| Primeval Series 2 :Episode 5 Episode 5 scorpians threaten the team while they are trapped in the past. Taylor, an eleven-year-old girl, is walking her dog when she stumbles across an anomaly in a nearby alley. The dog runs through it and when Taylor races after him she finds herself in a dazzling new world of rocky terrain, ever shifting sands and twinkling stars. But her astonishment quickly turns to panic when something inside the sand rises up in front of her. She screams in horror.... Meanwhile Leek is alone in the ARC when the anomaly detector bursts into life. He quickly traces the location but instead of summoning the team he makes an untraceable call of his own to the "cleaner" before causing the detector's computer to crash. Leek slips quietly away and goes to the anomaly site to meet with the "cleaner" and a heavily armed group of mercenaries. At his command, the group slip through the portal unseen and undetected. On the other side, as they walk across the Silurian desert the mercenaries see Taylor stranded on a rocky outcrop shouting at them. Mistaking her shouts as pleas for help they ignore the girl and keep on moving, intent on completing their mission. Suddenly the sand starts moving beneath them, but as Taylor continues to yell her warnings, it's too late. She covers her ears and listens to screams and gunfire echoing in the distance. Finally the desert swallows them up, leaving nothing but their scattered weapons and a deathly silence. Meanwhile back in then present day, Connor finally gets the detector up and running and immediately locates the anomaly site. The team race to where the portal has opened and Stephen and Cutter enter the strange Silurian world. In the distance, they can see the rocky outcrop on which Taylor is stranded and head towards her, unsure as to why she seems reluctant to move. As they walk through the desert they find the mercenaries weapons littered on the sand. Cutter is determined not to leave anything behind so the two men pick up the guns and pack them away safely. However, as the sand starts to move beneath them they realise with mounting horror why Taylor has remained where she is. As giant Silurian scorpions burst from the treacherous dunes, Cutter and Stephen face the race of their lives as they frantically scrabble to reach safe ground. As the team wait on the other side they realise the anomaly is growing weaker but as Cutter, Stephen and Taylor move across the rocky terrain as fast as they can the shimmering portal closes before they reach it. Stranded in the past as the sand all around ripples with the scorpions just beneath its surface, Stephen and Cutter must put aside their differences and work together if they are ever to find a way home. Read what Douglas Henshall has to say about this episode. See exclusive gallery on set at Fuerteventura PROGRAMME FIVE – ‘THE GIANT SCORPIONS’ THE FICTION An anomaly opens on a building site and this time the detector works well and the team are on site quickly. Unfortunately not before a young girl and her dog go through and become stranded on the other side. The team send through a remote vehicle and from the oxygen content in the air and the sand dunes Cutter guesses they are looking at the Silurian period about 400 million years ago. They then see the little girl seemingly stuck on a rock, so Cutter and Stephen decide to go through to bring her back. The reason she is staying on the rock is that she has seen huge shapes moving around beneath the sand. These turn out to be giant scorpions that hunt by detecting the vibrations their prey make as they hide beneath the sand. Cutter and the team are forced onto the rocks by a scorpion attack and are stranded there when the anomaly closes. Later another opens and by walking very slowly across the sand and then sliding down a dune on an old scorpion shell they are able to escape back to our own time. THE FACTS Back in the Silurian 400 million years ago scorpions were the biggest predators on Earth (with the exception of early squid-like creatures). The sea scorpions especially grew to over 3 metres long. On the water’s edge there was something called Brontoscorpio which had both gills and a lung book so it could live both on land and sea. To be accurate many of these were not true scorpions just close arachnid relatives. However, all the larger creatures were associated with water. In Primeval we invent huge primitive looking scorpions (based on the modern whip scorpions) that would be too large to even breathe let alone move about under the sand. Still on a small scale that is similar to what modern scorpions do – hunt on sand by detecting vibration with little brushes beneath their bodies. Other desert creatures like moles and snakes can creep up on their prey from under the sand. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |