Current location:	watching Princess of Thieves
Current mood:	crushed
Current music:	soundtrack
Entry tags:	fanfiction, james murray, primeval, stabby, stephen hart

March been and gone
Firstly.....Happy birthday Rosemary x x x x x Hope you have a good one. x x x x x.

Secondly..ah heck..can't be bothered with secondly, thirdly or the others.

I'm still steaming about the news released by the producers of Primeval, series 3. Despite all the teasing at the end of series two, and getting our hopes up that somehow, someway, they'd write a way for Stephen, or Stephen in the guise of another character, would be returned to the 'team'......instead they announce that everyone else is back except James Murray....their reasoning that his character had no more reason to be there after the revelation of Stephen's affair with Helen Cutter.

Hell and damnation...they did the same with series one...teasing us with the build up of a relationship between Stephen and Abby, right up to within a few minutes of the end of the final episode.

Then, because of the real life bts relationship between Hannah and Andrew, and no offence, but few off screen romances translate very well to on screen, evidenced in series two between these two...they decide that the Stabby is not working *blinks* and decide it's time to off Stephen because of an affair he had with his friends ex wife eight years ago??

Never mind that the affair was long over and Helen had been missing for those eight years, and never mind that Nick, her husband, had already moved on and was falling in love with Claudia....they decided to make it the be all and end all of cliche'd angst, making a mountain out of a mole hill and effectively killing off Stephen because of it, as well as ending any hope for the fans.

I can forgive writers if the progression is a logical one, and I can understand that from an actors point of view James was happy to have more to work with in regards the angst between Stephen and Nick, and the interaction between Stephen and Helen....making him more interesting (or more stupid, if you believe the critics and some fans)....but it's still not reason enough to give him redemption through heroic sacrifice, a promise of a return in some form...then to snatch it all away for no good reason at all.

It sucks...and makes for a great many very unhappy fans.

I can only hope that James Murray is now inundated with offers of tv and/or film work, enough to keep him on our screens long into the future.

Of course, he could just be looking forward to being a father in June, with plans to be a house husband when Sarah goes back to work on her new series in September. Either way, he'll be missed from Primeval, his character mourned, but also immortalised in fanfiction for a long time to come.