Nick Cutter doesn’t have time to come to terms with the changes in the timeline before he and the team are sent after a raptor in a shopping centre…

Primeval’s second series hits the ground running. Feeling far more like episode seven of the first series, rather than the start of something new, it doesn’t hesitate to confront the changes in the timeline caused by Cutter and Helen’s trip to the past. Claudia Brown is gone, and no one bar Nick Cutter remembers her. In her place is the oleaginous Oliver Leek, played in a suitably creepy way by Green Wing’s Karl Theobald. And the team have a shiny new HQ to operate out of – the Anomaly Research Centre (the ARC), which looks like it’s been borrowed from a 007 movie.

The creatures infesting the shopping mall (Bentalls in Kingston for those interested) are better realised than their predecessors, and there’s a lot more interaction between the cast and the CG creations. Apart from one or two bits of hammy dialogue inserted to lead into commercial breaks, the script is as sharp as the first season, with some great moments between Connor and Abby, as well as between Cutter and Stephen Hunt.

Verdict: Welcome back!  8/10

Paul Simpson