The worst episodes of Primeval
Ranked by viewer rating, lows first. Lit marks on the season rail place this list across the run. Vote on a placement to back it or contest it.
- 01
The team is called out when a giant,subterranean insect surfaces to drag victims to its nest - including Connor though Matt manages to save him. Connor is recruited by Burton to his New Dawn project,supposedly to harness energy from anomalies and he is given a glamorous,if mysterious helper,April,who stresses the top secret nature of the scheme. After Abby has caught Matt hacking into Connor's computer she learns that he is a visitor from a very bleak future,sent by Gideon to save the world and that Burton is merely using Connor for his own ends.
- 02
A Liopleudon enters submarine HMS Gartside through an underwater anomaly, though the sub's captain bans the team from bringing their weapons on board and it is left to Connor to try and shoot the creature back through the hole on a torpedo. However the craft is sucked through the anomaly,causing a loss of power and is surrounded by a school of the creatures. Whilst Sir James dissuades a gung-ho admiral from nuking the area the team discharge the animal and return to their own time where Abby tries in vain to dissuade Connor from working for Burton before showing a Matt a newspaper cutting telling the fate of Emily.
- 03
Still naively believing that he is working to make free energy Connor completes his first task for Burton - creating an artificial anomaly,which he claims is too small to be dangerous. Needless to say he is proved wrong as thousands of deadly beetles swarm through,killing a guard and almost finishing off computer operator Jess. Abby and Matt are able to send the creatures back thanks to the information they stole from Connor's hard drive. However Connor now realises that Burton is not to be trusted and,worse,has created a machine capable of making far larger anomalies.
- 04
Whilst Abby is arguing with Burton,who wants to kill the menagerie,the team gets called to a school where a Therocephalian has come through a gateway and killed a young teacher. Unaware of his fate two nerdy boys in weekend detention accidentally lock the school's security system so that the ARC lads are unable to reach the anomaly. By the time Connor has rectified the system a a whole tribe of the creatures appear and have to be killed with a smoke bomb. Sir James stops Burton from disposing of the animals,making him Abby's hero though she is annoyed at Connor's lack...
- 05
When a raptor comes through an anomaly at an art exhibition Matt pursues it back to Victorian England,where it is credited with being the mysterious bogey man Spring Heel Jack. Matt also encounters Emily,who is investigating the creature,incurring the wrath of her nasty possessive husband Henry,who wants her committed. Circumstances allow Emily to return to the twentieth century with Matt though the raptor and Henry are less fortunate. Abby meanwhile manages to secure evidence of Connor's work for Matt,though she incurs April's suspicion.
- 06
Connor and Abby struggle with life in the Cretaceous Period, meanwhile the A.R.C. has been rebuilt and updated with two new members.
- 07
When Connor looks up old friend Duncan, he doesn't expect to find him obsessed with creature sightings. Warning him of the elusive dock creature, the pair track it down to the docks, only to find evidence of a fresh kill. With Abby and Matt arriving to help, they find the creature after a tense chase through a container yard. Will Connor's quick-thinking and bravery earn him back his place on the team?
- 08
Abby and Connor travel to coastal Witchfield Cove,home to the legendary giant worm,after the death of a camper. They find the worm is no myth but a Labyrinthodont,come through a portal in a cave,accidentally opened by a farmer and her son,tipping waste acids. After its disposal Connor accepts a role in Burton's secret project. Matt traces Emily via the black box he has given her and saves her from being buried in a vault,the former burial place of Ethan's sweetheart Charlotte. However Ethan escapes .
- 09
A mysterious group come through an anomaly in a theatre, unknowingly followed by deadly tree creatures. As they attempt to escape, Matt inadvertently brings one of the group - Emily - back against her will. She promises to help him find the creature, in return for going back through the anomaly. In a frantic chase through the city, they track the creature down, only to discover the anomaly has closed, leaving Emily stranded.
- 10
Whilst Lester appoints Jenny as temporary leader and Connor perfects his machine to close anomalies, a Giganotosaurus, a huge carnivorous dinosaur, appears in an aircraft hangar and eats a television crew summoned by greedy reporter Harper and his editor. To the team's initial annoyance, Danny Quinn arrives but proves his worth when they have to save a besieged air crew from the monster. Lester is suspicious that his boss Christine Johnson is conducting secret experiments in the ARC.
- 11
An anomaly appears in the flat of unsympathetic millionaire Sir Richard Bentley,ultimately turning him into a flesh-eating monster,slowly evolving into a giant fungus. Sir James allows an enthusiastic Danny to replace Cutter at the ARC and,along with Connor,he destroys the former Sir Richard by exposure to extreme cold. Jenny sees an old photograph of herself from the days when she was Claudia and decides to move on.
- 12
An odd-looking, wounded dinosaur leaps through an anomaly in a scrapyard, pursued by a medieval knight, who thinks it is a dragon and causes havoc in the high street during a carnival, believing he is in Hell. Whilst Abby patches up the creature's wounds, Sarah steps back in time through the anomaly to discover that the knight is William de Mornay, seeking redemption for his sins by slaying a dragon and on her return persuades him to spare the dinosaur and return home. Connor meanwhile takes drastic action to retrieve Abby's pet Rex, lost in a card game by her brother.
- 13
A giant ant from the same future location as the artefact comes through an anomaly and kills two guards. Jack, Abby's daft brother,from whom she has kept her job secret and is anxious to know what she really does, arrives at the site and is chased through the anomaly by the ant and its offspring. The team follow him into an urban wilderness where they are besieged in a bus by carnivorous monsters but manage to escape. Jack atones for his bad behaviour by telling Abby how much Connor loves her but Danny and James are disturbed to find that Johnson and her henchman ...
- 14
The ARC team gets called to a prison where they find themselves unable to control the anomalies and suspect that Ethan is manipulating them. Suddenly Danny emerges from one of the worm-holes and it transpires that Ethan is his brother Patrick,who went through an anomaly as a boy and for whom Danny has been searching ever since. He had assumed the name Ethan and appeared in different time schemes to wreak havoc and,as he returns through an anomaly,Danny goes after him to keep an eye on him. Before this Danny has warned that Burton knew Helen Cutter and is not to be ...
- 15
Abby and Matt follow Connor through the anomaly,finding themselves in a vast wasteland,in which they fight off predators before returning to their own time. Eventually realising that he has been used by Helen Cutter Burton sacrifices himself along with the destruction of the New Dawn machine but the team still have to close off the giant anomaly by merging it with the smaller one created by Connor and causing it to implode. The world is saved but,as the team heads off on another mission, Matt has a disturbing confrontation.
- 16
Prehistoric creatures burst through a rip in time and our team find themselves running for their lives from the hungry jaws of a flesh-eating Gorgonopsid.
- 17
Mammoth spiders attack the London Underground, but in the darkness of the tunnels lies something more sinister still.
- 18
A crocodilian, a creature from the Eocene period which was mistaken for a god and worshipped in ancient Egypt is released through an anomaly whilst on display at an Egyptian exhibition at the British Museum. It kills the curator, Marion and flees across London, diving into the Thames. Cutter recruits Dr. Sarah Page, Marion's assistant, to help his team retrieve it.
- 19
Sarah establishes the purpose of the artefact - it can predict the whereabouts of anomalies. Johnson, anxious to claim it for herself, deposes Sir James, causing the team to flee with it to a ramshackle safe house in deep woodland, where large and carnivorous prehistoric birds emerge through an anomaly to pursue them. Good teamwork sees off the predators and Johnson but Abby gets a shock due to her imbecile brother.
- 20
As the team explains to James that Burton was in league with Helen Cutter in wishing to return the world to its primeval state a huge T Rex which has come through one of his anomalies and is on the rampage in London needs their attention. Anomalies are opening the world over and Burton leaves Connor to die at one nearer home though fortunately Abby comes to the rescue. The team tries in vain to get Burton to close down his New Dawn machine but,after pterodactyls have seen off April,Burton closes all the other anomalies worldwide putting all their power into a huge one...
- 21
The new anomaly detector detects a new anomaly opening in the middle of the River Thames, where Abby is taken by one of the creatures.
- 22
The team discover a creature that can camouflage itself at an abandoned house. As they investigate, they cross paths with an interfering cop. Meanwhile, their headquarters is infiltrated by someone who should have been dead.
- 23
A herd of rhinoceros-like creatures, embolotherium, come through a rift at a camp-site. Danny rescues Eve, the young woman Johnson and Wilder have brought from the future and takes her to the site where she saves the day with a device which creates an anomaly, through which the beasts return home. She is taken to the ARC where she is not who she first appears to be.
- 24
Connor's carelessness reveals Rex's presence, and an aerial anomaly releases a new danger thirsty for blood.
- 25
An anomaly, to a period before an oxygen-based atmosphere, fills the 15th floor of an office tower with smoke, with gigantic worms inside.
Shows like Primeval
The closest matches on shared genres, ranked by match strength and popularity.
- 01Drama·Adventure·Science-FictionThe worst episodes of Doctor Who2005–2022·BBC One
Adventures across time and space with the time travelling alien and companions. - 02Drama·Adventure·Science-FictionThe worst episodes of Doctor Who2023·BBC iPlayer
The Doctor and friends travel from the dawn of human history to distant alien worlds. - 03Drama·Adventure·Science-FictionThe worst episodes of Firefly2002–2002·FOX
Five hundred years in the future, a renegade crew aboard a small spacecraft tries to survive as they travel the unknown parts of the galaxy and evade warring factions as well as authority agents out to get them. - 04Drama·Adventure·Science-FictionThe worst episodes of Smallville2001–2011·The CWA retelling of Superman's early days as teenager Clark Kent growing up in Smallville, Kansas.
- 05Drama·Adventure·Science-FictionThe worst episodes of The Gifted2017–2019·FOXThe Gifted tells the story of a suburban couple whose ordinary lives are rocked by the sudden discovery that their children possess mutant powers.
- 06Drama·Adventure·Science-FictionThe worst episodes of The War Between the Land and the Sea2025–2025·BBC iPlayerWhen a fearsome and ancient species emerges from the ocean, dramatically revealing themselves to humanity, an international crisis is triggered.
