WMG / Primeval

The Anomaly in Episode 3 actually led to the future

The creatures in the episode are identified by the heroes as a mosasaur and a Hesperornis, but they bear almost no resemblance to those animals, even by Primeval standards. The mosasaur is depicted as an armored, crocodile-like creature much bigger than any real mosasaur. The Hesperornis is a featherless, upright-walking creature that looks more like a plucked chicken than the penguin-like creature it actually was. While it would be easy to ascribe this to artistic license on the part of the producers, there's also the possibility that the protagonists themselves were wrong. What if the Anomaly in this episode actually led to the future (something that Cutter and his friends hadn't considered yet, since this was before the Future Predators showed up)? The creature that they identified as a Hesperornis might actually have been some sort of featherless bird that re-evolved teeth, and the "mosasaur" could be an aquatic future lizard. But since the idea of an Anomaly leading to the future had not occurred to our heroes, they identified them as prehistoric animals.

New Dawn isn't a parallel timeline.

The New Dawn anomaly had nothing to do with the Sterile Earth. To put it simply, the future predators were accidentally created, proliferated beyond control, and the military took matters into their own hands. How? All-out, thermonuclear bombardment. Conditions eventually cleared up (after the brief proliferation of future beetles and giant burrowing insects), leaving a world with no humans. Whatever allowed the giant insects to appear (maybe an early attempt to eradicate the predators) resulted in the evolution of the Megopterans, and perhaps giant flies (the maggot in the same episode). Eventually, the Earth returned to normal, and was covered in forests à la Palaeocene. The future birds from Shadow of the Jaguar appeared at this time. The future predators and giant insects had since died out by this point. Skip forward to around 50 million years, and the mer-creatures evolve from descendants of crab-eating macaques (or swamp monkeys, maybe). After another 350 or so million years, tetrapods have become rare and giant invertebrates take over once more. The Silurian, you see, isn't actually the Silurian - it's the future. The only reason Connor even called it that in the episode is because it was a desert, which could be at literally any time. Another 100 million years, and we get the future fungus. Heightened solar luminosity means the sky is much brighter, sort of like the future city. And that's it! Maybe, as the above theory suggested, the anomaly in Episode 1.3 led to the future, instead of the Late Cretaceous, but that's about it. Either way, it would mean we saw more of the future than we ever knew.

The Megopterans were created by humans in the future to battle the Future Predators

The Megopterans are, obviously, much bigger than any real insect could possibly be, even in a high-oxygen environment like the Carboniferous. Yet they're shown inhabiting a ruined city, which can't be more than a few thousand years in the future at most— far too soon for the kind of environmental changes that would allow giant insects to evolve. So it's more likely that the Megopterans are an artificial species, created by humans as a biological weapon.It's shown in S3 that the Megopterans are apparently the rivals of the Future Predators, and are more than capable of holding their own against them in a fight. So it's possible they were originally engineered by humanity as a last-ditch protection against the threat of the Future Predators. Unfortunately, given that there are no humans to be seen in the future, it can only be assumed the plan did not work.

How Helen created her clone army

1. Find an Anomaly with both ends close together in space and time.
2. Send a Mook through the "future" end and have him meet up with his past self and send them both through.
3. Send them back to meet with their past selves and send all four through.
4. Repeat, with the army growing by a factor of two at each step.
   • And only the last step of this process will have ever happened. Thankfully Jossed.

• Alternately she could've just stolen future technology. The clones are described as "living photocopies" and don't seem to have any free will or imagination, meaning they probably are unnaturally created and barely able to think. They can't even tell the difference between the real Helen Cutter and a shoddy patchwork of her phrases being played over an intercom while she is standing in front of them.

Cutter is not dead

1. He has a clone in that very episode
   • The clone died in the explosion.
     • Yes, but do we know for sure that there aren't any others? She had several Cleaner clones in the series 2 finale.
2. See the algorithm

Danny Quinn is actually working for Christine Johnson

• She emphasised wanting her Soldier to get the job, because she knew Lester wouldn't want to go along with her suggestion. The main reason Lester chose Quinn was to stop Johnson's man getting in.

The ARC is going to be the hub of human survival

• When the future predators take over it will be the ARC that allows humanity to survive. The similarity between the word Ark and the way the ARC is pronounced cannot be ignored. It's never A.R.C. as it should be for an acronym, always The Arc (with the definite article attached).
  • Well, the Series 3 finale throws some doubt on this particular WMG.

The In Spite of a Nail scenario actually makes sense here

• Obviously, the number of baby future predators that survived were not enough to produce a population, so at best, they died after a few generations. They mustn't have left any fossils either, since there is no mention of such records. However, the bite marks of animals they preyed upon who turned into fossils altered the destinies of Palientologists, so those who were ever associated with such individuals also had their destinies altered.
  • Given how easily the Predators have been take down by creatures from that time period, it seems plausible they were wiped out in similar fashion.
• A possible scenario that fleshes out exactly how the timeline change that caused Claudia Brown to be replaced by Jenny Lewis and the Anomaly Research Center to exist occurred in detail: In the Permian, the Future Predators leave bite marks on animals that they attack. Some of these animals eventually become fossilized after they die, preserving their bite marks. Millions of years later, these bite marks are found by paleontologists, who are puzzled that they do not appear to correspond to the teeth of any animals known to be living in the Permian. This paleontological mystery becomes well-known, and numerous articles are written about it in both scientific journals and popular newspapers and magazines. Let's say one of Claudia Brown's ancestors, her great-great-grandmother, for example, was not a paleontologist in the original timeline, but decided to become one in the new timeline after reading one of these articles about these mysterious bite marks on fossils of animals from the Permian that do not correspond to the teeth of any known animals from that time period and, thus, becoming fascinated by paleontology. She then decides to become a paleontologist. Her decision to pursue a career in paleontology, in turn, causes her to date and eventually marry a different man than the one whom she married in the original timeline (whose surname was Brown), whose surname happens to be Lewis, rather than Brown (although this man might be very similar, in physical appearance, to the man whom she married in the original timeline, therefore explaining how Jenny Lewis is physically identical to Claudia Brown). Some generations later, a girl is born into the Lewis family, and her parents name her Jenny. She then decides to pursue a career in public relations, rather than civil service. With the absence of Claudia Brown as a civil servant, the Home Office, in the new timeline, is instead stuck with the slimy, sketchy (and, unbeknownst to them at the time, villainous, vengeful, scheming, and power-hungry) Oliver Leek to assist James Lester in orchestrating the anomaly operation. Since Oliver Leek is nowhere near as skilled at his job as Claudia Brown, the British government decides that the Home Office is insufficiently capable of handling the anomaly crisis, and therefore, the Prime Minister orders the creation of a new, much larger government department specializing in the anomalies, called the Anomaly Research Centre (ARC).

The anomaly that brought Cutter to the Claudia-less "present" was not the same anomaly that he took to the past.

• Instead, the anomaly that took him to the Permian closed while he was dealing with the predators there, and another one immediately opened in the exact same spot. This second anomaly didn't return him home, but instead took him to an alternate universe where only a few things are different. He didn't change the past (it's not possible, which is why they found the campsite and bones in the first episode), he just went to a different planet Earth. This theory exists entirely because the Claudia/Jenny thing makes absolutely no sense.
  • Especially since they didn't seem to ever deal with the paradox that would have to cause.
  • This also begs the question: will we be seeing Claudia again in season 4, with her having traveled from another universe? Her and Jenny in the same room... That could be awkward, to put it mildly.
  • Though if Nick isn't from the ARC reality, clearly they did have a Nick. What happened to him?
  • It could mean another Helen. The anomaly controller already looks like something from Sliders.

In S4, Sarah's attempt to rescue Danny, Abby and Connor will result in her setting up the apocalypse

• More specifically, she designs things like the equipment Helen uses in the future - stuff like the anomaly creators, the artefact,and the computer thing Helen uses, etc. - to try and save them. This is tied into the cause of the apocalypse. Sorry, Helen, looks like you killed the wrong person...
  • Jossed. Sarah Page is dead.

Connor is allergic to something in the 21st century atmosphere

• Whenever he goes through an anomaly his IQ and general competence take a sudden jump. Whenever he is in the modern era he is a bumbling idiot. Most particularly egregious^note Take two shots now in the first episode of the revival when within seconds of returning to the present he loses the ability to work the anomaly controller which he was easily capable of using in the previous scene (in the Cretaceous). Obviously there must be something in the air that affects his judgement and thought processing.

Doctor Bashir is going to create the apocalypse

• And Irish chaps mentor has some kind of chrono powers, suggesting he is chronopolice/back friom the future resistance. They know someone from the present is creating the future. t is possible its the other way round, and that irish man and mentor are going to cause the apoc, and its up to Bashir to save the world but consider his recent roles unlikely.
  • Semi-confirmed. The mentor, Matt's father, is from the future and is trying to prevent a catastrophy. Meanwhile, doctor Ba... Burton had ties with Helen Cutter.

Mankind skipped the apocalypse.

• Everybody and their pets jumped forward in time to an age where Earth has fully recovered from massive pollution and rampant bioweapons. The aptly named ARC supervised the whole operation.
  • Jossed. Instead, the survivors are living underground.

The anomalies are not natural, but man-made.

There's a very disproportionate number of anomalies in England, and connected to time periods capable of sustaining life (as opposed to the molten early Earth or post-swallowed-by-a-supernova-Earth). That's because somebody created them, and is using them to travel around for whatever reason. Whoever he/she/they is/are, they sneak through at some point when we aren't watching.

• Of course, they created them thanks to Connor Temple's researches on the anomalies.

Primeval and Outcasts are in the same universe.

In the future of Primeval, a catastrophe devastates the Earth, endangering humanity. A space programme to create a fleet of colony ships that will send thousands of humans to a planet in the Goldilocks zone, Carpathia, so Humanity can survive the destruction of Earth. This effort is organised by Richard Tate and Gideon Anderson, they agree that Tate will go on the first ship and manage Carpathia, while Gideon stays and manages the survivors on Earth, helped by his son Matt.

CT-1 arrives on Carpathia and the colonists are overjoyed to find that there are no anomalies on the planet, so far. The colony of Forthaven is set up and a whole new race, the A Cs, are created. Terror strikes when an unknown virus, C-23 threatens the colony, killing the Presidents children. The finger of blame is pointed at the A Cs and they are ordered to be killed, however Mitchell Hoban spares them. And of course, 10 years after colonisation, the events of the series occur.

• The Space Programme was supported by the ARC, funded by Prospero.

• Captain Becker trained Mitchell, Jack and the other X Ps before they left Earth.

• Berger is working with Philip Burton, who is on CT-10...
  • ...also, that Shuttle that arrives on Forthaven at the very end of the series contains a pack of Mutant Future Predators.
• Philip had CT-9 sabotaged.

• In Episode 1, Kellerman gives Tate news of Earth, "anyone still down there is not having such a good time of it". He means that the anomalies have finally rendered Earth sterile.

• Stella mentions the Second Taiwan Crisis, referring to a mass creature incursion.
  • Mastodon stampede in Taipei?

• When Helen Cutter went missing, she was pregnant with Stephen's child, and when she gave birth, she went back to the present and gave the baby to an orphanage. That baby is either Josie Hunter or her mother or father.

• Cloning technology is nothing special in both Outcasts and in future Primeval. The cleaner clones are created in the Future, and in Episode 1, Cass shows Stella a cloned piglet.

• Is the Host Force the creator of the anomalies?

• Though there's no Outcasts Series 2 coming, I fear Primeval Series 5 could Joss this.
  • Yep, Jossed. Philip is dead and Prospero destroyed.

Jenny Lewis is a regeneration of the Doctor's daughter

Generated Anomaly. It's not a coincidence when it's WMG.

• And the regeneration is based on her first female role model, Donna Noble.
• She knew exactly what she was getting into at the ARC, and her behavior when she began working at the ARC was an elaborate charade.
  • Or it was a Chameleon Arch.

Claudia Brown disappeared through a crack in the universe

Going under the assumption that the crack and the anomaly are entirely separate entities, or perhaps that one is a side affect of the other. Cutter and Helen were through the anomaly when she disappeared. They came back to the other side, and everyone else had forgotten about Claudia Brown.

The Anomolies are Mini-Fringe events

In the Fringe episode "The Day We Died" we learn that there was a "black hole" like event in Central Park that supposedly connected to the late Paleozoic period. Maybe the anomalies are just an advance on the degradation or Primeval takes place "Over There".

April Leonard is Nick Cutter and Helen's daughter

Given how nefarious and underhand April is, she certainly acts a lot like Helen when she's trying to undermine Connor. Given that we don't know exactly how long Helen was tripping around time (the 8 years was on Cutter's end), and that Helen was working with Philip, it is entirely plausible that she could be Cutter and Helen's offspring.

Primeval and Time Bandits are in the same universe.

Thus all the holes in time.

Helen Cutter is an evil Time Lord.

She manipulates time to further her own agenda. She's ridiculously intelligent and manipulative and yet insane. Clearly, she looked into the Time Vortex and was driven insane.

Claudia Brown is alive and well.

She just never crossed paths with the rest of the team, and is having a very boring life.

Ben (from the pilot) and Taylor (from 2.05) are cousins.

They seem to share an enhanced sense of self-preservation that many other characters lack.

One episode will feature a future human Super-Soldier as the Monster of the Week.

Primeval is somehow tied with the His Dark Materials Trilogy

Think about it for a minute. Windows that open to a different place, (one a different universe, one a different time) The "spaghetti juntion" place in the episode with the Dodos is highly reminiscent of Citagazze. The device Helen uses to open anomalies is pretty damn similar to how the Subtle Knife works; you have to look around for where the anomaly needs to open, you can't just open one here there and everywhere. There is mention throughout the books of windows being left open by careless bearers. Like when Asriel breaks through at the end of Northern Lights and it causes dozens more to open naturally so the first use of the first anomaly device creates all the others that open naturally, or else there's a few created by careless "bearers". The ARC is similar to the Guild in HDM, in that they were doing research, and accidentally brought the Future Predators into being, which act like Spectres. Possibly they too were an accidental creation by anomalies?

• The ARC creates the device; beginning of the end. Someone steals the device, and uses it again and again to escape, leaving some open and where the ones he/she opened before, the world has been worn thin, hense why some anomalies are recurring.

Nick and Helen weren't together before she started traveling through the anomalies

The Nick that we've been following in Primeval is actually a result of the meddling Helen has done with the past. Just like Claudia became Jenny. This is why Helen is so cold and manipulative towards Nick, to her he is literally not as real as the man she left in another timeline. She has become a sociopath because, from her point of view, all the people she encounters from the current timeline(s) are pale reflections of the "real" timeline that she disrupted. She's trying to "set things right" which of course means obliterating the timeline(s) that everyone else knows thus making her a villain in the eyes of everyone else.

Abby's parents are dead.

Hence why she was the only one who could take care of her brother.

Oliver Leek and Christine Johnson were part of the same conspiracy.

They both had the same idea of turning the future predators into weapons. Christine hired Leek to oversee the predators while she was in Jamaica so if things went wrong, she wouldn't be connected. She then turned up at the start of Series 3 to take personal control of the operation after Leek was killed. The reason the post-apocalyptic city still exists in Episode 10 even though Christine was killed the previous episode is because someone else assumed control after her.

Helen wasn't manipulating Philip because she wanted him to create New Dawn - she just wanted him to get Connor to build the prototype.

What would it benefit Helen to open a huge Anomaly to a Bad Future full of predators and toxic winds? Her whole thing was trying to prevent humanity prematurely ending the world - at any cost. Unleashing that Bad Future would have done the exact opposite - wiping out all life on Earth. What she really wanted was Connor's prototype Anomaly to open, flooding the ARC - and only the ARC with Future Predators. Presumably, she believes that the ARC's meddling is what leads to the Bad Future in the first place. Matt believed this too - he just figured it was Philip specifically instead of the ARC as a whole. Clearly, Helen had slightly more information on the subject than Matt did. By destroying the ARC with Predators, she would therefore change history so that the Bad Future never came to pass, and the Predators and toxins that ravaged life on Earth never existed. As such, that future would wink out of existence, taking the Anomalies and the Predators with it, and life on Earth would continue as normal, minus the threat posed by the ARC. Way to prevent the salvation of the world, heroes.

• But Phillip's anomaly was what destroyed the world. It began to alter the climate almost immediately after being created. As for the Predators, we still don't know for sure if they were created in the ARC or not. The only authority on that is Helen, after all.
• The Bad Future in Seasons 4-5 is a completely different future timeline from the one Helen was trying to derail. It's implied that in Helen's hubris, her attempts to negate the Season 3 Bad Future created the even worse future in Seasons 4-5. Besides, if making a man-made Anomaly like that had never been done before, then what makes you assume that Helen had any way of knowing in advance that the Anomaly would lead to the future instead of the past?

Matt is in danger of disappearing like Claudia Brown.

According to the Primeval RPG, people who are temporally threatened (at risk of having their existence erased or rewritten due to changes made to time) experience hallucinations - like the anomaly reflections and gorgonopsid that Claudia saw. Matt set events in motion that could cause the future he comes from to not happen and now he is apparently hallucinating his battered self telling him to fix it. If Matt's not careful he could be rewritten just like Claudia was.

Primeval and Doctor Who take place in the same universe.

The raptors from the episode "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" are literally the exact same raptors from Primeval.

Matt's father is Connor.

It would explain how he knows so much about the ARC, and how he knows to focus on Philip and Young!Connor. Also why he particularly was chosen to go back, and why he tried to help Matt find a solution that didn't involve killing Philip or Young!Connor. Plus he has the same hair as Connor in Season 1.

The anomalies are created by a malfunctioning TARDIS somewhere in England.

Even though it's confirmed anomalies exist outside of England, there's a hugely disproportionate number occurring in England. Buried somewhere there for millions of years is a forgotten TARDIS, and whenever the Earth's magnetic poles shift, it opens millions of temporal anomalies. It could even be the final resting place of the Doctor's TARDIS itself, judging by the Doctor's love of twenty-first century England.

• In the first episode, Connor did hypothesize that the anomalies were alien spaceships...

Helens plan to wipe out humanity before it began was never going to work.

Simply due to the fact that if she succeeded, humanity is Ret-Gone, that would mean she wouldn't exist, therefore she couldn't have killed off humanity before it began.

• If that were true, then logically it would be impossible for Matt to stay unchanged after he closed the New Dawn Anomaly, for Nick and Helen's memories of the original timeline to remain unchanged after Season 1, and for the alternate Mac in Primeval: New World to still be wearing his ARC jacket. The show has repeatedly demonstrated, and New World outright stated, that flotsam and jetsam from a negated timeline will continue to exist into the new timeline's universe if it's in the past at or before the point of divergence when the timeline changes.

Nick Cutter wasn't the first person to change the past.

There are a couple reasons to entertain this possibility. First of all, given the fact that anomalies have appeared throughout history, it may stretch one's Willing Suspension of Disbelief to imagine that changes to the timeline would never have happened before, especially since most people who historically encountered the anomalies wouldn't even have known what they were messing with (thus making it all the easier for them to screw up and change something without realizing it). More to the point, past alterations could easily explain every instance of Artistic License – Paleontology in the series. Who's to say someone, somewhere down the line couldn't have caused a butterfly effect severe enough to substantially alter the whole history of multicellular life on Earth? Perhaps the result was that, while most of the organisms from our own fossil record still ended up evolving in some form, in many cases they did so with a radically different appearance or behaviour than they otherwise would've had. Everything from featherless maniraptorans and armoured mosasaurs to swarming, flesh-eating anurognathids and truck-sized, burrowing eurypterids can potentially trace their origin back to some poor sap who kicked up the wrong patch of dirt in the Precambrian.

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