Primeval

Saturday, 21 July 2012, 5:30PM – 6:30PM

Last in series:

Short synopsis:

Faced with the greatest challenge of their lives, the team fight not only to save one of their own, but to prevent the destruction of the Earth. The stakes are high and lives are lost as the dangerous world of anomalies comes to its climax.

Long synopsis:

The team is at a loss. Connor has disappeared through Philip’s anomaly, and Matt thinks that his mission is over – Philip has won, and seemingly, nothing has gone wrong. Matt has a decision to make about what to do next – and jumps through the anomaly to save Connor…

…to find himself in a barren desert world, with Connor struggling in the immense heat and deadly sun’s rays. It’s a world we recognise from Matt’s dreams. Worse still, coming towards them are a group of disgustingly mutated future predators, intent on causing some damage. They’re facing a deadly attack with no defence, until an EMD shot rings out; Abby has followed them through the anomaly. Luckily, Matt seems to know his way around, and the group head for a bunker, protection from the threat of the heat and the predators. Beginning to recover, Connor’s guilt about his role in Philip’s project is overwhelming. It takes a whispered promise from Abby to give him the impetus to carry on, and get back to the ARC in one last attempt to save the world…

Back at New Dawn, Emily has been captured and questions Philip about what he’s done. But they’re distracted by the anomaly – which is increasing in size rapidly. The scientists are starting to abandon ship as the building begins to shake. But things are even worse at the ARC, where, though all the anomalies have closed, some kind of strange atmospheric changes are playing havoc with their comms.

Connor, Matt and Abby make their way back to the anomaly, shocked by its now-enormous size. They arrive back through to find an abandoned New Dawn. But Philip, shocked by the atmospheric changes taking place, watches from inside New Dawn as dark clouds gather and the Earth seems to be taking its revenge…Connor gives Philip an impassioned speech about what they’re seeing, about the effects his machine will have in the future. Philip knows there’s only one thing he can do – attempt to shut down the machine….alone. He knows this is suicide, but he has to do something to try and right his wrongs. New Dawn explodes under the pressure but, to the shock of the team, the anomaly still remains.

At the ARC, future predators have managed to infiltrate it via Connor’s small man made anomaly (which has reopened with Philip’s machine). Jess and Lester are facing a losing battle, as they run out of weapons and ammunition. As the team arrive back, they’re faced with Jess cradling a mortally injured Lester, they’re thrown into a fight to save the ARC and bring down the future predators. Suddenly Connor realises how they might be able to stop Philip’s anomaly expanding – but they need to utilise his stable, man-made version to do so.

They face a race against time to get Connor’s anomaly to New Dawn in time to stop it, but for it to work, Connor’s anomaly needs to go into the big one. Matt knows this is his time – he tells the team he’ll drive the anomaly into New Dawn’s anomaly. Emily and Matt have a tearful goodbye, as Matt drives into the anomaly – will he make it back, or is Matt gone forever?

Saturday, 14 July 2012, 5:30PM – 6:30PM

The exhausted ARC team are struggling to cope as more anomalies are opening. As the whole team let Lester in on the secrets of Matt’s mission, they are interrupted by worrying news – anomalies are opening everywhere and there are reports of a T Rex loose on the streets! Matt knows this is something important – the time he’s been waiting for is now. His main aim now is to get to Philip’s machine and switch it off before it can create havoc. Asking Connor to distract Philip, Matt heads off to New Dawn, while the others go off into the field to deal with the multiple anomalies.

As he attempts to run interference and stop him leaving, Philip lets on to Connor about the coming climax of convergence – his work has contributed to a machine that will not only solve the world’s energy crisis, but close the anomalies and stop the threat of creatures from now on. Accompanying Philip to New Dawn to keep an eye on him, the pair are interrupted by a rogue Gorgonopsid forcing them into a major car accident, leaving Connor trapped, Philip just crawling to safety. Realising Philip is about to get away, Connor attempts to stop him, revealing the truth about Matt and the mission. When Philip is dismissive, its all Connor can do to pull his EMD on him; only to discover that a paranoid Philip has disabled it. As Philip escapes to New Dawn, the race is on to get there before he can turn on the machine.

While the rest of the team fight the creatures, Abby rushes to save Connor, where the pair reconcile over his recent behaviour. Matt and Emily race to New Dawn, fighting off a swarm of vicious Anurognathus, as Connor and Abby arrive to help. Finally they make it to Philip’s control room – before a stand off with Philip ensues. As Abby and Emily run interference to distract the creatures, Matt attempts to reason with Philip, while Connor climbs inside the machine to disable it. But as convergence reaches its climax, Philip moves to turn on the machine…harnessing the energy of the anomalies…. in the process, Connor falls into the newly created monster anomaly. Is he lost forever?

Saturday, 7 July 2012, 6:00PM – 7:00PM

Philip and Connor secretly open an anomaly within the ARC, which connects to a time far in the future. Philip is excited; this is providing them with the best anomaly data yet, and even better, they created it themselves. But Matt is worried – an anomaly should be locked. Philip strongly refuses, and even posts a guard at the lab to prevent the team from interfering.

Matt expresses his concerns to Abby, who asks him to give her some time to try and persuade Connor to stop before Matt destroys the machine. As she does so, the guard is overwhelmed by vicious beetles, which strip him to the bone, too quickly for Abby and Connor to intervene.

Very soon the swarm of beetles are taking over Connor’s lab, chewing through everything in sight. The ARC bio-scan soon kicks the building into lockdown, isolating the creatures; Matt realises the beetles will be suffocated inside the room. But before long, the creatures are chewing through the wall and into the air ducts; quickly swarming through the building.

While the others track down the beetles through the air ducts, Matt sees his chance, and destroys Connor’s machine while he can.

The team work out a way to stop the creatures in their tracks, using their queen to lure them into the Ops area, and pesticides to take them down. But in the ensuing operation, Jess is bitten by a beetle and goes into anaphylactic shock. Becker, in his anger, shoots at the queen killing her, and as a result, loses control of the swarm; quickly the ARC becomes overrun with the nasty little creatures which are spreading throughout the building. As the outer boundaries of the ARC become threatened and Prospero comes under scrutiny, Philip has a solution; but it will destroy the ARC, taking the team with it.

As Becker, Abby and Emily attempt to find a way to treat Jess, Connor has an idea to try to redeem himself and his actions; he can harness the power of this future anomaly to create a shockwave that will wipe out the beetles. Problem is… Matt has destroyed the machine. It seems that all is lost. Until Matt produces from his pocket a hard drive, containing the data Abby downloaded from Connor’s machine. With time running out, the pair fix the machine, and fight their way back though the beetles with hosepipes to join the others in the menagerie. We see the building rock as the pulse created by the closing anomaly echoes through the ARC, shaking it to its very foundations…

Battered and bruised, the team emerge from the room, having defeated the creatures and closed the anomaly in one go. But as the massive ARC clean up begins, Connor is beginning to doubt Philip’s motivations; does he really have the best interests of the ARC at heart?
CREATURES:
Beetle
This creature will be bigger and meaner than the creature as it exists now. The idea is that these are creatures coming through the anomaly from a future time; they’ve evolved into something that can withstand the hostile environment that the earth’s surface has become.

The Devil’s Coach Horse beetle, which is part of the same family, is well known for its habit of raising its long and uncovered abdomen and opening its jaws, rather like a scorpion when threatened. Although it has no ‘sting in its tail’ it can give a painful bite with its strong pincer-like jaws. It also emits a foul smelling odour, as a defensive secretion, from a pair of white glands at the end of its abdomen.

Saturday, 30 June 2012, 6:00PM – 7:00PM

A regular anomaly alert turns sour when the team realise they’ve accidently returned a raptor through to the wrong time. With the sense of responsibility weighing on their shoulders, Matt returns through the anomaly, asking Abby to find out what Connor’s been up to in his lab. He thinks it’s got something to do with whatever Philip’s been planning. Abby is reluctant to betray Connor’s trust, but shares his concerns about what he’s up to.

Realising the raptor is responsible for a number of gruesome murders, he soon manages to track down the creature to a fruit warehouse. He’s about to take it down when a mysterious cloaked figure distracts him, and leads him straight into the path of a raptor attack. The hood falls…Emily is back. Just as they struggle to come to terms with seeing each other again, two dark strangers grab Emily from behind and drag her away, leaving Matt unconscious…

Meanwhile, back at the ARC, Abby knows she has to try and reconnect with Connor; they’ve been spending too much time apart. But a nasty encounter with April on her way to his lab makes her wonder if Matt is right – Connor is up to something in his lab that she isn’t meant to know about. Before she was completely against it, but now she’s more convinced than ever that she needs to know the truth. She hatches a plan to infiltrate Connor’s lab…

Emily is attempting to escape her captors – who are revealed to be her husband, and a doctor from the Bethlem hospital – her absence and ‘strange’ behaviour have led to her husband to have her sectioned. As it seems all is lost, the raptor returns, attacking their coach, killing the doctor and allowing Emily to escape back to Matt and the warehouse. But not before a passer-by notices the carnage – and blames Emily for it. Mob mentality ensues as Matt and Emily become trapped in the warehouse with a raptor on the loose. With the mob building in numbers outside, Matt and Emily struggle to get control of the raptor, as the danger increases outside. Having found and stunned the raptor, the only option is for Matt and Emily to take it back through the anomaly. Emily takes some persuading; Matt’s time isn’t where she belongs. But as he points out, here, they think she’s a murderer. Just as it looks like she’s made a decision, her husband reappears, brandishing a pistol. Distracting him, they make a quick escape through the anomaly with the raptor.

Abby is hiding out in Connor’s lab, downloading his data to a portable hard drive. But little does she know a suspicious April in stalking around, looking for her. Just in time, she manages to finish before April can stumble across her; the secret’s safe.

Returning to 2011, Emily has to think hard about her future – return home 1868 as an accused murderer, or stay out of time with Matt. But there’s little time to argue as her husband bursts through the anomaly, shooting at the team. Eventually capturing and disarming him, it looks like he’ll go back through the anomaly willingly, but he has other plans – grabbing Emily as he attempts to go through… Things look bleak, until the raptor, freshly conscious, attacks and kills him. With nothing left to go back for, Emily decides to stay in the present.

Returning to the ARC, Abby and Connor are once again at odds – April has persuaded Connor that Abby is up to something, and Connor can’t help but wonder. Even news of Philip’s involvement with Helen does nothing to persuade him that Abby is on his side. Feeling further apart than ever, Abby decides she has just one option – and heads to Matt’s lab, to hand over the hard drive.

Meanwhile, working late in his lab, Connor has had a breakthrough that could change everything – and Philip is the first person he calls…

Saturday, 23 June 2012, 5:40PM – 6:45PM

When a nuclear submarine encounters an anomaly and Liopleurodon in the sea, the team are called aboard to help. After a briefing, they board the sub, where they discover a creature resembling a raptor ancestor that has been brought on board by the crew. While Abby examines the creature, Connor plans a way to lock the anomaly, utilising the sub’s torpedo system to blast it closed. All seems to be going to plan, until the sub is rocked by a massive bang…

…The sub is under attack by Liopleurodons, knocking out the captain and leaving just one officer and the team to sail the sub to safety. The sub is sucked through the anomaly, knocking out the electrics.

Meanwhile at the ARC, Lester has to cope with the intervention of Navy bigwigs, threatening to nuke the sub if the team can’t fix the problem. The political fallout from any damage caused by the anomaly is too big to ignore. Jess and Lester are working against the clock as they attempt to distract the Admiral long enough for the team to do their stuff.

While Connor heads off to fix the electrics, Matt and Abby head out onto a mini-sub in an attempt to repair the external damage. But the constant threat of the liopleurodon is making their task even more difficult. Meanwhile, the freshly woken raptor-ancestor is stalking the corridors of the sub, having already taken out another guard.

Connor is still attempting to fix the internal damage when the creature attacks him. Connor struggles to fight back as he protects the ship from further damage. Matt and Abby turn up in the nick of time but not before a headlong collision between sub and liopleurodon allows the creature to escape and creates a massive leak, putting the team in further danger. Racing against the clock (and the leak) Connor and Abby eventually manage to take the creature down with a combination of wet floors and an EMD bolt. Then Matt has a brainwave – perhaps they can use the torpedo to kill two birds with one stone – forcing the creature out of the sub, and closing the anomaly in the process. Transferring it to the torpedo bay, Matt plans to flood the room and eject the creature out as a distraction for the liopleurodon, allowing them to escape. Little do they know, Lester is doing all he can to stop the Admiral firing a nuclear torpedo straight at them…

Saturday, 16 June 2012, 6:00PM – 7:00PM

SERIES OVERVIEW:

One year after the death of Johnson and the disappearance of three key ARC personnel (Danny, Connor and Abby), the government lost faith in Lester’s abilities to run such a dangerous and expensive operation on his own.

They placed the ARC in the hands of a public/private partnership, part-owned by the government, and partly by entrepreneurial scientist Philip Burton (think Richard Branson with a microscope).

The ARC operates from the industrial complex which houses Philip’s scientific empire; an estate of buildings with all the hustle and bustle of a thriving scientific community.

As with any public/private partnership, there’s tension over who’s really in charge; Lester still runs the day-to-day operation but begrudgingly, he realizes that Philip will want involvement in the operation when it suits him.

Following Connor, Abby and Danny’s departure, the ARC found new recruits to take their place: Matt, new field leader, now handles the incursions. He’s more than just an ex-soldier; he’s a zoologist, with an uncanny ability to understand animals. A private man, Matt carefully guards the secrets of his past – and the real reason he has joined the ARC team.

Unconventional Jess now runs operations from the ARC Control Centre – highly efficient and organized, her work ethic is second to none, though she is human enough to nurse an unrequited crush on Becker.

Becker reigned from the military when the ARC was destroyed, and has lived with a sense of responsibility for the original team going missing. He now works as Head of Security for the ARC. They came complete with new uniforms, and most importantly to Matt, new taser guns which avoid killing the creatures.

Since Abby and Connor returned from the Cretaceous, they’ve been sacked, re-hired, caught up with old friends, and lost them to new adventures.

Matt’s been forced to reveal his mission to Emily in order to persuade her to return to her own time. After the death of his father, Gideon, it’s now his own responsibility to carry the mission through, and he’s pretty sure he knows where to start.

Following Danny’s revelations on his return, Philip now has his suspicions raised and is keeping a careful watch on the team for anyone stepping out of line.

The tension is about to be ramped up tenfold as relationships are tested, anomalies become more dangerous, and secrets are revealed. Who will survive the apocalypse about to befall the world?

ITV will air the fifth season of Primeval starting in June.

The sci-fi series will return to the broadcaster on June 16, after screening on Watch between May and June 2011.

The series was renewed for two seasons back in 2009 by ITV and digital channel Watch. The joint agreement meant ITV would screen the fourth season before Watch while the latter would have first screening rights for the fifth season. Continue reading »

The eagerly anticipated series promises to be the best yet for Primeval fans and features more stunning special effects, adventure and incredible creatures, as the team at the ARC have their work cut out for them to police ruptured time anomalies, and the growing threat of entrepreneur Philip Burton, whose grip on the ARC is tightening with every episode.

The new series is a fast paced story set across 6 episodes where even more anomalies are making the lives of Connor, Abbey and the team even more chaotic – in fact there’s a crisis for everyone in the team. The only question is will all of them survive the new threats?

For exclusive content from the series and information about the show visit the Primeval Series 5 Facebook Page, where for the past month fans of the show have been enjoying, sharing and joining in the conversation and speculation with other Primeval fans across the globe.

Primeval Series 5 will start Tuesday 24th May at 8pm on Watch (Sky 109, Virgin Media 124).

(From a press release)

Saturday, 29 January 2011, 7:20PM – 8:20PM

Episode six: 

An anomaly alert calls the team to a stately home, where they come across a grand wedding. Though Matt has persuaded Philip to allow Emily to come out on the incursion, Becker and Jess are kept behind – they must find Ethan before he can kill again. Arriving at the location, they soon realise that this is no ordinary wedding; as they come across Jenny Lewis, trying her best to forget her old life at the ARC. 

Locking the anomaly, the team get ready to enjoy the wedding; the romantic atmosphere not quite extending to Connor and Abby, as they clash over their future. Meanwhile, Matt and Emily have ventured down to the locked anomaly, hoping to return her back through. But as the moment comes, a vicious Hyaenadon comes bursting through the unlocked anomaly, and runs riot through the house. 

Connor, angry after his fight with Abby, goes wandering through the house, eventually finding the cellar, where he comes across a number of Hyaenodon pups. Unfortunately, their mother is just outside and desperate to get rid of this intruder; Connor spends an anxious night behind a locked door before finding a way to return the pups to their mother. But now there are several Hyaenadons on the loose, with the wedding about to start… 

Back at the ARC, Becker and Jess have uncovered a flat Ethan has commandeered. Investigating, they discover a bomb rigged to blow up any intruder; a tense standoff ensues as Jess attempts to defuse the bomb and save Becker’s life. At the wedding, the Hyaenadons are in full swing; Jenny returns to her ARC roots to help the team fight off the creatures and return them through the anomaly. With the creatures returned, and the marriage vows completed, Matt and Emily return to the locked anomaly to try again. But Matt doesn’t want her to go, and talks her out of leaving.

Sunday, 2 January 2011, 7:00PM – 8:00PM

Reunited with an old friend, Connor comes across a deadly Kaprosuchus terrorizing the docks. Working with new ARC leader Matt, they manage to stop the creature, but will Connor’s bravery earn him his place back on the team? 

Abby and Connor begin to contemplate life without the ARC. But while Abby is offered a lowly position looking after the menagerie; Connor is left out in the cold. In an attempt to reconnect with his old life, he seeks out university friend Duncan (who we last saw in Series 1, Episode 4), and Duncan has become obsessed with creatures. He tells Connor of reports of a creature he is convinced is alive and has been seen around the docks. Despite there being no evidence of an anomaly, Connor can’t resist investigating, and the pair head off to find the creature. 

Things soon turn sour as Connor realises just how true Duncan’s story is; he comes across a mangled dead body amongst the debris of the docks. Enlisting Abby’s help, Connor and Duncan track down the creature – a Kaprosuchus – as it escapes from its hiding place. Flushed down the drain as a baby, it made its home amongst the debris and rubbish of the docks, killing homeless people. With its home destroyed by building work, the Kaprosuchus is on the rampage. Connor calls on Abby to confirm his suspicions. She arrives and they have a dangerous encounter with the creature. Luckily, Matt, still intrigued by Abby’s actions, has followed her to the docks… 

Saving them from the burning warehouse and the deadly Kaprosuchus, Matt helps them search for the creature on land, whilst Abby searches by boat. Little does she know the creature is stalking her from behind until it attacks, forcing a rescue from the land-based team. 

Luring the creature onto a nearby cargo ship, they trap it in a giant container, slamming the doors to lock it inside. They think they’re safe, as the dock crane lifts the container trap high into the air, the creature thrashing against the sides. But its strength is just too much, and the crane loses grip, dropping the container from height into a labyrinth of a container park. Added to that, Duncan has disappeared, and Connor is beside himself. He can’t let another friend die… 

Matt coordinates a plan to drive the creature out of the container maze using flares, whilst Connor goes in search of Duncan. And it works well, until the creature comes at Becker from above, and shooting it with the EMD, catapults it from the container, dead into the water. Connor has rescued Duncan, and the body of the creature is retrieved. 

Connor returns to ARC to fight for his job, but is too late….Matt has already won him his place back on the team. But does he have ulterior motives in fighting for Connor?