Anomaly Research Centre
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Anomaly Research Centre


Episode 3.1 is the first episode of the third series of Primeval. It was broadcast as Crocodile Fears in North America, as Nachts im Museum (Night at the Museum) in Germany and as La cage du soleil (The Sun Cage)[1] in France.

Summary[]

"A crocodile-like monster from ancient Egypt breaks through an anomaly at the British Museum, and a race against time ensues as Cutter, Abby and new head of security Captain Becker chase the otherworldly animal through London, while Connor and museum archaeologist Sarah stand guard." [2]

Full synopsis[]

In the British Museum, Egyptologist Sarah Page leads a class around and teaches them about ancient Egypt, at which she loses track of time and has to stop the tour because the museum is closing. After the pupils leave, she talks with Marion, her superior at the museum, about the Sun Cage, an old Egyptian artifact she was doing research on. She finds out that the Sun Cage will be shipped to a new location tomorrow. After hearing this, Sarah wants to take a last look at it, but her colleague bars it. Later, as Marion is alone in the museum, an anomaly opens within the Sun Cage: a Pristichampsus emerges and kills her.

In the Anomaly Research Centre, Jenny tries to dissuade Cutter from blaming himself for the death of Stephen Hart, when the Anomaly Detection Device goes off, detecting the anomaly in the museum. Cutter and Jenny head for the museum: on the way, they call in a reluctant Abby and Connor, who arrive at the museum, to find Cutter, Jenny and their newest team member and security chief, Captain Becker, waiting for them. They enter the museum, finding the body of the attacked women and start searching for the anomaly. While they do, Connor explains he fears museums for thinking as a child that the exhibits come to life at night. He has a trauma because he was locked for several hours in a toilet for wanting to see this happen. The team have a brief encounter with Sarah Page, who initially mistakes them to be professional thieves and then runs off upon seeing Marion dead. The team follows her through the deserted corridors of the museum.

Sarah runs to the room containing the Sun Cage where she locks the door, only to discover the anomaly and the Pristichampsus that came out of it. She is much more in fear now, thinking the Pristichampsus is the ancient Egyptian goddess Ammut, who wants to punish her for touching the Sun Cage. The team comes nearer and finally finds her in the room. They break the door down and get in, but just too late, as the Pristichampsus has escaped through an opening door. Cutter and Abby follow it through the town, while Connor and Captain Becker stay at the anomaly with an extremely confused Sarah. In the end, Connor convinces her that the Pristichampsus is not Ammut wanting to punish her, but only an animal thinking she is a danger. After she is convinced of this, she does her own research on the cage, but also tells Connor there is a curse on the Sun Cage after he inadvertently damages part of it.

Meanwhile, Lester has his own problems: his new collegue, Christine Johnson (a woman who Lester describes as "Velociraptor, only better dressed!") the new military liaison with the ARC, has called a meeting with him. Upon his arrival at the Home Office, Lester is met by Johnson, who seems too eager and overly interested on the work of the ARC. However, she is forced to postpone the meeting when she is confronted by a soldier under her command, Captain Ross outside her office. Once Lester is gone, she angrily demands to know about the soldier's mission. He retorts it was a suicide mission- while attempting to retrieve an unknown artifact from an abandoned building, he and his men were attacked by a large pack of Future Predators: most of the soldiers were killed and the artifact was left behind. A furious Johnson accuses Ross of failing his mission and demands the artifact, no matter the cost.

Connor finds out the identity of the creature, identifying it as a Pristichampsus and alerts Cutter, Abby and Becker. By this stage, the creature is on the rampage; having killed a traffic warden and a jogger, it crosses the Thames and makes its way into a shopping mall where it causes a panic Jenny Lewis has to try and contain. Abby and Cutter give chase, narrowly rescuing a cleaning lady from the crocodile's jaws and severely injuring the Pristichampsus in the process. At the anomaly, Sarah Page observes the hieroglyphs on the Sun Cage and theorises that perhaps the Egyptians already knew about anomalies and thought of the Pristichampsus as their goddess, Ammut. This is proved by the team members that stayed at the anomaly by pulling the Sun Cage to another place: as the Cage moves, so too does the anomaly. Sarah explains the Cage is made of magnetite, a magnetic stone; she and Connor conclude that the Egyptians potentially saw the anomaly as a religious icon and built the Sun Cage to contain it. Connor also finds out, by attacking a second Pristichampsus emerging from the anomaly with a floodlight, that electricity can close anomalies for a certain time, so that nothing can go through it anymore: however this is only temporary, as the anomaly is soon restored and sucks the floodlight through it.

After this attack, they barricade the cage with boxes and crates, but as they are finished, they get a call from Cutter that the Pristichampsus is on its way back to the anomaly and has to get through it, so they have to remove the barricades again. After they have done so on one side, the Pristichampsus comes in unexpected on the other side of the room, while Cutter and Abby enter with Becker on the side the crocodile was supposed to appear. Connor tries to lead the creature around the anomaly, but ends up dangling from a pile of crates, just above the Pristichampsus's jaws. As the creature goes after Connor, Sarah convinces the others to bow to the animal, reasoning it's used to being treated like a god by the Egyptians; Abby agrees with the theory, suggesting the crocodile may not attack if they calm it down and convince it they're not a threat. This is successful; the mollified Pristichampsus ignores the team and heads through the anomaly. The anomaly closes once the Pristichampsus passes through it; with the job done, the team breath a sigh of relief. Connor says now the curse should be over; Sarah agrees, but in private tells Abby she only invented it. The giggling pair decide not to tell Connor, while Connor and Cutter jokingly comment that Stephen would have liked Sarah.

Back at the ARC, Sarah is overwhelmed by the scale of the facility, though slightly unimpressed by the cynicism of Lester. In one of the ARC's labs, Sarah makes a throwaway remark that gives Cutter an idea: Could there be a connection between legends and anomalies? To do research on that, he asks Lester to get Sarah onto the team, which Sarah accepts, setting her the task of researching mythological beasts and seeing if they correspond to prehistoric creatures that may have come through anomalies. He also sets Connor to work on experimenting on the effects of magnetite and electricity on anomalies. The team also argue about the fate of the Sun Cage: Cutter argues it is now too dangerous to be put on public display; however, Lester informs him the artifact has left the British Museum, and is now being shipped to Pyongyang, North Korea.

Meanwhile, in an abandoned warehouse, a team of soldiers, led by the Cleaner, secure the building as their leader - Helen Cutter - enters the room and tells them to establish the building as a base, while she studies the artifact Johnson herself was after. It transpires that Helen followed Johnson's soldiers to a mysterious, clifftop location (which appears to be the ruins of London sometime after the extinction of mankind), waited until the soldiers were repulsed by the future predators, then stole the artifact for herself.

Cast and crew[]

This episode's cast and crew:


Appearance[]

Characters[]

Creatures[]

Locations[]

Objects and technology[]

Organisations[]

Trivia[]

  • Entelodon was the original creature of this episode but it was later replaced with Pristichampsus. Coincidentally, in the Primeverse, the team had encountered Entelodon in the previous story, Extinction Event. Also Pristichampsus is the first creature from the first episode of a series to not return in the finale of the same series.
  • When Rex jumps onto Connor's chest, a tattoo can be seen on Connor's left wrist, the production crew had covered Andrew-lee Potts' wrist in all previous and upcoming episodes.
  • The scene where Connor Temple is nearly pulled through the anomaly by a Pristichampsus is similar to the scene in Episode 2.1 where Stephen Hart was being pulled through an anomaly by a Raptor.
  • One of the creatures on Connor Temple's Database is an Iguanodon, depicted based on the original 1834 look designed by Richard Owen, the same design used at Crystal Palace Park.

Filming Locations[]

The British Museum was the genuine filming location for this episode. The episode features many locations around London as the ARC team track the Pristichampsus. The locations in the episode do roughly line up with the real-life locations; the ARC team follows a route south from the British Museum to the River Thames. In order of appearance: 1 Robert Street, 1 Buckingham Street, 29 Savoy Place, Cleopatra's Needle. The Southbank Centre was the filming location for the shopping centre the Pristichampsus attacks, including both the internal and external café areas, auditorium and the dining room where the cleaner was attacked. The new Home Office headquarters that was briefly featured in this episode when Lester met with Christine Johnson was filmed at the Old War Office Building.

Errors[]

  • When Connor opens his toolbox, a wrench gets pulled towards the Anomaly by the magnetic force however, it is was made of a chrome alloy and therefore would not be magnetic.
    • However even if it was magnetic, it falls to the ground afterwards and is no longer drawn to the Anomaly.
    • There are several other tools in the toolbox and metal objects around the Anomaly that are not effected by its magnetic pull.

Story connections[]

  • References to Stephen Hart's death, Episode 2.7
    • James Lester hires a new Head of Security because the ARC could not "afford another Stephen Hart".
    • Nick Cutter sees it in a flashback and he and Jenny talk about it.
    • When Abby mentions Stephen, Nick gets upset.
    • Nick and Connor speculate about what Stephen would have liked about the incursion.
  • The Artifact first appears in this episode and would be a major plot point and appear in all Series 3 episodes except Episode 3.2 and was mentioned in Episode 3.7.
  • The principle of locking Anomalies using electricity is first discovered and would later be used to develop a Anomaly Locking Mechanism in Episode 3.4.
  • The principle of moving Anomalies using a magnetite structure, like the Sun Cage, is seen in Episode 5.6.
  • The Cleaner Clones were previously seen in Episode 2.7, they would also appear in Episode 3.2 and 3.3
  • Stephen dies in 2007; according to the ITV website, Nick is 36 when he died and was born in 1973, meaning about 2 years have passed since Stephen died and places the episode (and the rest of Series 3) in 2009.

Gallery[]

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References[]

External link[]

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