Episode One (Primeval)
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| “Episode One” | |
|---|---|
| Primeval episode | |
 |
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| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 1 |
| Written by | Adrian Hodges |
| Directed by | Cilla Ware |
| Production no. | 1 |
| Original airdate | 10 February 2007 |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| – | "Episode Two" |
| List of episodes | |
Episode One was the first episode of ITV1 drama Primeval.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
A time anomaly appears in the Forest of Dean, leading to the late Permian. The team track down a Gorgonopsid that has come through.
[edit] Plot
In the car park of a supermarket near the Forest of Dean, a loose shopping trolley started to roll by itself, pulled by a strong magnetic field. A big therapsid-type animal came out of the Forest of Dean into the supermarket car park. A woman hid from it in a big dustbin, and then ran up to a window of the supermarket and frantically tried to get in. She ran. It chased her, but soon got tired. Dr. Helen Cutter later disappeared in the Forest of Dean while investigating this.
Eight years pass.
In a zoo near the Forest of Dean, Abby is trying to get a pair of modern lizards to breed.
In a university, student Connor Temple contacts Professor Nick Cutter, who (after first thinking that "Connor Temple" is the name of an old building and telling him to go the archaeology department), takes him into his lab. Connor has a thesis that all earth life is descended from life that came from across space (panspermia). Nick slings Connor's thesis in a waste paper bin. He then shows Connor a preserved recently-caught fish and says that it is a Sarcopterygian, a type that should have been extinct for 80 million years. He also shows a newspaper photograph of an apparently therapsid-type monster, taken recently in the Forest of Dean, and mentions monster hoaxes and the Loch Ness Monster. Connor says that the Loch Ness Monster died years before and that the Government covered up and removed the body.
The zoo gets a routine call to collect a reptile from a private house. Abby goes to collect it. The boy Ben lived there with his mother. Ben said that he found it in the Forest of Dean and that he identified it from books as the modern South-East Asian gliding lizard Draco volans. Abby saw at once that it was not, but a new species, and asked Ben to show her where he found it.
The Home Office sends Claudia to investigate the monster report.
In the "Central Metropolitan University" there is discussion: Connor says the monster may be real; Nick says it would be a hoax.
Abby gets Ben to show where he found Rex. They go into the Forest of Dean, carrying the lizard (which is identified as a Coelurosauravus). They find a dead cow lodged up a tree. Ben blames a leopard, which often store their kills up trees. Abby says that there are no wild leopards in the Forest of Dean. Ben runs. Abby stumbles while carrying Rex, who gets loose and flies about, but they catch Rex again. Rex starts chirping in alarm. A large therapsid goes past: Abby sees its reflection in a stream. Abby's pocket compass begins to go haywire. Ben sees the anomaly, as an area of fractured reflecting or refracting triangles counter-rotating in the air. It seems to be merely a surface and not to be more than a few inches thick. Ben looks through it and sees lava desert, conifer forest, volcanoes, and several Coelurosauravus flying about.
Discussion in the Home Office: they realize that the monster and the strange lizard had to come from somewhere and that Ben's report of a world through the anomaly may be correct and may be earth in the late Permian period. Lester complained that "We've got contingency plans for everything up to and including alien invasion, and now this turns up. Shows what comes from thinking outside the box."
Nick Cutter, Stephen, and Connor and the Coelurosauravus go to the Forest of Dean. They find a big articulated lorry with its trailer's side torn open by huge sharp claws. The lorry driver says that a monster did it. They find a gap torn in a fence. Nick keeps his mind open, but Ryan thinks it is a good complicated hoax.
Nick, Connor, Stephen, and Claudia find the dead cow. Abby finds the therapsid, which proves to be a Scutosaurus and thus plant-eating and no danger, and meets Nick, Connor, Stephen and Claudia who have also found the Scutosaurus. Claudia mobile-phones the Home Office, and after an argument gets the Home Office to send an official, not the police. A Gorgonopsid comes out of the forest. The frightened Scutosaurus then goes back through the anomaly and disappears, back home. Ben gets scared and runs home, locking himself in his room.
The Gorgonopsid goes to Ben's house pushes its head into Ben's bedroom. In panic he throws various things at it including a plasma ball, and in the end tries to resist with a toy Star Wars lightsaber, which scares the Gorgonopsid off. Later the team appear not to believe Ben, who insists "I saw the past". His mother writes it off as both their influence and television, which she says has encouraged him to make up 'wild stories'.
Discussion in the Home Office. Rex is examined there; under examination by various instruments Rex takes wing and flies around in corridors, entering a lift and coming out at a top floor. He then flies out of a window, but Abby tempts him back with food appealing to Rex: "It isn't your world out there any more." During this Rex defecates on James Lester's smart business suit.
Stephen Hart and Connor in the Forest of Dean find a big reptile footprint which is not a Scutosaurus's. Connor says that its scientific name is "really bad news". He sends Stephen off to look for the dinosaur.
Ben is in detention in school when the Gorgonopsid goes past outside. He tells the teacher that there is a dinosaur outside. The teacher ignores this apparently silly remark. The Gorgonopsid then attacks the school, and tramples down all attempts by the teacher to barricade against it, It traps her and Ben in a classroom and tries to head-butt the door down. Stephen then appears and tries to distract the beast. It chases him. He is blocked by a stuck fire escape door, and he squirts a fire extinguisher at the beast. He gets the fire escape door open and gets out. The beast breaks out of the school and goes away, leaving Stephen Hart unconscious.
Also there were two men with UK police-type riotsquad helmets and UK police-issue automatic carbines. Nick says they have permission from the Home Office to go through the anomaly.
They go through it, (carrying Rex, as they plan to take him home to his own time and area) into an area of lava desert and conifer forest in the late Permian geological period; volcanoes are in the background. They find remains of a human camp and a male human skeleton, and a camera marked "H(elen) C(utter)", showing that someone had been through before, and not only Helen. Ryan climbs a hill of volcanic deposit and sees a herd of Scutosaurus. He climbs over a mound of scoria to find Cutter and get him back to the modern age in time, as the anomaly's magnetic field is now much less, showing that it is getting weaker, but Cutter wants to stay because he is desperate to find his wife. Ryan apologises and clubs Cutter with a pistol and carries him back towards the anomaly. Cutter gradually comes round, and resists with a fist fight, which Ryan wins and says "Don't try that again." Cutter threatens to stay. Ryan says he will stay also to guard him. Cutter says "don't be stupid", not wanting another also to be stranded there, and the two go back through the anomaly less than a minute before it closes. Rex also came back through.
The Gorgonopsid then attacked the group in the modern world. Ryan and the two other armed men shoot the Gorgonopsid: it took many shots and several minutes before it finally went down, including Stephen driving his sport utility vehicle into it.
Later, the film from the camera is developed, showing pictures of Helen in the ancient landscape. After leaving and going back to his office, he notices a fossil come to life- an ammonite on his desk. He then catches sight of 'Helen', who walks off as he shouts after her.
[edit] Cast
- Nick Cutter — Douglas Henshall
- Abby Maitland — Hannah Spearritt
- Stephen Hart — James Murray
- Connor Temple — Andrew-Lee Potts
- Claudia Brown — Lucy Brown
- Helen Cutter — Juliet Aubrey
- Sir James Lester — Ben Miller
- Captain Tom Ryan — Mark Wakeling
- Ben Trent (young boy) — Jack Montgomery
- Mary Trent (Ben's mother) — Gail Kemp
- Ben's teacher — Jane Cameron
- Tim Parker (zoo administrator) — John Voce
- Dave Greene — Mike Goodenough
[edit] Animals seen
From the end of the Permian period, 250 million years ago:-
- Gorgonopsid, presumably Gorgonops whaitsi or Inostrancevia alexsandri a carnivorous therapsid (One came through the anomaly, then was killed)
- Scutosaurus, a large herbivorous anapsid, a pareiasaur (One came through, returned home)
- Coelurosauravus (One came through, becomes a family pet, with name Rex.)
[edit] Production
- A pocket compass used has directions marked N O S W, indicating it was made in a German-speaking country.
- The episode features the Inostrancevia and Scutosaurus who both appeared in another Impossible Pictures production, Walking With Monsters.
- Some of the rifles used may be the Heckler & Koch G36.
- The original UK transmission was watched by 6.7 Million viewers.
[edit] Errors
- Some characters misdescribe the therapsids as dinosaurs.
- The Coelurosauravus is shown as capable of level flight, not merely gliding.
- There are some Sarcopterygii alive now: Latimeria, Neoceratodus, Lepidosiren, Protopterus.
- A text description in the Radio Times misdescribes the Coelurosauravus as a flying dragon.
- Cutter is shown counting the ribs of the skeleton to determine its gender. However that originates from a myth, male and female human skeletons do not differ in their number of ribs.
