History Headscratchers / Primeval

This JustBugsMe partly because I generally dislike Masquerades in the first place, but also because this one doesn't seem justified. If the public was informed about the anomalies, it'd make handling the scene much easier, and would have been a great way of finding them as they occurred before Connor invented his magic detector. Plus, what about the scientific opportunities that are being wasted? Most obviously, it'd shut down the creationists once and for all, but apart from that the scientific community would get a great look at creatures from earlier eras. The reasoning given - "it'd cause panic" - doesn't really gel because obviously the anomalies ''wouldn't'' cause panic if the public knew about them, and as it is people panic anyway.

----
<<|ItJustBugsMe|>>

** Regarding point C, the ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' system where changing the past causes you to disappear and possibly destroys the Universe is not the only model of a mutable timeline and is actually quite rare in serious time travel fiction. The most common way of handling a single mutable timeline is to essentially "overwrite" time from the point when the time travellers appeared similarly to a NewGamePlus - Helen appears back then with all her levels and equipment, but future events are no longer set in stone and can happen differently with no consequence to her. Of course ''Primeval'' is firmly a TimeyWimeyBall series, so time travel basically works however the writers want it to at that moment.

[[WMG: In Season 2 Episode 5, why does Cutter deny that there's a conspiracy?]]

* When Cutter and Stephen are in the Silurian desert and they find the remains of Leek's secret band of mercenaries, Stephen says that there's a traitor within the organisation. Cutter's response is: "I don't know that and neither do you!" Why the hell would Cutter say that when ''he himself'' saw the Cleaner who was supposed to be dead ''in the previous episode?'' If Cutter had agreed with Stephen and been a little more open with him in the first place [[spoiler: Stephen wouldn't have been kicked off the team and probably wouldn't even have been killed.]]

* [[spoiler: Her plan seemingly involves stopping the ARC people from destroying humanity, or so she claims. Therefore she has to be in 2009, because that's the key point in history.]]
** [[spoiler: Seems to me she could stop that by pulling the same trick that turned Claudia Brown into Jenny Lewis. She seems to know enough to use the Butterfly Effect to her advantage. Whatever plan she's working seems far more elaborate.]]
** [[spoiler: Unlike her underwear.]]

[[WMG::Why do the bodies of the 13 dead hominids show up in the fossil record and not the corpses of [[spoiler:Helen or the Velociraptor]]?]]
* Because really, if the conditions preserved them then the same conditions should preserve the [[spoiler: corpse of the modern human and dinosaur. And if you are a palaeontologist and you find the corpses of 13 hominids plus a modern human and a ''fucking dinosaur'' all in same place you are going to make a big deal of it, cause those are the sort of discoveries that over turn paradigms and make you famous!]]

* The hominids were poisoned, so their bodies may have been toxic enough to discourage scavengers. [[spoiler: Helen and the velociraptor]] died by falling off a cliff, so were perfectly edible.

* [[spoiler:According to her, the world would be better of without humanity. This is arguable, but she actually goes so far as to claim that there would be "No war, no pollution, ''no predators''." Again, "''No predators.''" And on top of that, how is killing the "first family" supposed to erase humanity?:]]
** [[spoiler:A.) It's known that they were not the only members of their species alive at the time. ]]
** [[spoiler:B.) They're already dead in the "normal" timeline, and Homo sapiens still evolved. ]]
** [[spoiler:C.) Erasing humanity would prevent her from existing and from killing the first family to begin with. I understand that the creators went with the "history can't be changed" rules (with the exception of the Jenny/Claudia thing), but how can Helen not realize the paradox of what she's trying to do? ]]

** [[spoiler:Not predators, Predators. As in, the big ugly mutant bat monsters which humanity bred for military purposes. Anyway, in response to your actual IJBM, Helen wasn't planning to just kill that one group. She said that she was planning to move on to other pools and poison them as well, and she explained that at the time the population of hominids was very small, so that it would be possible to wipe them all out before they became widespread. So that was all explained in the episode. No clue on the time paradox thing, though. Time paradoxes give everyone headaches.]] (Tagged because it's a spoiler for the last episode.)

*** They took weapons, Stephen had that rifle in his truck.

** Probably got theUsefulNotes/OfficialSecretsAct pointed at them.

** Probably got the OfficialSecretsAct poiinted at them.

** It also set up the "haunted house" plotline for the following episode, IIRC. Sarah was also necessary as the TokenMinority, since some people (like RussellTDavies) had previously criticised the show for being all about white folks.

** D) Somebody would probably try to cash in on the anomalies by launching dinosaur-hunts or whatever, potentially sabotaging the timeline without necessarily even meaning to ''a la'' Bradbury's ''Literature/TheSoundOfThunder''.

** D) Somebody would probably try to cash in on the anomalies by launching dinosaur-hunts or whatever, potentially sabotaging the timeline without necessarily even meaning to ''a la'' Bradbury's ''TheSoundOfThunder''.

* The hominids were poisoned, so their bodies may have been toxic enough to discourage scavengers. Helen and the velociraptor died by falling off a cliff, so were perfectly edible.

* Maybe the place where those two were at weren't fossilized, or scavengers got to them first

* They cancel it on the grounds they can't afford the effects. Yet they pay £2 million to Cheryl Cole to host some shows?

** Regarding point C, the ''BackToTheFuture'' system where changing the past causes you to disappear and possibly destroys the Universe is not the only model of a mutable timeline and is actually quite rare in serious time travel fiction. The most common way of handling a single mutable timeline is to essentially "overwrite" time from the point when the time travellers appeared similarly to a NewGamePlus - Helen appears back then with all her levels and equipment, but future events are no longer set in stone and can happen differently with no consequence to her. Of course ''Primeval'' is firmly a TimeyWimeyBall series, so time travel basically works however the writers want it to at that moment.

<<|ItJustBugsMe|>>

[WMG: In Season 2 Episode 5, why does Cutter deny that there's a conspiracy?]]