Primeval transcript: 1x01 Part 1
Masterlist
OPENING SCENE:
A shopping trolley rolls across the screen.
A GORGONOPSID walks out of the trees, growling.
A woman (HELEN CUTTER) runs across an ASDA car park and hides in a large metal bin.
More growling, we see Helen as the bin she is hiding in is rammed repeatedly by the gorgonopsid.
Cut to a cleaner buffing the floor inside ASDA.
Shot of gorgonopsid walking across the car park.
Back to the cleaner. Helen runs across the car park and bangs on the store window.
Helen: Hey! Let me in!
Cleaner looks at Helen, but can’t hear what she’s saying and goes back to cleaning. Helen runs off as a bunch of trolleys are thrown at her.
Helen runs across the car park, tries to hide between 2 cars, and is almost squashed as several other cars are tossed about by the gorgonopsid.
Helen runs back into the trees. The gorgonopsid follows, roaring.
Title sequence.
EIGHT YEARS LATER:
A silver 4x4 pick up truck (with a Department of Evolutionary Zoology logo on the door) pulls up outside CENTRAL METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY. NICK CUTTER and STEPHEN HART get out.
Nick: I think there’s something seriously wrong with her…
Conversation continues as they walk toward the University, but is inaudible.
Nick and Stephen are walking along a wooden walkway alongside one of the buildings when they are approached from behind by CONNOR TEMPLE.
Connor: Professor Cutter?
Nick: Careful there.
Connor drops an armful of papers; Nick and Stephen keep on walking.
Connor: Professor! Professor Cutter!
Connor catches up to Nick and Stephen and extends a hand to shake.
Connor: Connor Temple.
Nick: Sorry, never heard of it. I think you want archaeology. If you go around up there to your right and keep on walking, it’s on your left.
Nick and Stephen both point to the right of the screen. Connor looks confused.
Connor: No, its not… it’s not a place, it’s my name. I’m one of your students.
Nick stops and turns to face Connor.
Nick: Really?
Connor: Uh-huh.
Nick: Well why… why I don’t recognise you?
Connor: Well, you’ve never actually turned up for the seminars.
Nick nods and he and Stephen start walking again.
Nick: Uh-huh.
Nick and Stephen continue their conversation from earlier. Connor hesitates for a second before following them.
Connor: Professor!
Cut to Nick’s office. We see a desk covered with various skulls, a leather bound journal, a couple of gems and 2 pictures of Helen Cutter.
The door opens; Nick, Stephen and Connor come in and go down a set of stairs.
Nick: Don’t touch anything. This is my laboratory technician, Stephen Hart.
Stephen: Hi.
Connor: Hi.
Nick walks around to stand behind his desk. Connor stands in front of the desk and Stephen walks over to a side table. Nick picks up a pile of paper in a pink folder and throws it in the bin. Connor points to the papers.
Connor: Oh, actually, that’s my dissertation.
Nick straightens up and gives Connor a questioning look before retrieving the dissertation.
Connor: Yeah. You see I argued that all life on Earth derived from organisms carried here by alien spacecraft. It’s pretty sexy stuff.
Nick purses his lips and tosses the dissertation back in the trash.
Connor: It’s a work in progress, really.
Nick picks up a piece of stone, which contains a fossilised fish skeleton.
Nick: Tell me what this is.
Connor: A fish?
Nick: Obviously. It’s a sarcopterygian. There’s no trace of them in the fossil record for 70 million years, and then suddenly one of them just pops up in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Totally inexplicable in modern evolutionary terms. See, Darwin provides most of the answers, it’s the pieces that don’t fit that interest me.
Connor: See, that’s why I was wondering if you’d seen this.
Connor holds up a newspaper with the headline ‘MONSTER HOAX or Truly Beastly’, also has the side heading ‘8 troops fail spot drug test’ for those who are interested.
Nick moves around his desk to put the fossil fish down at Stephen’s workstation before moving to take the paper from Connor.
Connor: Some sort of gigantic, undiscovered predator.
Nick unfolds the newspaper and we see a blurry picture (CCTV) of what the audience can see is a gorgonopsid. Nick looks at Connor with disbelief before handing the paper to Stephen.
Connor: Oh no, no, no, no, no. This … this is the real thing.
Nick: Connor, you should get out more. Go to a bar. Meet a nice girl. Life will seem a lot less confusing.
Connor: I’ve already got a girlfriend. Sort of.
Nick moves back behind his desk and takes his jacket off.
Connor: That’s not really the point. There’s an eyewitness, claimed to have seen it.
Nick: People claim to have seen the Loch Ness monster, that doesn’t mean it’s there.
Connor: Not now, obviously, because it died years ago.
Nick and Stephen share disbelieving looks.
Connor: The Government, they took the body away and covered up the whole thing.
Nick: This is just a hoax. Forget it.
Connor: Your wife wouldn’t have ignored it.
There is a moment of silence as Nick freezes.
Nick: My wife was a serious scientist. She wasn’t a gullible monster hunter.
Connor looks remorseful.
Connor: Sorry.
Nick: It’s OK.
Connor: I just thought you might want to check it out, that’s all.
Connor puts the newspaper back in his bag and starts to move towards the door.
Connor: It’s not as though the Forest of Dean is far away though.
Nick: The Forest of Dean?
Stephen suddenly straightens from where he has been looking at something with a magnifying glass and turns to Nick. Slowly Nick turns to Stephen.
Stephen: If we leave now we could be there by lunch.
AT THE ZOO:
A young zookeeper, ABBY MAITLAND, is sitting in one of the lizard enclosures, trying to persuade two of the lizards (Brad and Angelina) to mate.
Abby: Come on guys, what are you waiting for? Soft lighting and a Frank Sinatra record?
Abby’s boss, TIM PARKER, walks up to the enclosure and taps on the glass partition.
Tim: How are Brad and Angelina?
Abby: Oh, totally gay, but otherwise fine.
Tim: They should be mating by now.
Abby: Maybe they just don’t fancy each other.
Tim: Abby, a word.
Abby stands up and moves out of the enclosure.
Tim: Abby, I’m sorry. The sponsor’s pulled out and I have to slim down the reptile programme.
Abby: And my job comes under the heading ‘instant weight loss’, right?
Abby storms out, Tim follows her.
Tim: There’s an attachment going at the bughouse. I could put in a word for you.
Abby: I’m a lizard girl, Tim. You know that.
Tim’s mobile rings, he turns to answer it and drops the armload of papers he was carrying.
Tim: Oh, sorry.
Abby: Oh.
Abby crouches to pick up the papers whilst Tim is on the phone.
Tim: Hello, Tim Parker. Uh, well, I’ll call you back, okay? Okay, bye.
Abby is looking at one of the papers Tim dropped, it is a letter from a boy called BEN TRENT, who has found a lizard and has sent photos.
Tim: Letters. From people wanting the zoo to collect their animals. Why do people buy exotic pets if they don’t want them?
Tim takes the pile from Abby, but she keeps the letter from Ben and smiles as she looks at the photos.
Tim: Is everything alright?
Abby: I’ll handle this one if you like. It’s my field. I know the Forest of Dean pretty well. Anyway, so about this attachment.
Abby and Tim start walking back the way they came.
Tim: Yes. Uh, a six-month project studying the life cycle of parasites in elephant dung.
Abby: Sounds unmissable.
THE FOREST OF DEAN TAKE 1:
A couple of shots of Nick’s 4x4 driving down the motorway, and into the forest.
Nick, Stephen and Connor walk up to a damaged truck with the eyewitness, a security guard in a reflective jacket.
Guard: I’d just finished my rounds when I caught a glimpse of it on the monitor.
The body of a red truck has been slashed open, leaving great gashes in its sides.
Connor: Can you imagine how much force it took to rip this thing open? Look at the size of the marks. If you want my opinion, I think it’s…
Stephen picks up a dead chicken, and Nick gives Connor an amused look.
Connor: You don’t, do you?
Stephen: Well, if I found these gouges in the wild, I’d be certain we were looking for a large predator.
Nick: But we’re in the Forest of Dean.
Guard: It was huge and it was so fast. It was gone across the yard in a second.
Stephen approaches the truck and looks at a red, liquid substance splashed across its side.
Stephen: Well, there’s blood.
Nick moves closer to the actual Forest. Stephen follows him.
Nick: Stephen. Come and give me a logical explanation for this.
Stephen: It’s a hoax, obviously.
Stephen catches up to Nick and stops as he too sees the twisted metal fence at the edge of the trees. Connor walks up behind them.
Stephen: Just a difficult one to pull off.
Connor: Can I say something?
Nick moves closer to the fence, leaving Connor and Stephen behind.
Connor: Is he alright?
Stephen: Helen Cutter came to this area eight years ago to investigate a creature sighting. She disappeared in the forest. The body was never found. Just a rucksack. No blood, no clues, nothing. She just vanished.
MEETING BEN AND REX:
Abby is driving (in a mini) onto a close on a modern housing estate, which borders the Forest of Dean. She pulls onto a drive and is greeted by MRS TRENT, Ben’s mother.
Mrs Trent: We never expected a personal call.
Abby: All part of the zoo service, Mrs Trent.
Mrs Trent: It’s only a lizard.
Cut to Ben’s room. He has model dinosaurs on his shelves and hanging from his ceiling, dinosaurs painted on his walls, and one of those beds, which are like bunk beds but without the bottom bunk.
Abby: I see you like dinosaurs, Ben.
Ben: [Laughs] Yeah. They’re awesome.
We hear chirping. Abby looks around and sees a lizard on Ben’s bed. REX.
Ben: His name’s Rex. I found him in the forest. Looked him up in a book and it said he was a flying lizard from Southeast Asia.
Abby: Draco Volans.
Abby looks at Rex closely and gets a confused look on her face.
Abby: He’s not a Draco Volans.
Ben: No?
Abby and Ben watch as Rex jumps from the bed to a bedside cabinet, then to a chest of drawers and then to a high shelf, knocking things over as he does.
Abby: In fact, I don’t know what he is.
Ben: I thought you were an expert.
Abby: I am. If I’m right, you’ve discovered a completely unique species.
Ben: Oh, cool.
Abby: I need you to show me exactly where you found him.
FOREST OF DEAN TAKE 2:
Abby and Ben are walking through the forest. Abby is carrying Rex, who is wrapped in a purple blanket.
Abby: It’s too cold for him here. He must have escaped from a private zoo or something.
Ben: I found him around here somewhere. This way.
Ben sees something and suddenly stops.
Ben: Abby.
Abby turns to him, and sees what he has seen. A dead cow has been lifted into the branches of a tree and left there (as leopards do with their prey). Abby and Ben look around nervously.
Cut to Ben and Abby running through the forest.
Abby: Slow down. Wait for me.
Ben: Maybe it was a leopard. They sometimes drag their prey into trees and come back for it later.
Abby: Don’t be silly, Ben. How many leopards are there in the Forest of Dean.
Ben: I don’t care. It’s weird. I’m getting out of here.
Abby: Ben, hold on. Wait for me!
EDDINGTON HOTEL, THE FOREST OF DEAN:
The 4x4 is parked outside the hotel.
Nick is at the bar, drinking a glass of water.
CLAUDIA BROWN is sitting on a sofa, being chatted up by a guy with a bad toupee. She doesn’t look too impressed.
Toupee Guy: No ones as pretty as yours [[Not good grammar, but that’s what the subtitles say]]. I must admit though, I’ve never seen you around here myself. And hey, why don’t we have a drink afterwards.
Claudia has seen Nick at the bar over Toupee Guy’s shoulder. Nick is looking at a picture of Helen in his wallet when Claudia taps him on the shoulder.
Claudia: Excuse me.
Claudia kisses Nick.
Claudia: Don’t panic. I just told that slime ball over there you were my boyfriend. One more sleazy chat-up line and I was going to have to kill him.
Nick: Well, I’m very glad I was here to help. Uh, I’m Nick Cutter.
Claudia: Actually, I know who you are. Claudia Brown, Home Office. I saw you at the Hotel. I’m hoping you can do me a favour Professor.
Nick: Another one?
Claudia: I suspect this is why we’re both here.
Claudia takes a white envelope out of her bag and reveals the picture that had been in the newspaper.
Claudia: We get dozens of rogue animal sightings every year. You’d be doing me a great favour if you could just confirm all this is nonsense.
Nick: I can’t dismiss the evidence out of hand.
Claudia: Surely you’re not giving this whole monster story credibility, Professor?
Nick: I’m just trying to keep an open mind.
Claudia: People always say that as though it’s such a good thing.
Nick: Well, you see, that depends on how you define ‘monster’. A wild panther might look pretty terrifying on a dark night.
Claudia: Is that what we’re dealing with?
Nick: My best guess, if it exists at all. The last sighting was somewhere near the forest. Would you care to join the search?
Claudia: I suppose I owe it to the taxpayer to do more than sit in my room and suck the mini bar dry.
Cut to Stephen and Connor at the 4x4 outside the Hotel. Connor has his laptop open and is showing Stephen his database.
Connor: This database contains constantly updated information on all non-extinct vertebrates. I’ve been building it every spare second since I was 14.
Stephen: It’s impressive.
Connor: It’s pretty cool, huh.
Stephen: And slightly sad.
Connor: You know we’re not talking about a wild cat, don’t you?
Nick and Claudia arrive before Stephen can respond.
Nick: This is Claudia Brown from the Home Office. She’ll be coming with us.
Connor: I knew it. It’s a cover-up.
Claudia: What’s he talking about?
Nick: Connor never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like.
THE FOREST OF DEAN TAKE 3:
Ben is still running through the forest. Abby is as well, but she has fallen behind, and they have become separated.
Abby: Ben! Slow down!
Abby is standing in a small clearing with Rex still in her arms. Rex chirrups quite regularly through this scene.
Abby: Ben!
Abby starts running again, but is knocked off balance when Rex jumps out of her arms and starts gliding around. She watches him for a bit, and then follows him into an area of denser undergrowth when he lands.
Abby: Rex! Not now Rex. Please come back.
Rex moves further into the undergrowth, Abby follows.
Abby: Oh Rex! For goodness sake.
Ben is running through the woods, when something shiny catches his eye. He comes to a stop a few metres from an ANOMALY. He walks up to it and sticks his head through. On the other side is a prehistoric landscape, with some volcanoes erupting and some of Rex’s family (COELUROSAURAVUS) flying around. Ben pulls his head back through the anomaly, amazed. He is about to go back through, when he hears a roar. He runs back into the trees.
Ben: Abby!
Abby is climbing through the undergrowth to get to Rex.
Abby: Rex. Come here. Stop messing around.
Slow footsteps are heard. Rex chirrups nervously and Abby looks around for their source. A low growl is heard and the gorgonospid’s reflection appears in a nearby stream. Abby and Rex stay very still until it moves away.
FOREST OF DEAN TAKE 4:
Stephen, Claudia, Nick and Connor are travelling through the forest. Stephen has a map. Connor has a compass.
Claudia: If there really were some creature around here, wouldn’t the journalists have found it by now?
Nick: They wouldn’t know what they were looking for.
Claudia: But you do?
Nick: Hmm. I’ve seen Stephen track wounded animals through the rainforest for up to 10 days at a time.
Connor: Not to mention wrestle an anaconda and save a whale.
Connor moves forwards so he is walking with Stephen and Claudia and Nick are behind them.
Nick: Maybe there is something here, and maybe there isn’t. Frankly, I doubt it.
Stephen: Cutter!
Stephen has found the cow in the tree that Abby and Ben saw earlier.
Nick: Okay, now I’m getting interested.
Connor: Professor, the compass is going haywire.
Connor passes the compass to Nick. The compass needle is spinning around madly.
SETTING THE BAIT:
Ben has run to the edge of the forest, and is back at the estate where he lives. He climbs a stile to get onto the estate, sighing with relief.
Ben: Ow.
Ben pricks his finger on a thorn. He shakes it off and runs into his house and to his room, locking his bedroom door behind him. He dives onto a beanbag chair and studies his finger. The thorn has made it bleed. Outside, some of his blood is splashed on a leaf, a shadow falls over the leaf. Inside, Ben’s window starts to steam up in time to some growling from outside.
Ben turns his head to look and scrambles out of the way and onto his bed just as a huge set of gorgonopsid jaws smash through his window.
Ben: No. Ah!
The gorgonopsid grabs Ben’s bed and shakes it. Ben scrambles back as far as he can get and starts grabbing things and throwing them at it. He throws the remote control for his stereo at it and the loud music confuses the gorgonopsid for a moment, allowing Ben to get off his bed. Ben crawls out of the way and grabs an electric ball (one of those things where electricity is trapped in a glass globe) and throws it. The electric charge is enough to sting the gorgonopsid, and it retreats. Ben grabs a lightsaber and slowly moves towards his window, which has been completely destroyed, the gorgonopsid is gone, and Ben’s mother has heard the noise.
Mrs Trent: Ben, what on earth is going on in there? I want this mess tidied up now!
FOREST OF DEAN TAKE 5:
Abby has managed to reclaim Rex, but it has gone dark, and she has gotten lost in the forest.
Abby: Okay, Rex. Which way now?
She stops in a clearing, and hears a growl behind her. She turns around to see a SCUTOSAURUS. She backs up as it turns towards her and roars. Rex jumps out of her arms again as the scutosaurus repeats itself.
Abby: Rex!
Nick and the others come up behind her.
Nick: Don’t move.
Abby: Is it real?
Nick: Some kind of experiment, maybe. Hybrid, throwback. Who are you?
Abby: Abby Maitland. I’m a keeper at Wellington Zoo.
Nick approaches the scutosaurus, shining his torch at it.
Nick: It’s a reptile. Five or six tonnes at least. Large supratemporal bosses. Huge oesteoderms on it’s back.
Stephen and Connor also start to approach the scutosaurus as well.
Nick: It must be some kind of anapsid.
Abby: A tortoise?
The scutosaurus roars, Nick backs up, as do Stephen, Connor and Claudia.
Abby: Stay in his field of vision, you’re making him nervous.
Connor: I was right. It was a dinosaur in that warehouse.
Connor takes a picture of the scutosaurus with his camera phone. Claudia snatches it off him.
Claudia: Whatever it is, it’s classified until I figure out what the hell to do about it.
Rex comes out from where he was hiding. Nick shines his torch on him as he and Stephen crouch down to get a better look.
Stephen: Bloody hell, there’s two of them.
Nick: Where did that come from?
AT THE TRENT’S HOUSE:
Claudia is outside on her phone.
Claudia: No, I can’t use the police. This is too sensitive. [pause] There are lives at stake here. [pause] Listen, I don’t need you to tell me how junior I am, okay? You’re just going to have to trust me. Now get somebody down here fast.
Claudia ends the call.
Nick, Claudia and Abby are in Ben’s room with Ben and his mother. Nick is examining the damage done to the window. Mrs Trent is trying to remake Ben’s bed. Nick leaves the window as Mrs Trent starts talking.
Mrs Trent: I’ll be making a complaint. She’s filled his head with all sorts of stupid ideas. Just look at the state of his room!
Ben: It was the dinosaur.
Nick: The simple truth is Miss Maitland got carried away. Ben’s pet was nothing more exotic than Draco Volans. It’s a Southeast Asian flying lizard.
Ben: There was a monster though. It chased us. Tell them Abby.
Abby: I don’t really know what happened Ben. We just got frightened, that’s all.
Ben: But I saw the past. Prehistoric times. I was there.
Nick: You saw the past?
Ben: There was desert and rocks and things.
Ben storms out of the room.
Mrs Trent: I blame the telly. Excuse me.
Mrs Trent leaves the room.
Outside the Trent’s, on the way to the car.
Claudia: I know you feel bad about lying, but if word of this gets out, who knows what the consequences might be. You’re both going to have to sign the Official Secrets Act.
Nick: Whoa, when did this become an Official Secret?
Claudia: About ten minutes after I finally persuaded my boss not to have me sectioned.
Nick: Yeah, well, right now we have a far more urgent problem. That creature we saw may be many things, but it’s certainly not a ruthless predator that drags its prey up into trees.
Claudia: Well you can’t be sure of that.
Abby: He can. It’s a herbivore. Pure veggie.
Claudia: You mean there’s another one out there?
Nick: What did Ben mean when he talked about seeing the past? These animals have to be coming from somewhere.
Claudia: What are you saying?
Nick: I’m saying that the answer is in that forest and maybe Ben found it.
FOREST OF DEAN TAKE 6:
Stephen and Connor are in the forest, watching the scutosaurus. Stephen is sitting against a tree and Connor is standing next to him, staring at the scutosaurus.
Connor: You know this is going to win me the Nobel Prize.
Stephen: You don’t know what we’re dealing with yet.
Connor: Come on. It looks like a dinosaur. It behaves like a dinosaur. It’s a dinosaur. It’s the missing link to the ancient past. And I discovered it.
Nick: Stephen!
Nick and the others come running towards them, waving torches. The scutosaurus gets scared and starts to walk away. Connor and Stephen scramble out of its way.
Connor: Whoa, where’s it going?
Nick: Let him go! It’s scared. Let’s see where it thinks it’s safe.
They follow the scutosaurus until it goes through the anomaly. They slow down and stare at the anomaly.
Claudia: Where’s it gone?
Nick: Home.
FOREST OF DEAN TAKE 7, THE NEXT MORNING:
The area around the anomaly has been secured by Claudia’s backup. Nick and Connor are watching the anomaly, it’s obvious neither have been home. More soldiers arrive.
Random soldier: Come on lads. Look lively.
Scientific equipment is taken out of jeeps, Abby is sitting on a pile of it, she hasn’t been home either. We get our first glimpse of CAPTAIN TOM RYAN. Connor’s pen starts being pulled towards the anomaly.
Connor: My pen.
As Nick and Claudia watch, Connor lets go of the pen, and it flies into the anomaly.
Connor: That explains the compass going crazy.
Nick: What could cause a magnetic field so powerful?
Connor: Maybe it’s an alien spaceship.
More soldiers unloading jeeps under the supervision of Capt. Ryan. Stephen brings Abby a hot drink.
Stephen: How are you feeling?
Abby: Confused, frightened. Exhilarated.
Stephen: Snap.
Rex gets taken away in a cage.
Abby: You don’t think they’ll hurt him?
Stephen: Of course not.
Nick: Everything we’ve seen about the animals so far is consistent with vertebrates that last appeared in the fossil record hundreds of millions of years ago.
Claudia: You mean they’re like creatures from the past?
Nick: No, I mean they are creatures from the past.
Connor lets something else fly through the anomaly with a giggle.
Connor: Brilliant. Just brilliant. Oh, that was my front door key.
Connor grimaces.
Claudia: Cutter, we have to go now.
Nick: You’ve got your own experts.
Claudia: They didn’t see what we saw, and they don’t know what you know.
Claudia walks off and Stephen approaches Nick.
Stephen: You’re thinking about Helen, aren’t you?
Nick: It explains everything.
Stephen: Except why she didn’t come back.
1x01 Part 2
OPENING SCENE:
A shopping trolley rolls across the screen.
A GORGONOPSID walks out of the trees, growling.
A woman (HELEN CUTTER) runs across an ASDA car park and hides in a large metal bin.
More growling, we see Helen as the bin she is hiding in is rammed repeatedly by the gorgonopsid.
Cut to a cleaner buffing the floor inside ASDA.
Shot of gorgonopsid walking across the car park.
Back to the cleaner. Helen runs across the car park and bangs on the store window.
Helen: Hey! Let me in!
Cleaner looks at Helen, but can’t hear what she’s saying and goes back to cleaning. Helen runs off as a bunch of trolleys are thrown at her.
Helen runs across the car park, tries to hide between 2 cars, and is almost squashed as several other cars are tossed about by the gorgonopsid.
Helen runs back into the trees. The gorgonopsid follows, roaring.
Title sequence.
EIGHT YEARS LATER:
A silver 4x4 pick up truck (with a Department of Evolutionary Zoology logo on the door) pulls up outside CENTRAL METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY. NICK CUTTER and STEPHEN HART get out.
Nick: I think there’s something seriously wrong with her…
Conversation continues as they walk toward the University, but is inaudible.
Nick and Stephen are walking along a wooden walkway alongside one of the buildings when they are approached from behind by CONNOR TEMPLE.
Connor: Professor Cutter?
Nick: Careful there.
Connor drops an armful of papers; Nick and Stephen keep on walking.
Connor: Professor! Professor Cutter!
Connor catches up to Nick and Stephen and extends a hand to shake.
Connor: Connor Temple.
Nick: Sorry, never heard of it. I think you want archaeology. If you go around up there to your right and keep on walking, it’s on your left.
Nick and Stephen both point to the right of the screen. Connor looks confused.
Connor: No, its not… it’s not a place, it’s my name. I’m one of your students.
Nick stops and turns to face Connor.
Nick: Really?
Connor: Uh-huh.
Nick: Well why… why I don’t recognise you?
Connor: Well, you’ve never actually turned up for the seminars.
Nick nods and he and Stephen start walking again.
Nick: Uh-huh.
Nick and Stephen continue their conversation from earlier. Connor hesitates for a second before following them.
Connor: Professor!
Cut to Nick’s office. We see a desk covered with various skulls, a leather bound journal, a couple of gems and 2 pictures of Helen Cutter.
The door opens; Nick, Stephen and Connor come in and go down a set of stairs.
Nick: Don’t touch anything. This is my laboratory technician, Stephen Hart.
Stephen: Hi.
Connor: Hi.
Nick walks around to stand behind his desk. Connor stands in front of the desk and Stephen walks over to a side table. Nick picks up a pile of paper in a pink folder and throws it in the bin. Connor points to the papers.
Connor: Oh, actually, that’s my dissertation.
Nick straightens up and gives Connor a questioning look before retrieving the dissertation.
Connor: Yeah. You see I argued that all life on Earth derived from organisms carried here by alien spacecraft. It’s pretty sexy stuff.
Nick purses his lips and tosses the dissertation back in the trash.
Connor: It’s a work in progress, really.
Nick picks up a piece of stone, which contains a fossilised fish skeleton.
Nick: Tell me what this is.
Connor: A fish?
Nick: Obviously. It’s a sarcopterygian. There’s no trace of them in the fossil record for 70 million years, and then suddenly one of them just pops up in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Totally inexplicable in modern evolutionary terms. See, Darwin provides most of the answers, it’s the pieces that don’t fit that interest me.
Connor: See, that’s why I was wondering if you’d seen this.
Connor holds up a newspaper with the headline ‘MONSTER HOAX or Truly Beastly’, also has the side heading ‘8 troops fail spot drug test’ for those who are interested.
Nick moves around his desk to put the fossil fish down at Stephen’s workstation before moving to take the paper from Connor.
Connor: Some sort of gigantic, undiscovered predator.
Nick unfolds the newspaper and we see a blurry picture (CCTV) of what the audience can see is a gorgonopsid. Nick looks at Connor with disbelief before handing the paper to Stephen.
Connor: Oh no, no, no, no, no. This … this is the real thing.
Nick: Connor, you should get out more. Go to a bar. Meet a nice girl. Life will seem a lot less confusing.
Connor: I’ve already got a girlfriend. Sort of.
Nick moves back behind his desk and takes his jacket off.
Connor: That’s not really the point. There’s an eyewitness, claimed to have seen it.
Nick: People claim to have seen the Loch Ness monster, that doesn’t mean it’s there.
Connor: Not now, obviously, because it died years ago.
Nick and Stephen share disbelieving looks.
Connor: The Government, they took the body away and covered up the whole thing.
Nick: This is just a hoax. Forget it.
Connor: Your wife wouldn’t have ignored it.
There is a moment of silence as Nick freezes.
Nick: My wife was a serious scientist. She wasn’t a gullible monster hunter.
Connor looks remorseful.
Connor: Sorry.
Nick: It’s OK.
Connor: I just thought you might want to check it out, that’s all.
Connor puts the newspaper back in his bag and starts to move towards the door.
Connor: It’s not as though the Forest of Dean is far away though.
Nick: The Forest of Dean?
Stephen suddenly straightens from where he has been looking at something with a magnifying glass and turns to Nick. Slowly Nick turns to Stephen.
Stephen: If we leave now we could be there by lunch.
AT THE ZOO:
A young zookeeper, ABBY MAITLAND, is sitting in one of the lizard enclosures, trying to persuade two of the lizards (Brad and Angelina) to mate.
Abby: Come on guys, what are you waiting for? Soft lighting and a Frank Sinatra record?
Abby’s boss, TIM PARKER, walks up to the enclosure and taps on the glass partition.
Tim: How are Brad and Angelina?
Abby: Oh, totally gay, but otherwise fine.
Tim: They should be mating by now.
Abby: Maybe they just don’t fancy each other.
Tim: Abby, a word.
Abby stands up and moves out of the enclosure.
Tim: Abby, I’m sorry. The sponsor’s pulled out and I have to slim down the reptile programme.
Abby: And my job comes under the heading ‘instant weight loss’, right?
Abby storms out, Tim follows her.
Tim: There’s an attachment going at the bughouse. I could put in a word for you.
Abby: I’m a lizard girl, Tim. You know that.
Tim’s mobile rings, he turns to answer it and drops the armload of papers he was carrying.
Tim: Oh, sorry.
Abby: Oh.
Abby crouches to pick up the papers whilst Tim is on the phone.
Tim: Hello, Tim Parker. Uh, well, I’ll call you back, okay? Okay, bye.
Abby is looking at one of the papers Tim dropped, it is a letter from a boy called BEN TRENT, who has found a lizard and has sent photos.
Tim: Letters. From people wanting the zoo to collect their animals. Why do people buy exotic pets if they don’t want them?
Tim takes the pile from Abby, but she keeps the letter from Ben and smiles as she looks at the photos.
Tim: Is everything alright?
Abby: I’ll handle this one if you like. It’s my field. I know the Forest of Dean pretty well. Anyway, so about this attachment.
Abby and Tim start walking back the way they came.
Tim: Yes. Uh, a six-month project studying the life cycle of parasites in elephant dung.
Abby: Sounds unmissable.
THE FOREST OF DEAN TAKE 1:
A couple of shots of Nick’s 4x4 driving down the motorway, and into the forest.
Nick, Stephen and Connor walk up to a damaged truck with the eyewitness, a security guard in a reflective jacket.
Guard: I’d just finished my rounds when I caught a glimpse of it on the monitor.
The body of a red truck has been slashed open, leaving great gashes in its sides.
Connor: Can you imagine how much force it took to rip this thing open? Look at the size of the marks. If you want my opinion, I think it’s…
Stephen picks up a dead chicken, and Nick gives Connor an amused look.
Connor: You don’t, do you?
Stephen: Well, if I found these gouges in the wild, I’d be certain we were looking for a large predator.
Nick: But we’re in the Forest of Dean.
Guard: It was huge and it was so fast. It was gone across the yard in a second.
Stephen approaches the truck and looks at a red, liquid substance splashed across its side.
Stephen: Well, there’s blood.
Nick moves closer to the actual Forest. Stephen follows him.
Nick: Stephen. Come and give me a logical explanation for this.
Stephen: It’s a hoax, obviously.
Stephen catches up to Nick and stops as he too sees the twisted metal fence at the edge of the trees. Connor walks up behind them.
Stephen: Just a difficult one to pull off.
Connor: Can I say something?
Nick moves closer to the fence, leaving Connor and Stephen behind.
Connor: Is he alright?
Stephen: Helen Cutter came to this area eight years ago to investigate a creature sighting. She disappeared in the forest. The body was never found. Just a rucksack. No blood, no clues, nothing. She just vanished.
MEETING BEN AND REX:
Abby is driving (in a mini) onto a close on a modern housing estate, which borders the Forest of Dean. She pulls onto a drive and is greeted by MRS TRENT, Ben’s mother.
Mrs Trent: We never expected a personal call.
Abby: All part of the zoo service, Mrs Trent.
Mrs Trent: It’s only a lizard.
Cut to Ben’s room. He has model dinosaurs on his shelves and hanging from his ceiling, dinosaurs painted on his walls, and one of those beds, which are like bunk beds but without the bottom bunk.
Abby: I see you like dinosaurs, Ben.
Ben: [Laughs] Yeah. They’re awesome.
We hear chirping. Abby looks around and sees a lizard on Ben’s bed. REX.
Ben: His name’s Rex. I found him in the forest. Looked him up in a book and it said he was a flying lizard from Southeast Asia.
Abby: Draco Volans.
Abby looks at Rex closely and gets a confused look on her face.
Abby: He’s not a Draco Volans.
Ben: No?
Abby and Ben watch as Rex jumps from the bed to a bedside cabinet, then to a chest of drawers and then to a high shelf, knocking things over as he does.
Abby: In fact, I don’t know what he is.
Ben: I thought you were an expert.
Abby: I am. If I’m right, you’ve discovered a completely unique species.
Ben: Oh, cool.
Abby: I need you to show me exactly where you found him.
FOREST OF DEAN TAKE 2:
Abby and Ben are walking through the forest. Abby is carrying Rex, who is wrapped in a purple blanket.
Abby: It’s too cold for him here. He must have escaped from a private zoo or something.
Ben: I found him around here somewhere. This way.
Ben sees something and suddenly stops.
Ben: Abby.
Abby turns to him, and sees what he has seen. A dead cow has been lifted into the branches of a tree and left there (as leopards do with their prey). Abby and Ben look around nervously.
Cut to Ben and Abby running through the forest.
Abby: Slow down. Wait for me.
Ben: Maybe it was a leopard. They sometimes drag their prey into trees and come back for it later.
Abby: Don’t be silly, Ben. How many leopards are there in the Forest of Dean.
Ben: I don’t care. It’s weird. I’m getting out of here.
Abby: Ben, hold on. Wait for me!
EDDINGTON HOTEL, THE FOREST OF DEAN:
The 4x4 is parked outside the hotel.
Nick is at the bar, drinking a glass of water.
CLAUDIA BROWN is sitting on a sofa, being chatted up by a guy with a bad toupee. She doesn’t look too impressed.
Toupee Guy: No ones as pretty as yours [[Not good grammar, but that’s what the subtitles say]]. I must admit though, I’ve never seen you around here myself. And hey, why don’t we have a drink afterwards.
Claudia has seen Nick at the bar over Toupee Guy’s shoulder. Nick is looking at a picture of Helen in his wallet when Claudia taps him on the shoulder.
Claudia: Excuse me.
Claudia kisses Nick.
Claudia: Don’t panic. I just told that slime ball over there you were my boyfriend. One more sleazy chat-up line and I was going to have to kill him.
Nick: Well, I’m very glad I was here to help. Uh, I’m Nick Cutter.
Claudia: Actually, I know who you are. Claudia Brown, Home Office. I saw you at the Hotel. I’m hoping you can do me a favour Professor.
Nick: Another one?
Claudia: I suspect this is why we’re both here.
Claudia takes a white envelope out of her bag and reveals the picture that had been in the newspaper.
Claudia: We get dozens of rogue animal sightings every year. You’d be doing me a great favour if you could just confirm all this is nonsense.
Nick: I can’t dismiss the evidence out of hand.
Claudia: Surely you’re not giving this whole monster story credibility, Professor?
Nick: I’m just trying to keep an open mind.
Claudia: People always say that as though it’s such a good thing.
Nick: Well, you see, that depends on how you define ‘monster’. A wild panther might look pretty terrifying on a dark night.
Claudia: Is that what we’re dealing with?
Nick: My best guess, if it exists at all. The last sighting was somewhere near the forest. Would you care to join the search?
Claudia: I suppose I owe it to the taxpayer to do more than sit in my room and suck the mini bar dry.
Cut to Stephen and Connor at the 4x4 outside the Hotel. Connor has his laptop open and is showing Stephen his database.
Connor: This database contains constantly updated information on all non-extinct vertebrates. I’ve been building it every spare second since I was 14.
Stephen: It’s impressive.
Connor: It’s pretty cool, huh.
Stephen: And slightly sad.
Connor: You know we’re not talking about a wild cat, don’t you?
Nick and Claudia arrive before Stephen can respond.
Nick: This is Claudia Brown from the Home Office. She’ll be coming with us.
Connor: I knew it. It’s a cover-up.
Claudia: What’s he talking about?
Nick: Connor never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like.
THE FOREST OF DEAN TAKE 3:
Ben is still running through the forest. Abby is as well, but she has fallen behind, and they have become separated.
Abby: Ben! Slow down!
Abby is standing in a small clearing with Rex still in her arms. Rex chirrups quite regularly through this scene.
Abby: Ben!
Abby starts running again, but is knocked off balance when Rex jumps out of her arms and starts gliding around. She watches him for a bit, and then follows him into an area of denser undergrowth when he lands.
Abby: Rex! Not now Rex. Please come back.
Rex moves further into the undergrowth, Abby follows.
Abby: Oh Rex! For goodness sake.
Ben is running through the woods, when something shiny catches his eye. He comes to a stop a few metres from an ANOMALY. He walks up to it and sticks his head through. On the other side is a prehistoric landscape, with some volcanoes erupting and some of Rex’s family (COELUROSAURAVUS) flying around. Ben pulls his head back through the anomaly, amazed. He is about to go back through, when he hears a roar. He runs back into the trees.
Ben: Abby!
Abby is climbing through the undergrowth to get to Rex.
Abby: Rex. Come here. Stop messing around.
Slow footsteps are heard. Rex chirrups nervously and Abby looks around for their source. A low growl is heard and the gorgonospid’s reflection appears in a nearby stream. Abby and Rex stay very still until it moves away.
FOREST OF DEAN TAKE 4:
Stephen, Claudia, Nick and Connor are travelling through the forest. Stephen has a map. Connor has a compass.
Claudia: If there really were some creature around here, wouldn’t the journalists have found it by now?
Nick: They wouldn’t know what they were looking for.
Claudia: But you do?
Nick: Hmm. I’ve seen Stephen track wounded animals through the rainforest for up to 10 days at a time.
Connor: Not to mention wrestle an anaconda and save a whale.
Connor moves forwards so he is walking with Stephen and Claudia and Nick are behind them.
Nick: Maybe there is something here, and maybe there isn’t. Frankly, I doubt it.
Stephen: Cutter!
Stephen has found the cow in the tree that Abby and Ben saw earlier.
Nick: Okay, now I’m getting interested.
Connor: Professor, the compass is going haywire.
Connor passes the compass to Nick. The compass needle is spinning around madly.
SETTING THE BAIT:
Ben has run to the edge of the forest, and is back at the estate where he lives. He climbs a stile to get onto the estate, sighing with relief.
Ben: Ow.
Ben pricks his finger on a thorn. He shakes it off and runs into his house and to his room, locking his bedroom door behind him. He dives onto a beanbag chair and studies his finger. The thorn has made it bleed. Outside, some of his blood is splashed on a leaf, a shadow falls over the leaf. Inside, Ben’s window starts to steam up in time to some growling from outside.
Ben turns his head to look and scrambles out of the way and onto his bed just as a huge set of gorgonopsid jaws smash through his window.
Ben: No. Ah!
The gorgonopsid grabs Ben’s bed and shakes it. Ben scrambles back as far as he can get and starts grabbing things and throwing them at it. He throws the remote control for his stereo at it and the loud music confuses the gorgonopsid for a moment, allowing Ben to get off his bed. Ben crawls out of the way and grabs an electric ball (one of those things where electricity is trapped in a glass globe) and throws it. The electric charge is enough to sting the gorgonopsid, and it retreats. Ben grabs a lightsaber and slowly moves towards his window, which has been completely destroyed, the gorgonopsid is gone, and Ben’s mother has heard the noise.
Mrs Trent: Ben, what on earth is going on in there? I want this mess tidied up now!
FOREST OF DEAN TAKE 5:
Abby has managed to reclaim Rex, but it has gone dark, and she has gotten lost in the forest.
Abby: Okay, Rex. Which way now?
She stops in a clearing, and hears a growl behind her. She turns around to see a SCUTOSAURUS. She backs up as it turns towards her and roars. Rex jumps out of her arms again as the scutosaurus repeats itself.
Abby: Rex!
Nick and the others come up behind her.
Nick: Don’t move.
Abby: Is it real?
Nick: Some kind of experiment, maybe. Hybrid, throwback. Who are you?
Abby: Abby Maitland. I’m a keeper at Wellington Zoo.
Nick approaches the scutosaurus, shining his torch at it.
Nick: It’s a reptile. Five or six tonnes at least. Large supratemporal bosses. Huge oesteoderms on it’s back.
Stephen and Connor also start to approach the scutosaurus as well.
Nick: It must be some kind of anapsid.
Abby: A tortoise?
The scutosaurus roars, Nick backs up, as do Stephen, Connor and Claudia.
Abby: Stay in his field of vision, you’re making him nervous.
Connor: I was right. It was a dinosaur in that warehouse.
Connor takes a picture of the scutosaurus with his camera phone. Claudia snatches it off him.
Claudia: Whatever it is, it’s classified until I figure out what the hell to do about it.
Rex comes out from where he was hiding. Nick shines his torch on him as he and Stephen crouch down to get a better look.
Stephen: Bloody hell, there’s two of them.
Nick: Where did that come from?
AT THE TRENT’S HOUSE:
Claudia is outside on her phone.
Claudia: No, I can’t use the police. This is too sensitive. [pause] There are lives at stake here. [pause] Listen, I don’t need you to tell me how junior I am, okay? You’re just going to have to trust me. Now get somebody down here fast.
Claudia ends the call.
Nick, Claudia and Abby are in Ben’s room with Ben and his mother. Nick is examining the damage done to the window. Mrs Trent is trying to remake Ben’s bed. Nick leaves the window as Mrs Trent starts talking.
Mrs Trent: I’ll be making a complaint. She’s filled his head with all sorts of stupid ideas. Just look at the state of his room!
Ben: It was the dinosaur.
Nick: The simple truth is Miss Maitland got carried away. Ben’s pet was nothing more exotic than Draco Volans. It’s a Southeast Asian flying lizard.
Ben: There was a monster though. It chased us. Tell them Abby.
Abby: I don’t really know what happened Ben. We just got frightened, that’s all.
Ben: But I saw the past. Prehistoric times. I was there.
Nick: You saw the past?
Ben: There was desert and rocks and things.
Ben storms out of the room.
Mrs Trent: I blame the telly. Excuse me.
Mrs Trent leaves the room.
Outside the Trent’s, on the way to the car.
Claudia: I know you feel bad about lying, but if word of this gets out, who knows what the consequences might be. You’re both going to have to sign the Official Secrets Act.
Nick: Whoa, when did this become an Official Secret?
Claudia: About ten minutes after I finally persuaded my boss not to have me sectioned.
Nick: Yeah, well, right now we have a far more urgent problem. That creature we saw may be many things, but it’s certainly not a ruthless predator that drags its prey up into trees.
Claudia: Well you can’t be sure of that.
Abby: He can. It’s a herbivore. Pure veggie.
Claudia: You mean there’s another one out there?
Nick: What did Ben mean when he talked about seeing the past? These animals have to be coming from somewhere.
Claudia: What are you saying?
Nick: I’m saying that the answer is in that forest and maybe Ben found it.
FOREST OF DEAN TAKE 6:
Stephen and Connor are in the forest, watching the scutosaurus. Stephen is sitting against a tree and Connor is standing next to him, staring at the scutosaurus.
Connor: You know this is going to win me the Nobel Prize.
Stephen: You don’t know what we’re dealing with yet.
Connor: Come on. It looks like a dinosaur. It behaves like a dinosaur. It’s a dinosaur. It’s the missing link to the ancient past. And I discovered it.
Nick: Stephen!
Nick and the others come running towards them, waving torches. The scutosaurus gets scared and starts to walk away. Connor and Stephen scramble out of its way.
Connor: Whoa, where’s it going?
Nick: Let him go! It’s scared. Let’s see where it thinks it’s safe.
They follow the scutosaurus until it goes through the anomaly. They slow down and stare at the anomaly.
Claudia: Where’s it gone?
Nick: Home.
FOREST OF DEAN TAKE 7, THE NEXT MORNING:
The area around the anomaly has been secured by Claudia’s backup. Nick and Connor are watching the anomaly, it’s obvious neither have been home. More soldiers arrive.
Random soldier: Come on lads. Look lively.
Scientific equipment is taken out of jeeps, Abby is sitting on a pile of it, she hasn’t been home either. We get our first glimpse of CAPTAIN TOM RYAN. Connor’s pen starts being pulled towards the anomaly.
Connor: My pen.
As Nick and Claudia watch, Connor lets go of the pen, and it flies into the anomaly.
Connor: That explains the compass going crazy.
Nick: What could cause a magnetic field so powerful?
Connor: Maybe it’s an alien spaceship.
More soldiers unloading jeeps under the supervision of Capt. Ryan. Stephen brings Abby a hot drink.
Stephen: How are you feeling?
Abby: Confused, frightened. Exhilarated.
Stephen: Snap.
Rex gets taken away in a cage.
Abby: You don’t think they’ll hurt him?
Stephen: Of course not.
Nick: Everything we’ve seen about the animals so far is consistent with vertebrates that last appeared in the fossil record hundreds of millions of years ago.
Claudia: You mean they’re like creatures from the past?
Nick: No, I mean they are creatures from the past.
Connor lets something else fly through the anomaly with a giggle.
Connor: Brilliant. Just brilliant. Oh, that was my front door key.
Connor grimaces.
Claudia: Cutter, we have to go now.
Nick: You’ve got your own experts.
Claudia: They didn’t see what we saw, and they don’t know what you know.
Claudia walks off and Stephen approaches Nick.
Stephen: You’re thinking about Helen, aren’t you?
Nick: It explains everything.
Stephen: Except why she didn’t come back.
1x01 Part 2