Episode 3 (Primeval)

A 75 million year old mosasaur kills a lifeguard at a local swimming pool. Cutter must brave the icy waters to find an underwater anomaly that may lead to his wife, Helen.

[edit] Plot

A swimming pool lifeguard and his girlfriend are at a swimming pool in London. They play about in and out of the water. After she goes back to the changing room, he dives in off the high diving board. As he falls into the water, a mosasaur jumps out of the water vertically and catches him in his mouth and swallows him whole as it falls back into the water. When the girlfriend returns to the pool she can't friend her boyfriend and begins searching. When she looks through an underwater window she sees the mosasaur swimming about. The mosasaur charges towards her but hits the window. The girlfriend flees.

At the Home Office, James Peregrine Lester and Nick Cutter are discussing the anomaly from Episode Two which is not closing as the others had. During the debate as how to manage this, Lester gets word of the incident at the swimming pool and sends Cutter and his team to investigate. They arrive and find that the police are already convinced that the girl murdered her boyfriend as there is no trace of the mosasaur or the anomaly.

At a reservoir in west London, which is used for sailing, the mosasaur again appears and regurgitates a bolus of undigested remains, which DNA tests show to be of the lifeguard.

Back at the Home Office, Cutter voices his theory that this anomaly didn't close but simply moved location, from the pool to the reservoir. Lester also has to choose between prosecuting the lifeguard's girl friend falsely for killing him or risk the public hearing of the mosasaur. He decides to prosecute the girl and later have the charges quietly dropped. Though Claudia disapproves of this, Lester claims it is preferable to telling the public that 'an ancient sea-monster is cruising swimming pools, consuming lifeguards'.

Back at the reservoir Connor Temple realises that the reservoir is behaving as if it is connected to a tidal sea, suggesting that water is pouring out through the anomaly. Later Claudia Brown confronts Nick about the delusions of Helen Cutter that Stephen Hart experienced after being attacked by a Arthropleura, but Nick evades the questions by realising that the tide is now coming in, a patch of the reservoir is emitting steam as if being warmed from a warm tropical sea. Four Special Forces divers (with open-circuit scuba) come to the reservoir with two black inflatable boats and investigate.

They find the anomaly underwater when one of the divers, unknowingly, swims through it and disappears. Connor and Abby Maitland, in the mean time, have waded out into the reservoir to take water samples. The mosasaur then appears and investigates them. They stand quite still until it goes away. They then rush onto land but are stopped by a high metal fence. It comes ashore after them and Connor fights against it with an oar. It backs off into the water and returns through the anomaly which then closes.

Back at the Home Office Nick suspects that anomalies are appearing in a line through west London but Lester refuses to listen. They plan to explain the mosasaur as an escaped crocodile if public see it. At the same time, Stephen regains his memory of his encounter with Helen. He angrily confronts Nick, asking how long he knew his wife was alive. Nick admits he knew, but argues that if Helen wanted to talk to him, she could have, but instead, she hid from him and left Stephen to die in the tunnels. Stephen retorts that whatever her reasons, Helen wants to speak with Nick now and that she is waiting for him through the anomaly. Stephen promises not to tell the rest of the team, saying it isn't his call, but that if Helen was his wife, he would 'go through a million anomalies to find her'.

In a family house in west London, water spreads through the basement. The housewife suspects a leak and calls a plumber. When he arrives they find the basement now contains 3 or so feet of water. The plumber finds no pipe leaks and suspects a mains leak. The plumber is then attacked by a bird (Hesperornis) and killed. Captain Tom Ryan and his team are sent to investigate and finds the dead plumber, and also the diver who disappeared in the reservoir. The diver is dead, apparently from shock. Tied to the diver's wrist is a message from Helen Cutter written on a handkerchief which is identified as being Helen's. Claudia then reports this to Lester after she and Cutter arrive at the scene and she learns that he was aware that his wife is still alive. Claudia furiously criticizes him for keeping this informaiton secret.

Lester personally arrives on the scene in an unmarked car and orders Nick to go through the anomaly with an armed team and bring Helen back (as Helen seems to have secret knowledge and to be 8 years ahead in finding out about the anomalies), or he will be taken off the project. Nick says that he will go through, but alone. In the house basement he goes into the water in scuba gear (open-circuit) with a big powerful compressed-air speargun, on a 100-yard line. He swims through the anomaly into a Cretaceous tropical sea. Hesperornis are swimming around.

He comes ashore and puts his scuba down on the beach. Pterosaurs are flying about. He climbs over some rocks which are a Hesperornis rookery, and finds Helen swimming nude in a shallow enclosed pool, and calls to her. Helen answers him as if expecting him, and comes out and dresses. Two Hesperornis investigate, and she shoos them off by throwing small stones, and says that they are aggressive but stupid. Nick and Helen then have a long discussion where he tries to convince her to come back to the modern world with him. She counters, saying that she has been exploring the anomalies, seeing many wonders, and wants Nick to join her in that time-wandering life, but Nick cannot forgive her for letting him think she was dead all this time.

Enraged by his refusal, she claims that he should have moved on after her apparent death, like she did, and that to nature, humanity is no different than thedinosaurs, that one day humanity will be gone and something else will take its place. Nick argues how he can run off with Helen when people are dying back home, but Helen retorts that species die, and that the people who die on the streets of London are just nobodies. Nick realises that the Helen he knew is gone and goes back alone, much to Helen's disgust. While he is swimming for the anomaly, the mosasaur attacks. He fires a spear at its head, but its skin is too thick to penetrate. He keeps dodging it as it charges but it rips open his scuba leaving him without air. As the mosasaur swings round for its final attack, a bigger mosasaur arrives and attacks it. Nick, who is towed back through the anomaly by the rope, needed artificial respiration but lives. When recovering he sees that Lester has sent Captain Ryan and an armed team through the anomaly and have brought Helen Cutter back by force.

[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
Diane Johnson — Abigail Aston
Detective Inspector — Andrew French
Jane Dexter — Pascale Burgess
Tom — Jake Curran
Duncan — James Bradshaw
Plumber — Aled Pugh
Lifeguard bokney grill
Lifeguard's girlfriend -sue hetney

[edit] Production

The episode features mosasaurs, which appeared in another Impossible Pictures Production Sea Monsters, and screenshots from that episode on Connor's laptop.
Final viewing figures for this episode were 6.17 million.

[edit] Continuity

Stephen is only just recovering from his Arthropleura bite and only just remembers meeting Helen.
Cutter states he has seen Helen since her disappearance, a fact he previously kept secret.

[edit] Animals seen

The anomaly leads to the Late Cretaceous Period, about 75 million years ago:

Mosasaur (one came through the anomaly, returned home.)
Hesperornis (one came through the anomaly, returned home.)
Unidentified fish (a shoal is seen being hunted by the Hesperornis)
Unidentified pterosaur (several are seen through the anomaly but none come through.)

[edit] Errors

The mosasaur was shown with an armoured crocodile-like body, but in reality it would have been smooth-skinned and streamlined.
The Hesperornis is described as having scales instead of feathers, and walking upright; this would be impossible for hesperornids^{[citation needed]}.