deinonychus_1 | Thoughts about the character changes from S1 to S2 with reference to Connor's techie skills

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Thoughts about the character changes from S1 to S2 with reference to Connor's techie skills

Recently I've been having some quite intersting discussions with Munchkinofdoom re the change between S1 and S2 with Connor, and the sudden appearance of his techie computer and engineering skills. Leaving aside how much you take canon at face value for the use of these skills (which myself and Munchkin do entirely disagree about), I've been thinking about the reasons behind the changes, and why they were so radical.

In S1 Connor was largely just a dino-geek, and with his database he was clearly set up to be the character that provided information about the creatures and the time periods. However, I have a feeling that the writers dropped a bit of a clanger, because that role, to a great extent, was already taken by Cutter, who is clearly the star of the show, and Connor's knowledge merely duplicates Cutter's, and Cutter is also better at it. See, for example, 1.2, where Cutter got trapped in the underground and without him the others had to resort to consulting Connor and his database to identify the arthropleurid. On emerging from the underground, Cutter himself then demonstates that he has come to exactly the same conclusions re the identification, without any reference to Connor or his database - he simply knew it. It could be taken as bad editing, or if you chose to take canon at face value it can also be taken as an example that Cutter is simply better and knows more than Connor - not surprising considering one is a professor and the other his student.

The problem here is that in ensemble shows, it generally works better if each team member has something different to bring to the mix. Okay, certain things, such as action and fighting, tend to be across the board to some extent (although there are usually a couple of specialist characters in the actions roles - see Ryan and Stephen), but in terms of skills and knowledge there's usually a bit more of a distribution, with very little overlap or duplication. This then gives the opportunity for episodes where each individual member of the team can shine in their own unique area. Hence the problem with Connor. In S1 he had nothing unique to bring to the team. Anything he could do, Cutter could do better, so Connor was fequently just used as the comic relief character.

It has been said in interviews that the writers to some extent used the timeline shift in S2 to re-work the characters a little, and to rectify where things didn't quite work in S1. I suspect they realised what they had done with the duplication of skills, and that was why they made such a radical change to Connor. They expanded and extraploated from the database that we saw in S1, and gave him previously unseen computer/electronics/enginering skills, and at the same time they subtly shuffled the dino-geekery to one side. This kills two birds with one stone - it gives Connor a skill set that is unique to him, and it stops him stealing any of the limelight from Cutter, the star of the show, when it comes to palaeontological info-dumping.

It will be interesting to see what they do in S3, given the rumours of the potential... absence... of Cutter in S3 and beyond, and whether or not they quietly shuffle Connor back in to the role of dino-geek, should the position become vacant.

Now all they need to do is give Abby some decent opportunities to use her animal skills and we will all be happy.

These are just my thoughts, and I thought it would be interesting to throw them out for discussion. What do you guys think?

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I completely agree with you, they had the wrong sort of geek in season one and I think they spotted it and were given the perfect opportunity with the shifting timelines to fix it for good. Which, if it's true, seems to be proof that we will probably never actually get back to the timeline/universe the show started it.

If does Cutter disappear I suspect they'll bring in another expert rather than adjust Connor any more.

And like you I really want Abby to get the chance to use some of her animal skills. She knows living animals and their instincts far better than Cutter ever should.

I wouldn't call it a radical change myself. Tech skills may not have been at the forefront but by the existence of what looked like a potentially custom coded database application in S1 still speaks of vastly more computer skills than any other characters show. Not to mention if I recall correctly there were some videos on there too and whilst Connor may have collated info including the videos from other sources, but he may also have animated them himself possibly based on the other info he'd got...

I'd definitely concede that at the very least they have considerably emphasised his hardware tech skills. S1 was more about knowledge, both explicitly pointed out dino-geekery and more implicit software/coding and research skills.

I think there is more than enough evidence from season 1 to point to Connor being a bit of a software geek in addition to their baby dino geek. *g* I suspect he'd pretty much built that database from scratch. It was just the sudden hardware/tech skills that strained my credibility.

Someone, in one of the previous chats, mentioned that it is entirely possible that the season 2 Connor has a different past to season 1 Connor. It looks like he's either finished his education or dropped out by season 2 - so it is entirely possible that his education has some differences, including a more tech basis rather than natural sciences.

*shrugs* Personally, although I love my little dinosaur show, the Powers That Be are sloppy writers. *g*

I think if they want to shuffle Connor back towards dino-geek in S3, there is still some precedence for doing that. I don't think that aspect of his character was completely absent in S2 - didn't Stephen and/or Cutter ask him about what they could expect to see in the Silurian in 2.05 (although admittedly he was wrong about the 'bug sized' bugs!)? So there's still some aspect of the dino database there.

In some ways I was a bit sad that Connor lost his dino-geekiness in S2. You make a good point about the duplication of skills/knowledge with Cutter in S1, but I liked Connor as dino geek character! *g* And actually, now that I think about it, I'm not sure I ever really saw it as duplication of skills. Connor's database seems to have info about all sorts of prehistoric creatures in - an amount of data that Cutter could never carry round in his head. I always saw Connor as more backup to Cutter in the knowledge stakes, rather than a competitor. Cutter would have his theory about what the creature/era was, and Connor would confirm it with more details from the database.

One of the things we don't know yet is how much of S2 was iffy writing and how much is stuff that will be explained in S3.

One of the annoying things about TFWIC playing fast and loose with the timelines is that we don't know what the situation with Connor is. Did he get his degree? Did he drop out?

I've always seen him as a software geek. I'm sure he fiddles around with hardware and I always have an image of lots of dismantled computers all over the bedroom floor *g*. But I've assumed he would need help with complex hardware projects. He'd know what he wanted, but might need an expert to work with him.

It never really bothered me, to be honest. I agree that he had advanced software skills at least, because of the database he'd built from what looked like scratch. Also, he did say he'd been building it since he was 14, which does suggest a certain precociousness when it comes to tech.

Plus, Connor is someone who obviously loves to figure things out, and I can't see him being satisfied with just building the software side of his database. It's clear that his two friends in Season 1 - Tom and Duncan - have some engineering skills, because they managed to build both a reasonable facsimile of a pleiosaur and hide and use a tracking device on Connor (fitted into something that would appeal to him), which does suggest at least some technical competence. Given that they all seem to share some interests in common, I don't think it's a stretch to say that Connor has some skills in that department, even if he doesn't demonstrate them in the same way in Season 1.

It's also worth noting that it was Connor who was experimenting with the magnetic field, and noticing the magnetic field weakening very early in season 1, putting those things together to conclude that the anomaly was weakening as well, which suggests that he has some grasp of physics as well as biology, and the ability to apply what he knows in a potentially exciting, stressful situation.

So that was a long winded, not particularly coherent (long day ::g::) version of 'Don't mind, really. Can we just have more Connor generally?' ::g::

I think you are spot on about all of this.

It might not be realistic but there isn't time in a 50 minute action show to properly differentiate the subtleties of "who knows what" at the level of academic specialisms and that essentially duplicated well, Cutter, Abby, Connor and Stephen in S1. Stephen they got away with by making him the "action" character who sympathised with the scientists.

So both Connor and Abby got retooled in S2, Connor as computer-geek (which was certainly implicit before) and Abby... well I think they still don't quite know what to do with Abby but they were clearly angling for a more action-woman take on the character with the kick-boxing and so forth. I personally rather disliked that (if only because of the inevitable Abby/Caroline cat fight) and the fact that they still didn't really appear to know what to do with her.

I think, with a clearer focus, and less emphasis on purely dangerous critters they could split the animal honours between Cutter - identifies fossils and Abby - understands behaviour but it would need a strong editorial lead, I think, to prevent it being Cutter knows everything. It may be, with the loss of Stephen, they can move Abby into the "sympathetic action person role", but I'm not sure that the writers have that much confidence in "strong" women (if you see what I mean).

I think they also have to be really careful about explicitly stating that all these people are subtley different from the ones Cutter originally knew. The problem with alternate timelines, classically, is that the audience rapidly ceases to care about any character because they "aren't real" and there will be another one along in a minute.

Speaking personally, I never really saw any problem with the original geeky S1 Connor at all. Howver, I liked what I first thought was going to be a harder-edged S2 Connor (and I preferred the make-over he got), but then TFWIC kept turning him into the comic-relief again and making him do really fucking daft stuff, like abandoning, then shooting Abby.

Like Munchkin, I attribute quite a lot of sloppy writing to the series and I'm not really sure TFWIC know the difference between a palaeontologist and an evolutionary zoologist, in the same way that distinctions like lad assistant or research assistant have clearly passed them by.

The trouble with Primeval is that at times the difference between sloppy writing and deliberate plot-laying can be difficult to spot eg the disappearance of the dead Cleaner and his subsequent reappearance. We all thought it was sloppy writing at first, which indicates that we've become used to sloppy writing to some extent.

I find Connor difficult to write, because I can't get easily into the geek mind-set, and I worry about getting his dialogue right, but I do like the character.

I agree with Louise about disliking using the time-line change to presume a different background, as that does disengage one somewhat from the characters.

Abby is another character that TFWIC really can't seem to make up their minds what to do with. And another female team-member may mean that they never get their heads round Abby, which would be a shame. With some more practice (Silk and Steel, and the Ghost series), I think I could quite get to like writing her. It would just be good to have more to work with.

I absolutely agree about the retooling of the character - and I miss Connor the dino-geek, too. I don't have a problem with Connor-the-software expert - I always assumed that Connor was the ideas man behind *how* to create the ADD with assistance from experts in hardware. The point with Coonor is that I think he's supposed to have be one of these super smart people who can turn their hands to anything given a bit of time to study.

I think to an extent his being a dino-geek made sense in series 1, because after all, he was Cutter's student, and presumably studying/interested in such things. So it would be logical for him to know a fair bit about them, and for him to show off these skills - Cutter is teaching him; he may know everything Connor knows and more, but he'll let Connor have some of that limelight in order to help in learn/refine his skills.

In series two he's presumably no longer a student, and they've toned down the geekery a little, though not entirely eliminated it - Cutter will still expect Connor to make a suggestion as to waht a creature or a habitat might be, still maintaining a certain amount of teacher-student relationship with him.

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I seem to have missed a lot of your early work.

This is simply super!

Totally with you on this one. Must say I enjoyed seeing Connor change more in series two, I didn't really like him in series one - too geeky.

Series two brought out a sexier Connor, the hair changed, waistcoats appeared, and he was much more central to the role of Connor. I'm glad they kept the hats from series one, I think people identified with the hats, and they were so Connor.

It's interesting to read this again, having seen S3 - all our innocent speculation about the relationships in the show and who was going to interact with whom. Oh how little did we know! ;-O

Interesting to read your thoughts, it makes sense really as Connor was always going to be out-shone by Cutter when it came to dinos.

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