In yet another 5th Doctor audio from Big Finish, the Doctor brings an ailing Nyssa to Traken, uncovers the truth behind the planet’s history and becomes the first Keeper.

This one sentence sums up pretty much the whole story. Primeval is quite a languid story which meanders from episode to episode, never really convincing that the threats presented are in anyway dangerous.

The main evil is Kwundaar, played by Stephen Grief, an omniscient alien with the power to control Nyssa from across the universe. He sits in his spaceship until episode four and then gets defeated. The effect put on Grief’s voice makes it difficult to understand his dialogue and as an enemy I never really felt threatened by him.

The Consuls are clearly from the same stock as those originally seen in The Keeper of Traken and are singularly uninspiring.

It is nice to hear about the history of Traken but really that is what we get – hearsay. The Traken we are presented with, for all it’s ‘primeval’ status, is very similar to the Traken we see 3000 years later. Even the same locations are used – the Consul chamber, the Grove and the vault containing the Source. A brief visit to a spaceport does nothing to expand Traken.

When discovering the origins of Kwundaar and the Source, the even older Traken we are told about with Priest Consuls plotting against the living God, Kwundaar, sounds a much more interesting place to visit. Surely if a prequel was the idea, one where we find out how the Source was created would have been more interesting than this retread of the original story.

Were it not for the fact that Traken is destroyed in Logopolis, this story could just have easily been a direct sequel rather than a semi-prequel and that is its main problem. It simply feels like more of the same. Traken is nice. An evil is trying to corrupt it. The Doctor and Nyssa defeat that evil.

Primeval is a pleasant enough meander through Traken but there is a lot of talk and very little action.