A crack team of scientists headed up by world renowned evolutionary scientist, Professor Nick Cutter (Douglas Henshall; Frances Tuesday, Anna Kerenina), is recruited by the government to investigate a series of dinosaur sightings. From a Gorgonopsid rampaging through the local woods to a swarm of giant spiders in the tunnels of the London Underground, they find themselves doing the monster mash with some seriously beastly opponents.

Long extinct creatures are tearing through a series of rips in time, and as the seemingly impossible becomes a terrifying reality, Cutter and his research assistant Stephen Hart (James Murray; Marple, Cutting It) struggle to find answers. Enlisting the help of zoologist, Abby Maitland (Hannah Spearritt; S Club 7, Agent Cody Banks II), and student palaeontologist Connor Temple (Andrew-Lee Potts; I Deal, Trial and Retribution), the four work to uncover the secrets of the temporal anomalies.

In doing so, it swiftly becomes clear that all traditional methods of research have become extinct. Aided and abetted in equal measures by shadowy government officials James Lester (Ben Miller; The Worst Week of My Life, Johnny English) and Claudia Brown (Lucy Brown; Sharpe, Whatever Love Means, North and South), the team find themselves heading into previously unchartered territory. As the past threatens to invade the present and destroy the future, Cutter’s crew faces a life and death race against time.

As history roars off the pages of his books, Cutter’s own, intensely private battle continues to rage. Haunted by the disappearance of his wife, Helen (Juliet Aubrey; A Good Murder, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Middlemarch) some eight years previously, he has never given up hope of finding her alive. As the prehistoric investigation intensifies, he begins to suspect that events are somehow linked.

Primeval was commissioned by Nick Elliott, Director of Network Drama for ITV, produced by Cameron McAllister (Jericho, Forgotten), co-created and written by Adrian Hodges (Ruby in the Smoke, Charles II: The Power and the Passion), Executive Produced and co-created by Tim Haines, Impossible Pictures and directed by Cilla Ware (Wild at Heart, Spooks) and Jamie Payne (The Baby War, At Home with the Braithwaites)

Duration: 6 x 50′
Release Date: February 2007