Episode 1 (Primeval)

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“Episode One”
Primeval episode

Ben finds an anomaly in the Forest of Dean
Episode no. Season 1
Episode 1
Written by Adrian Hodges
Directed by Cilla Ware
Guest stars Jack Montgomery as Ben Trent
Production no. 1
Original airdate 10 February 2007
Episode chronology
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– "Episode 2"
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 period, 250 million years ago. The team track down a fierce gorgonopsid that has come through.

[edit] Plot

In the car park of an ASDA 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, attracted by the scent of prey. Dr. Helen Cutter, being pursued by the creature she had come to investigate, flees into the Forest of Dean to escape. She disappears and her body is never found...

Eight years pass.

In a zoo near the Forest of Dean, zoo keeper Abby Maitland is trying to get a pair of modern lizards to breed. At the "Central Metropolitan University" a student, Connor Temple, contacts his tutor in evolutionary zoology, Professor Nick Cutter, who (after first thinking that "Connor Temple" is the name of an old building and giving him directions to the archaeology department), takes him into his lab and introduces his lab assistant Stephen Hart. Connor provides his 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 fossilised fish and says that it is a sarcopterygian, a species that (at the time of fossilisation) should have been extinct for 70 million years, and that there are some mysteries evolution can't seem to solve. On that note, Connor shows a newspaper photograph of an apparently therapsid-type monster, taken recently in the Forest of Dean: Cutter dismisses it, mentioning 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 Trent 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.

In the "Central Metropolitan University" there is discussion: Connor says the monster may be real; Nick says it would be a hoax. Cutter sympathetically advises Connor to get out more, get a girlfriend and forget about it, but Connor argues Cutter's wife wouldn't have ignored it. Cutter dismisses the idea of his wife being a gullible monster hunter, but when he becomes more interested when Connor mentions that the sighting was near the Forest of Dean. Connor convinces them to go to the Forest of Dean. They then 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 gigantic gap torn in a fence. Nick keeps his mind open, but Stephen thinks it's just a complicated hoax. When Connor questions Nick's interest, Stephen explains that the Forest of Dean was where Cutter's wife, Helen disappeared eight years before, but her body was never found.

Shortly afterwards, at a nearby hotel, Cutter is approached and kissed by a young woman. She apologises, introduces herself as Claudia Brown, and explains that she kissed Nick to pretend he was her boyfriend to dissuade a would-be date. She explains she is from the Home Office, sent to investigate the monster report, and Nick invites her to join the search.

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, leaving Abby behind. Abby stumbles while trying to catch up and Rex gets loose and flies about. Rex then starts chirping in alarm and hides under the bushes. Then a large therapsid goes past: Abby sees its reflection in a stream.

Meanwhile Ben, sees the anomaly on his way home, as an area of fractured reflecting or refracting triangles counter-rotating in the air. Ben looks through it and sees lava desert, conifer forest, volcanoes, and several Coelurosauravus flying about. Ben then gets scared and runs home, locking himself in his room. Meanwhile Abby, still lost in the woods, finds a pant-eating Scutosaurus, and thus was in no danger. She also meets Nick, Connor, Stephen and Claudia.

The Gorgonopsid followed Ben home and 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'.

Claudia mobile-phones the Home Office, and after an argument gets the Home Office to send an official, not the police. They then return to the woods to look for the strange anomaly Ben claims to have seen. As they arrive, a gorgonopsid comes out of the forest. The frightened Scutosaurus then flees back through the anomaly, leading them to it, and disappears back home.

Stephen and Connor are ordered to remain in the Forest of Dean to look for the predator while the others head for 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. James Peregrine Lester complains that "We've got contingency plans for everything up to and including alien invasion, and now this turns up. So much for thinking outside the bloody box."

Lester's scientists prove the Lizard is a living fossil and 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. Stephen and Connor find a big reptilian footprint which is not a scutosaurs'. Connor identifies the possible culprit as a gorgonopsid, stating (quite obviously) that its presence is "really bad news". He sends Stephen off to look for the gorgonopsid.

Ben is in detention at his 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. The blinded beast breaks out of the school and flees, leaving Stephen unconscious.

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; volcanos 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 reduced, 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 attacks the group in the modern world. Ryan and the other armed men shoot the animal but it took many shots and several minutes before it finally goes 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. Lester seems satisified that the crisis is resolved, but Cutter retorts that with 'an unknown force ripping the boundaries of time and space', and the threat of more creatures emerging through further anomalies, the situation is far from over. After leaving and going back to his office, he notices a fossil coming to life - an ammonite - on his desk. He then catches sight of 'Helen', who smirks and walks off as he shouts after her. By the time he has reached where she was, Helen is gone. Cutter is left to muse on the fact his wife may not be dead as he believed.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Animals seen

From the end of the Permian period, 250 million years ago:-

From elsewhere:-

  • Sarcopterygii (One preserved specimen was shown which, presumably, came through an earlier anomaly leading from a very ancient time to a more recent 70 million years ago.)
  • Ammonite (One was left in Cutters office by Helen, what happened to it is unknown.)

[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 a gorgonopsid and scutosaurs, which both appeared in another Impossible Pictures production, Walking With Monsters.
  • Some of the rifles used may be the Heckler & Koch G36.

[edit] Cultural references

The episode mentions the Loch Ness Monster is a mysterious and unknown animal, claimed to inhabit Scotland's Loch Ness, the largest freshwater lake in Great Britain. This referance to unknown animals was also mentioned in episode two. Abby also makes references to Frank Sinatra, the was a well known popular ballad singer when trying to get two lizards to mate. The lizards in question are named Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie after the celebrity couple known for their love affair that began on the set of the movie "Mr. and Mrs. Smith".[1]

[edit] Reception

This episode gained a final viewing figure of 7.09 million people.[2]

This episode was also spoofed by Harry Hill on his show, TV Burp.[3]

[edit] Errors

  • Some characters misdescribe the therapsids as dinosaurs.
  • Coelurosauravus is shown as capable of level flight, not merely gliding.
  • A text description in the Radio Times misdescribes 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.

[edit] References

  1. ^ 'Primeval' Series Two preview.
  2. ^ Average calculated from BARB figures for week ending 11/02/07 and all subsequent weeks until 18/03/07 which can be found here
  3. ^ ITV's Primeval Fan Site - By Jon Donni - Harry Hill TV Burp - Spoof/Parady - News

[edit] External links