns out the Egyptians trapped a hole in space/time, out of which come dinosaurs known as Pristichampsuses, which the Egyptians used to worship/fear as the demon Ammut. Basically it's a big crocodile terrorizing London, until it goes away agin. And then in the second episode, there's a haunted house, where a gremlin from the future has killed three boys, and our heroes investigate.

I had previously watched a couple of episodes of Primeval season one, and hadn't been able to get into it at all. So I was hoping things would be different this time around, and season three would suddenly electrify my brain. Sadly, that wasn't the case - the show still feels like a warmed-over copy of Torchwood to me. I couldn't get interested in any of the characters, from the moody scientist Nick Cutter to Connor, who inexplicably dresses like he's in a Thompson Twins video.

Oh, and in the first episode, they meet a cute Egyptologist, who's moderately useful since they're dealing with a monster that has a lot of ancient Egyptian lore about it - and then they recruit her to join the team. Because when you're coping with dinosaurs and "future Predators" every week, what you really need is an expert on Egyptian funerary practices. It makes perfect sense! Actually, there is a sort of explanation for their decision to recruit Sarah Page to the team - their leader, Nick Cutter, has decided all ancient myths are actually about monsters coming out of temporal anomalies. And he thinks that because Page knows about Egyptian mythology, she'll be able to help him chart every myth in the world.

The other thing that sort of turned me off the show originally, the copious amounts of goofy humor, are still in full effect, mostly centered on Connor. In the first episode, Page tells Connor that by touching some Egyptian thingy, he's incurred some ancient curse, and is now doomed to die, like her friend who died earlier in the episode. And then it turns out she was just joking. (But meanwhile, we get to see Connor "hilariously" freaking out about it.)

Anyway, I hate to be negative about this show - it does have some nice CG monsters, and there are some fun monster-hunting bits. The "future gremlins" are sort of spooky, especially when they camouflage themselves. All of the stuff about conspiracies and mysterious artifacts from a vaguely apocalyptic future is intriguing, and Wikipedia says it all gets a lot more intense later in the season. If you feel sad that there's not more SF on television, you could definitely do worse than curling up with Primeval this weekend.

But sadly, it just didn't excite me at all - even as the monsters from the past and future were being flung out of time to terrorize the people of London, it all felt like something I'd seen before.

Asylum's big fat creature feature has debuted its trailer over at MTV. After watching this, I think I experienced the "should have sent a poet" moment Jodie Foster went through in Contact. It is that bad/good.

UPDATE: If you're not in the States and want to see the trailer, MTV helpfully provides this information: Click through here, and then click on 720p

We already showed you the concept drawings for Star Trek's snow-planet monster, but now Page has posted a portfolio of Cloverfield sketches as well. His new site includes some amazing sketches of random beasties and weird characters he's designed, including Ozymandias' pet in Watchmen. And we can't wait to see what he's come up with for James Cameron's Avatar.

Here are more of those preliminary sketches and digital models for Cloverfield, including the very first sketch (with the glasses and T-shirt. It's a joke... thank goodness.) Plus a couple of the digital images of Bubastis, Ozymandias' weird pet:

There's much more over at Neville Page's new site. [via Super Punch]

Wired has a feature on the making of this monster, whose anatomy Steve Daly wisely describes as "looking literally like ass."

Page tells Daly how he comes up with his monster ideas, first starting with sketches, then creating small versions on a 3D printer.

At last, he's got the full effect. Can't wait to see this sucker go. I love the Predator-esque face with the four-pronged fangs. And the wirey, backwards-seeming legs remind me of Clovie. But the eyeballs just make it mega. Seriously, kaiju fans, we are living in a golden age.

See more pictures and read about Page's process in creating this awesome creature in Wired.