Episode Six (Primeval)
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| Primeval episode | |
|---|---|
| “Episode Six” | |
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| Episode no. | Series 1 Episode 6 |
| Writer(s) | Adrian Hodges |
| Producer | – |
| Director | Jamie Payne |
| Original broadcast | 17 March 2007 |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| “Episode Five” | – |
Episode Six of the ITV sci-fi drama Primeval was broadcast in the UK on 17 March 2007.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
An anomaly into the future causes a climatic battle with a futuristic predator.
[edit] Plot
Nick is practicing putting in his office using a thin animal femur a little over 3 feet long as a club.
Another anomaly has appeared in the Forest of Dean in the same place as the Episode One anomaly, bringing with it a terrible predator that possesses human-like intelligence and amazing agility, and tracks its prey using sonar-like abilities, much like a bat. It breaks through the perimeter surrounding the Forest of Dean, and makes its way to Wellington Zoo. Here, it breaks into the lion den and kills a lion. It leaves no trace of itself or the lion, except a smear of blood on a leaf.
Connor takes a sample of this blood and has it tested, which shows it to be partly lion blood, and partly bat blood but with some weird differences in the DNA. The creature goes on to kill three people including Abby's boss.
Meanwhile, Helen returns and tells Nick and the others that it is a highly developed predator from the future, that came through an anomaly into the Permian period and then through another anomaly into our period.
She also tells them that it has a den, and they need dogs to find it. While they are hunting for the den, the creature attacks them again, killing a soldier, then escapes into the trees. Nick notices that the dogs picked it up before they did, and concludes that it hunts by sound.
Nick sends Connor to the pickup for a laptop oscilloscope that picks up and displays the sound waves caused by the creature. While Connor is in the pickup, the creature jumps on the pickup and tries to break into it, but Abby distracts the creature. Stephen then shoots at the creature and may have wounded it; it escapes into the forest.
Using the oscilloscope, they find the den in an abandoned storage hut, and enter it. Inside they find that the creature has given birth to at least 5 young. Then the oscilloscope starts to react loudly, and the creature attacks, killing a soldier.
Nick, thinking quickly, grabs an infant and runs out of the hut into a greenhouse. The creature follows and Nick shoots the glass above it, causing a shower of broken glass which reflects the creature's sound waves back at it in a confusing pattern, jamming its sonar sense. Taking advantage of the distraction, he shoots it in the head, killing it.
They plan to use the infants to guide them to the anomaly leading from the Permian to the future. Just before they enter the anomaly, Claudia kisses Cutter right in front of Helen and much to the disapproval of Lester, as he thinks it wasn't professional. After Cutter and Helen have departed with the infants, Connor learns that an autopsy has shown that the creature was male: thus there is likely a female creature still at large. Almost immediately after, the female leaps through the anomaly.
The landscape is conifer forest on hilly aa lava. A herd of Scutosaurus is on a hill opposite beyond a valley.
They realize that they were at the same place as in Episode One but earlier. Nick takes a picture of Helen as a souvenir. He then realizes that they were creating their own past and that that picture is the picture that they found in Episode One. Then he remembers the skeleton they found, and works out what is going to happen.
The female creature catches up with them and attacks them. It attacks and kills the soldiers, and mortally wounds Captain Tom Ryan. Before it can attack Nick, a Gorgonopsid appears, charging and briefly stunning the adult creature. Nick attends to Ryan, as the adult creature recovers - to see its young being eaten by the Gorgonopsid. The two predators battle; the Gorgonopsid loses an eye in the process. Despite this, the Gorgonopsid emerges victorious as it rears and falls over backwards, crushing the creature beneath its weight. The Gorgonopsid roars in victory and then retreats with the creature's body.
Nick runs to Tom, who had also worked out that the skeleton in Episode One was his own. Tom dies. Helen and Nick bury the dead men in the Permian and return through the anomaly. However, at least two of the creature's infants survived.
Helen and Nick tell the others that all the men have died. Nick says that no-one else is to go through the anomaly. Helen says that she will return through the anomaly. Trying to avoid going back alone, Helen reveals that before she disappeared she had an affair with Stephen. However, Stephen refuses to go with her. Helen then walks back through the anomaly and is gone.
Nick asks where Claudia is, and to his shock finds that no-one there knows of any Claudia Brown. He realizes that the time-jumping has changed the past and thus some modern end-results. He is interrupted by the anomaly expanding, and disappears into the past.
The story ends suddenly without any sort of dénouement.
This episode is the last in the current series. A new series is scheduled for 2008.
[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
- Tim Parker — John Voce
[edit] Animals seen
An anomaly linked to the Permian period, 250 million years ago, and five years before the first visit in Episode One:-
- Gorgonopsid, (One was seen through the anomaly but did not come through)
- Scutosaurus, (a herd was seen through the anomaly but none came through)
From elsewhere:-
- Future Predator: a male and a female came through an anomaly into the Permian and through another anomaly into the present. The male was killed through shooting in the present and the female was eaten by a Gorgonopsid, which ate some of their offspring but at least two survived.
[edit] Production
- The battle between the Gorgonopsid and the Predator was completely "created in a digital environment, we were able to go down to the cutting room and decide where we were going to put the cameras and essentially direct it ourselves as if we were on location. It was great to be able to offer that flexibility to the director. The result is some of the best television work we've ever done" [1].
- The predator was designed by Digital Textures Lead Daren Horley [1].
[edit] References
- ^ a b Milne, Mike. Primeval sees Framestore CFC's Creatures Leap into the 21st Century.
