Trivia / Primeval

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: In a few places.
  • The unnamed Raptors are portrayed pretty unanimously as having strong jaws they use to kill prey while they use their claws to pin, as well as not living in packs but loose cannibalistic groups. Turns out, this is pretty accurate to most current theories on dromaeosaurs.
  • The Dracorex has no cheeks, which recently, some people have proposed Pachycephalosaurs may have exhibited.
• Actor Allusion: In the Series 4 premiere, Abby plays S Club 7's "Don't Stop Moving" to distract the spinosaurus.
• Actor Leaves, Character Dies: Between Seasons 3 and 4. Laila Rouass opted not to move to Dublin to film as she didn't want to leave her young daughter so Sarah was Killed Offscreen.
• Career Resurrection: The success of this show meant that Hannah Spearritt was not going to be remembered just for S Club 7.
• Channel Hop: In the UK, season 5 aired on Watch before it aired on ITV1. New World is also shown on Watch, this time instead of on ITV.
• Creator Backlash:
  • In an article for the Companion, Adrian Hodges has stated that, in his view, the show never quite recovered after Cutter was killed off, saying that he regrets the decision to this day. In the same article, Hannah Spearitt heavily implied that she isn't terribly fond of the last two seasons either.
  • Earlier, Hannah Spearitt also remarked that she found the excessive fanservice Abby gave in season 1 "a bit much" in an interview for season 2, which is likely why this was toned down from afterward.
• The Danza: Lucy Brown as Claudia Brown.
• Doubling for London: Season 4 was filmed mostly in Dublin but is set in London. (In a particularly jarring instance for Irish viewers, the second episode of the series has numerous shots of the unmistakable Poolbeg Power Station chimneys in what is supposedly London Docks.)
• DVD Commentary: Starting from Season 2, at a pretty fixed rate of one commentary per disc.
• Fake Brit
  • English-born Jess is played by Irish actress Ruth Kearney. Her accent is quite flawless.
  • Also in Series 4, we have another Irish actress (Ruth Bradley) playing a Londoner (Lady Emily Merchant.) Also with a flawless accent.
  • Incidentally, most of the supporting cast in Seasons 4 and 5 were Irish, with their accents varying wildly. Some didn't bother with the accents - which is justified by the high number of Irish immigrants England has often had.
• Flip-Flop of God: The decision of the genus for the Raptors seen in the series has gone back and forth between the show's creators right up until Series 5. Comments alternated between them being Velociraptors or Utahraptor (which was mentioned by Helen Cutter in the first series). After a while they eventually settled on saying they were based on Deinonychus, which is the closest approximate match the Primeval Raptors have for a real life equivalent in terms of appearance and size. And now it's decided that they're Dromaeosaurus instead... meaning they changed their minds to make for a less accurate depiction.
• Fountain of Expies: The Future Predator is the earliest known example of the archetype of skinny, greyish, vaguely humanoid/ape-like monster with a domed head, very long limbs, and lots of sharp teeth (which itself has a lot of basis with the Xenomorphs) that would be repeated with other creatures like Clover, the Death Angels^note This one is particularly close, as the Death Angels are similarly blind and operate on acute hearing, the Demogorgon, the White Spikes, the Outriders, the Gorgon, the Neomorph, the aliens from No One Will Save You, and so on.
• Killed by Request:
  • Cutter was killed off because his actor wanted to leave the show.
  • A bizarre example with Nigel Marven's brief appearance in the fourth episode of Series 3 - Marven, a fan of the show, would allegedly only do the cameo if he got eaten.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: The Megopterans from Series 3 were the winners of a contest to design a creature from the future that would appear in the show. The runner-up entries are as follows:
  • Chaos: A magnetic being made of anomalies that would assimilate creatures that passed through time and use parts of their bodies to attack.
  • Dunkleodon: A fish that evolved to live entirely on land, with two enormous arms and two rhinoceros-like legs. They're heavily armored and have crushing jaws like those of a Dunkleosteus.
  • Drapterasaurus: A reptilian creature with razor-sharp claws and a deadly talon on the tip of its tail. It's fast, but cannot see or smell very well.
  • Ladybird-Flea Hybrid: An insect with a tongue-like proboscis that it uses to drink blood, and inject hosts with eggs.
  • Mandron: A lanky missing-link between apes and a species that would eventually replace humans. It has long limbs for climbing, and its tail has primitive fingers for grasping.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Laila Rouass had just come off playing a sexy Alpha Bitch in Footballers' Wives. Playing the sweet, geeky Sarah Page was different.
  • Hannah Spearritt had spent most of her S Club 7 career playing a ditzier version of herself, so a tomboy Action Girl like Abby was different too.
• Post-Script Season: Due to its huge budget, by British television standards, the show has spent most of its runtime on the verge of being cancelled. On top of that the actor playing the lead hero wanted out during season 3. This season, while containing some big fat Sequel Hooks, killed off not only him but also the main villain (his wife). While the gimmick driving the series was still there the writers had to develop a completely new storyline when they were eventually greenlit for a season 4 and 5. (Season 5 ended on a similar note, if the series gets revived again there will be another post script season.)
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle:
  • Abby has shorter, spiky hair in Season 3 because Hannah Spearritt's hair had been ruined from bleaching. She at first had to dye it dark between seasons, and then cut it shorter.
  • By the time the series returned in Season 4, Hannah had grown her hair out long. But this was easily explained as Abby's growing out from a year stuck in the Cretaceous period.
• Romance on the Set:
  • Abby and Connor's actors were a couple in Real Life, while slowly inching to it in the show. However, after a long engagement, they ended up splitting up.
  • Lester and Christine were also married in real life. The best part about the Lester/Christine one is that it was completely unintentional. According to the actress, Belinda Stewart-Wilson: "I had been to a few meetings and at one, the director said, 'Do you realize that you will be playing opposite Ben Miller?... Do you know Ben Miller at all?' 'Well, I AM married to him'." They separated later on.
• Science Marches On: The focus creature for the Series 3 opener is the prehistoric crocodilian Pristichampsus, which is now believed to be another name for Boverisuchus.
• Un-Canceled: After Season 3 it was picked up by BBC for two more seasons.
• Unfinished Episode: A cut episode would have involved a Diplodocus rampaging through London, as a homage to The Lost World. It was cut because the proposed script was too expensive to film.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Adrian Hodges had wanted Gary Oldman for the role of Phillip Burton. It didn't come to pass and Alexander Siddig played the role instead.
  • Tim Haines and Adrian Hodges attempted several times to make a movie but failed each time, as they either could not get the appropriate funding or were scrapped due to disagreements with executives. At one point, they had a deal with an unspecified studio, but the executives wanted to relocate it to America. When the creators insisted on a British cast, the studio suggested using British stars - their suggestions being Gemma Arterton as Abby and Liam Neeson as Cutter.
  • Akiva Goldsman - a fan of the series - worked on, with Haines and Hodges, a treatment for a film which would have involved the team attempting to stop Helen Cutter from killing the early hominids, preventing the extinction of the human race. At one point, Michael Bay was considered to direct - however, for unknown reasons, it fell through. However, aspects of the movie treatment was used for Helen Cutter's plan in the Series 3 finale.
  • According to the Primeval Activity Books, there was originally supposed to be episodes in the first season that featured Therizinosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus, but they were cut. It was seemingly cut so late into production that promotional images of the creatures were made.

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