Episode 4 (Primeval)

"Episode 4 (Primeval)"

Episode Four of the ITV sci-fi drama Primeval was broadcast in the UK on 3 March, 2007.

Synopsis

A flock of dodos carries deadly parasites.

Plot

In a block of flats, a woman shouts down annoyed at some children playing noisily outside. Inside, there is something in a toilet bowl; the resulting emergency call gets to the attention of the anomaly team, who come with rifles etc. as usual, (causing the children to put their hands up, expecting to be shot if they did not surrender!) but it is only an escaped modern python: it was a false alarm.

In the Home Office a team interrogates Helen Cutter trying to get her to tell what she knows about the anomalies, to save lives. Helen refuses to co-operate. She is the only one who understands how the anomalies work, but for now she's keeping her secrets safe. Lester makes a veiled threat about torture and everyone thinking she is already dead so no one will come looking for her. She then offers to talk but only to her husband.

When she and Nick Cutter meet she blames him for setting her up. He tries to tell her he knew nothing about Lester's plan to capture her, but she refuses to believe him. She then suddenly relents and says that there is a big pack of sabre-toothed killers on the other side of a recently opened anomaly waiting to come into central London.

James Peregrine Lester claims that this is a trap. Claudia Brown agrees, although her motives for disliking Cutter's reappeared wife are of a more personal nature. But Nick puts their scepticism aside, and convinces them to give Helen a chance. Meanwhile, Connor Temple's secret life, full of late-night excursions, is starting to be a serious concern for his friends Tom and Duncan, in case he is part of a Government conspiracy that they suspect: they place an electronic bug on him and set out on a mission to discover what he's doing.

Helen leads the special forces to an anomaly in Matchroom football stadium's catering storeroom with Tom and Duncan in hot pursuit. However, it was a lie and Helen breaks away and escapes through the anomaly. Captain Tom Ryan and Stephen Hart chase her through to a wide grass plain with dozens of anomalies. With no way of knowing which one she went through; they are forced to go back without her.

In the present, four dodos come out of the anomaly, and they catch three of them, but one runs away, swallows the tracking device from Connor's bag, and wanders outside where it is found by Tom and Duncan. They take it to their flat, believing the conspiracy that they suspect that Connor is involved in, is cloning the dodos. However, these dodos carry giant cestoid parasites that use the host body to reproduce and then kill the host and themselves; they spread by making the host vicious so they can spread by the bites (but they can also spread by kissing); the parasite's life cycle takes a few hours.

In the flat, the dodo is friendly at first, then goes vicious and bites Tom. Tom soon becomes controlled by the parasite, but being human he understands he's acting out of character and tries to resist the mental effect.

Back at the Home Office, Nick tries to half-heartedly defend his Helen but Lester points out the bitter truth he's avoiding by telling Nick that all she cares about is herself, and that she doesn't care about what happens to people back in the present. At best she sold them out- at worse she deliberately unleashed this pandemic on them as part of her "Twisted Plan."

Duncan goes to Connor for help in desperation while Tom, using the device they used to track Connor, goes to the dodo; but not before he uncontrollably bites a doctor in the hospital while trying to find help on his own. He finds the dodo, and Abby Maitland, and although he does not want to hurt her, he wants answers.

Meanwhile, Stephen and Nick are interviewing Connor and Duncan about Tom; Duncan admits to bugging Connor. He explains that the dodo swallowed the bug. They find, because of this, that Abby is in danger.

Tom is still trying to get answers from Abby, and is, because of the parasite, getting more aggressive. Still believing his theory of a conspiracy, he attempts to use force to get answers. Abby says she will tell him, and takes him to the warehouse.

Connor, Duncan, Nick, and Stephen get to the lab, but no one is there. They use the tracker to try and find Abby and Tom.

At the stadium, the anomaly has closed, so Abby cannot prove anything. Tom gets aggressive, and Abby has to fight Tom off and run for her life. However, everything is locked, and she can only run further into the storage area. Tom gets annoyed when he can't find her, but she ambushes him and runs. However, he catches up, and tries to bite her when everyone shows up.

Connor tries to get Tom to leave Abbie. He uses negotiation and Tom's human memories to jog Tom memory into remembering him, and appeals "You can resist the dark side." as in Star Wars. Tom calms down, and he becomes safe again. The parasite is still in him, but Connor plays along with his conspiracy theory, and comforts him. Tom says he fought the "mind-controllers", and with Connor playing along with his theory. Tom, because of the parasite, dies as happy as he could be in the situation. Just before he collapses Tom realises how well he has done and says 'I'm a hero,' before leaning forward, dead. Connor tries to leave the group, but Nick persuades him to stay in the group, for Tom's memory.

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
• Tom — Jake Curran
• Duncan — James Bradshaw
• Mrs Davis — Manjeet Mann
• Small Boy — Amaar Sardharwalla
• Doctor — Billy Carter

Animals seen

The anomaly led a strange grassy field which had many anomalies. The wildlife in it came through from these other anomalies from other places-times, one of which was Mauritius between the 15th and 17th centuries:-

• Dodo (a flock came through the anomaly, returned home except for two which died of parasite infections.)
• Cestoid parasite (species unknown, two came through the anomaly, both later died upon reaching the ends of their life cycles; one had descendants who also died through not finding new hosts.)

From elsewhere:-

• Python. (an escaped pet from the modern world.)

Errors

• Helen says she saw a Utahraptor in the Jurassic, but Utahraptors were only alive during the Cretaceous.
• The dodos were depicted as fat and clumsy, as those bought to by sailors for zoos were due to overfeeding in captivity; real wild dodos would have been somewhat slimmer than shown in the show.

External links

• "Episode 4" at IMDb