Sci-Fi programmes were once upon a time the fantasy world of children hiding behind the sofa and geeky adults who never grew up.
Now they've become the latest battleground in the telly ratings war as ITV pin their hopes on their latest big-budget series to win the fight for Saturday night viewers.
Primeval sees a team of evolutionary scientists having to get to grips with more than just fossils when all manner of prehistoric monsters find their way into the present day.
From giant spiders invading the London Underground to sea monsters taking a dip in the local swimming pool, the all-action drama is like a cross between Dr Who and Jurassic Park.
And in the middle of the mayhem is Scots actor Douglas Henshall. The 40-year-old stars as Professor Nick Cutter, who with a team of sidekicks is given the job of stopping the ancient beasts terrorising the country.
Having just stepped off the West End stage where he won rave reviews for his performance in David Mamet's The Cryptogram, taking on the role of a swashbuckling sci-fi hero is a major departure for the actor, more often seen on our screens in gritty late-night dramas.
But it was the quality of the scripts that persuaded him to try something different.
He said: "They are plausible, they are accessible, and they are fun. And, yes, I suppose that I did rather surprise myself when I said that I'd like to be on board.
"Chiefly, I am not an avid reader of science fiction, nor do I have an overwhelming desire to read about pre-history.
"I think sci-fi and time travel and all that appealed to me most when I was 11 or 12 or in my early teens, as it does to all little boys with vivid imaginations.
"And my imagination was certainly fertile. I was surprised when I started reading the scripts how many residues of memory of when I was a kid were stirred up.
"At the age of 40, there was still a lot of it there. I had great recollections of Jurassic Park and of Indiana Jones, things like that."
With the BBC having scored major successes with both Dr Who and its more adult spin-off Torchwood, ITV could be accused of jumping on the sci-fi bandwagon. But the show is no cheap imitation, with Cutter having his own dark past through the disappearance of his wife eight years ago.
There are also more key characters than you'll find on the BBC show, and less of the slightly camp comedy which made Doctor Who such a hit. But Douglas admits that's no guarantee the show will be a hit among Saturday night viewers.
He said: "I very nearly didn't agree to play Professor Cutter, because I thought that there were so many things that could go wrong with a show like this. The possibilities of cocking it up completely were endless. What if the effects don't look right, for a start?
"It's a big risk. ITV's budgets are not those of Stephen Spielberg, so the risks were enormous. It could all go wrong, and it could all fail spectacularly, but then I thought: 'That's all part of the excitement and the challenge, so let's go for it. Let's be ambitious.'
"And from what I've seen so far, I have to say that it does look rather good. I'm rather proud of what we and the effects boys have achieved!"
Sadly for Douglas, that didn't involve too many huge mechanical monsters to battle. Instead, many of the creatures were created by computer trickery, giving Douglas and his co-stars much more work to do in an effort to be convincing.
He said: "Cutter and his team are constantly battling these mega-monsters from the past but they are added to the screen after the actors have done their work by computer effects.
"So when you see us looking in horror at something, in reality, there's nothing there. It's a technician, with a bamboo cane, and on the end of the cane is a bit of thread, and on the end of the thread is a tennis ball, dangling there for you to get an idea of where your eye-line should be.
"It's one of the hardest things of all, and you have to get over it pretty fast. You're supposed to be in shock or mortal terror of your life, but you just want to crack up with laughter every time."
The first episode sees Professor Cutter and his team, a lab technician and a geeky student, investigating the sighting of a strange animal in the Forest of Dean. They're soon joined by the civil servant in charge of the investigation, played by Lucy Brown, and it becomes clear Professor Cutter's interest in her is more than just professional.
The team together discover how the prehistoric creatures are appearing only to vanish again after wreaking havoc, and while the plot will seem far-fetched, the "monsters" are genuine animals from the planet's past, rather than figments of a script-writer's imagination.
Douglas said: "You have to show that your character believes in what is happening, so that the audience can believe as well.
"If you are talking about tears in the time and space continuum you have to look as if you know what you're talking about, and not giggle all the time.
"We had to have real-life experts on the set who could teach us how to say the proper scientific names of some of the remarkable creatures that Cutter and his team meet. That had to sound authentic as well."
But not all of the action takes place in the present day. Dinosaurs coming forward in time means it's possible to go back in time. And so Douglas found himself having to conquer his fear of heights on location in Majorca as he teetered on the edge of a volcanic mountain.
He said: "It was hideous, because every fibre of my being was quivering.
"The rim was just stretching away into infinity, and as I started to move along it the drop below seemed to get deeper and deeper.
"I froze, but then something sort of clicked into my mind, that I had actually gone half the distance that they needed and that I was beyond that point of no return. If I was going to go back it would be just as hideous as my going forwards.
"I was fighting this terrible internal guilt, because the last thing that I wanted to do was to let anyone down."
With all of the filming finished Douglas is waiting to see if the show will prove a hit with Saturday night viewers.
If it does, a second series could quickly be commissioned, with filming resuming this year. Douglas said:
"I am 'gainfully unemployed' at the moment, which is a strange feeling for me, because I usually find something to do. I guess that something will turn up and I hope that it's another series of Primeval.
"I think that it's going to hit the spot, a series that will intrigue the parents and which might terrify a few kids. And kids need a fright every now and then, don't they?"
Primeval debuts on ITV on Saturday, February 10, at 7.45pm.
Record News - 3 February 2007