I strongly disagree. Rather on the contrary, the series' quality was cranked up a few notches with Seasons 4 & 5. Much better writing and consistency. Less routine the like of: "We have an anomaly - Trias - Sort of wormy furry thingy already killed a midget and two babies -Bring the forks and knives we'll just scare them up !" (all said with a very strong Scottish accent). And much, much better acting, I'm sorry to say, even for the younger actors (the Connor and Abby characters in fact) who showed the great benefit of three formative years in the final seasons of Primeval.
With the coming of three excellent actors (the Philip, Matt and Jess characters, all immediately believable, and professional), and less over-the-top villains (think Oliver Leek, Christine Johnson and of course the arch-vile, totally diabolical Helen Cutter) with the advent of Philip Burton ( who turned out to be merely an egomaniac), the show totally won me over and comforted me in my decision of purchasing the Season 1-5 boxset. Helen Cutter was too bad a baddie and that's .... bad for a villain. A dark character, even the worst killers, should display some aspect, some trait at least that makes them human, otherwise they look more like a caricature than a story character. Helen Cutter, with her smug in-your-face grin, her clichéed set of mammoth boobs/torn-up shirt/false amazon look, was really too much to swallow and made me cringe so much I seriously wanted to switch to the episode of her death ASAP without watching the episodes leading to that.
Nick Cutter was not really such a likable team leader or character until Season 3, but he unfortunately died in the middle of the season, after he had started to show a more relaxed, more likable self ... I know that comment won't please many, but I think that for the first two years, he was mostly awkward, passionate in a manic-obsessive kind of way, and understandably, even the laughingstock of his co-workers, except for Claudia Brown, but too bad for poor ma-Nick, the latter disappeared in the netherworld due a disturbance in the fabric of time which was never explained in the rest of the show's duration. What a major blunder in writing!
No, for me, there was a major leap upward in the quality of that great series during the last two seasons compared to the first 3 seasons. I haven't read about the reasons why the show had been canceled after 3 seasons (except that ITV was in a difficult financial situation) but I wouldn't be surprised that a change in the style of writing and a more serious quest for good casting, keeping the true values only, was in order and entered in the plan for extending Primeval for 13 more episodes (seasons 4 & 5).
Even Abby and Connor, who long played the two smooth youngsters who softened the atmosphere, were a bit of a pain to watch for quite some time first.. Poor casting decisions or .... poor's casting decisions? I'll opt for the latter, because they turned out to be rather solid for the last 2 seasons of the series.
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