From Primeval Wiki
- "I'm finished with the past. I just don't know if it's finished with me."
- ―Nick Cutter[src]
Nick Cutter Action Figure
Evolutionary zoologist, university professor and team leader, Professor Nick Cutter is a maverick. Hard-bitten, cynical and Scottish he struggles with rules and authority – to the extent that he doesn’t even turn up for his own lectures. There are rumors he has a softer side but he’s keen to dispel those. He prefers fossils to live animals, the Stones to the Beatles and thinks there’s more chance of finding intelligent life elsewhere in the universe than there is in the government.
His mission is to make sense of the anomalies which are allowing creatures from the past, and the Future, to roam the modern world. For Cutter this is not just a professional mission, he has a personal interest. His wife, Helen Cutter, went missing and was presumed dead for eight years. He discovered that Helen was actually traveling through the anomalies. Her return has left a lot of questions unanswered. After escalating events during episode 3 of the third series, Cutter was shot in the chest by his wife Helen, but managed to survive long enough to pass on the Artifact to Connor, before dying.
[edit] Pre-Anomalies
Cutter meets Helen Ambrose in college and they soon have a speedy romance, before getting married. Stephen Hart is one of his and Helen's students, and he later gets a job as Cutter's lab technician. Nick's marriage runs into difficulty, and unbeknown to Nick Helen has an affair with Stephen. Helen becomes obsessed with "evolutionary puzzles" which could not be explained by conventional science. She comes up with theories that Cutter finds ridiculous, leading to them growing apart even more. After following up a creature sighting in the Forest of Dean, Helen discovers an anomaly and goes through, disappearing completely. The whole world assumes she is dead, and Nick is left grieving and distraught.
Eight years later, at the
Central Metropolitan University, young palaeontology student
Connor Temple approaches Nick, his tutor, and Stephen. Nick abruptly slings Connor's dissitation in a waste paper bin. He then shows Connor a fossilised
Sarcopterygian, that should have been extinct for 70 million years. Connor shows him a newspaper photograph of an apparently therapsid-type monster. Connor convinces Nick and Stephen to follow up a recent unknown animal sighting. Initially disinterested, even when Connor remarks his wife wouldn't have ignored it, Cutter becomes intrigued when he hears the sighting was in the Forest of Dean. Upon further investigation, they find a articulated lorry with its trailer's side torn open by huge sharp claws and a nearby fence smashed down. Stephen concludes it must be a hoax, but Nick is not so sure. Shortly afterwards, at a nearby hotel, Cutter is approached and kissed by a young woman. She apologises and explains she did so to dissuade a potential date. She then introduces herself as
Claudia Brown, an employee of the
Home Office sent to investigate the animal sighting. Cutter invites her to join the search.
It can't be that hard to find a dinosaur...
Nick, Stephen, Connor and Claudia enter the Forest of Dean and, along with
Abby Maitland, a reptile keeper at
Wellington Zoo, find a prehistoric
Scutosaurus. They arrive at the house of
Ben Trent, a young boy who has been attacked by a dinosaur. Cutter is the only one to believe his story. The team then return to the Scutosaurus to look for a strange portal that Ben claimed to have seen. The frightened Scutosaurus flees back where it came from, leading them to the portal - an anomaly, creating a hole in time and space. Claudia takes Nick and Abby back to the Home Office, where the two them are made to sign the Official Secrets Act. They meet the head of the anomaly situation:
Sir James Lester. Lester and Cutter's first encounter doesn't go well, as each have severe misgivings regarding the other and different views about what is to be done with the anomaly.
The team watch Rex being tested
After seeing a
Coelurosauravus named
Rex that Abby had, Nick theorises that the anomaly may lead to Earth in the
late Permian period. He also believes his wife may be in the anomaly and informs Lester he will find out, whatever it takes to do so. Lester provides Cutter with permission to go through the anomaly. Nick also decides to return Rex through the anomaly, as the creatures should remain in their own time. Cutter, accompanied by special ops force leader
Captain Tom Ryan go through the anomaly into the Permian. After releasing Rex, the pair explore their surroundings, finding to their amazement, remains of a human camp, a supply case and a male human skeleton, as well as a camera marked "H.C.": the initials of Helen Cutter.
Nick and Captain Ryan examine the skeleton
Ryan remarks their allowed time in the anomaly is over and orders Nick to come back to the present, as the anomaly is getting weaker, but Cutter wants to stay because he is desperate to find his wife. Ryan clubs Nick with a pistol and carries him back towards the anomaly. Cutter gradually comes round, and resists with a fist fight, which Ryan wins. Nick threatens to stay. Ryan says he will stay also to guard him. Not wanting another to be stranded there, Cutter relents and the two go back through the anomaly just before it closes. Suddenly, a vicious, carnivorous
Gorgonopsid that has also come through the anomaly emerges from the trees and attacks the group. Ryan and his men shoot the animal but it takes no notice of the bullets and kills more soldiers. As the team escape, Claudia trips. Cutter goes back to help her, but they are left alone in the clearing with the Gorgonopsid advancing on them. Before it can kill them, Stephen comes out of nowhere and drives his SUV into it. The Gorgonopsid is only stunned, but as it tries to get back on its feet, Stephen and the soldiers finish it off. Back at the Home Office, the film from Helen's camera is developed, showing pictures of Helen in the ancient landscape. Lester seems relieved the immediate crisis is over, but Cutter remarks this crisis is not over: it is only just beginning. After leaving and going back to his office, Cutter discovers a live
ammonite on his desk. Racing outside, he sees a ghostly silhouette of Helen, who walks off into the night as he shouts after her. Cutter now faces the prospect that his wife isn't as dead as he thought.
Cutter starts to suspect that Helen knew about the anomaly linked to the Permian. While everyone presumes the discovery of her camera in the Permian confirms her death, he is developing a different theory. But for now, he's keeping his speculations to himself. Nick also has to come to Connor's 'rescue'. However, it turns out that Connor told his friends about the Gorgonopsid and the anomaly, and they played a trick on him and Abby, who was with him. Cutter is furious and promptly fires Connor, but keeps Abby on. Cutter and Claudia are called to a nearby hospital, where a London Underground Cleaner is being treated. He's suffered a vicious wound to his neck, but is being killed by venom. Cutter examines the wound and concludes it's probably a sting or bite. After convincing Lester to close the Underground station where the attack occurred, Cutter and the team arrive to investigate. Captain Ryan and his soldiers go in first. Back on the surface, Ryan's report indicates to the team that there is an anomaly down there. Hundreds of giant spiders have come through, and the anomaly is linked to the late Carboniferous. Nick, Stephen and Abby head down to investigate. They find the anomaly and something far more dangerous than the spiders waiting for them: a huge Arthropleura, a vicious ancestor of the millipede, emerges and attacks them. Stephen and Abby escape, but Cutter becomes lost in a maze of underground passages. Lost in the tunnels, he hears the voice of Helen calling to him. He eventualy manages to escape the network of tunnels, but Stephen, who went down to look for Cutter, is critically ill from an Arthropleura bite. Stephen gives a message to Nick before succumbing to unconciousness: Helen's alive, and she's waiting for him on the other side of the anomaly. The only way to save Stephen will be to get a sample of the creature's venom. Cutter gives the order for the Arthropleura to be captured so a sample of its venom can be taken, but the team despair when they can't find the Arthropleura. However, it has in fact burrowed deeper underground. Cutter, Connor and Captain Ryan follow the narrow tunnel to the Arthropleura. It attacks Cutter, who catches its fangs so they inject venom into two absorbent pads under his suit. With their task done, the team attack the Arthropleura and manage to kill it. Stephen recovers but does not remember anything about seeing Helen. Back in the underground, Cutter and Connor watch the anomaly while they wait for it to close. He tells Connor that he will give him one last chance. Nick then stands by the anomaly as it closes, thinking about Helen, but does not go through it.
Nick is desperately trying to make Lester understand the deadly seriousness of the situation, but the Home Office official remains infuriatingly optimistic. A swimming pool lifeguard is killed, and Cutter suspects a creature involvement. His hunch is proved correct when the lifeguard's regurgitated body is found in a reservoir. A Mosasaur has travelled from the Cretaceous period through the underwater anomaly, and when a squad of divers enters the water one is killed. Nick realises that the anomaly has moved in our time, but remained fixed on the other side - the anomaly has shifted from Lambeth Baths to Queen Mary Reservoir. He presents this idea to Lester, who is extremely sceptical. Cutter theorises that the anomaly is moving along a faultline, and he predicts exactly the next position of the anomaly - a basement in Wakefield Road, London. Through the anomaly returns the body of the lost diver. Tied round its wrist is a message from Helen. Claudia is furious with Nick that he didn't reveal to her earlier that Helen was still alive, but when Lester arrives he orders Nick to go through the anomaly to get Helen to come back. Nick, faced with the thought of being fired from the team and Helen being brought back by force, agrees, on the condition that no soldiers accompany him. He swims through the anomaly into the Cretaceous period where, after eight years without her, he finds Helen, swimming in a rock pool. She seems to have been expecting him. Nick and Helen then have a long discussion: Helen reveals that she did know about the anomalies, but kept it to herself because she wanted to study them, fearing Nick would expose them to the wider scientific community and she would never get a look-in. Nick tries to convince her to come back to the modern world with him, but Helen counters, saying that she has been exploring the anomalies, seeing many wonders, and wants Nick to join her in that time-wandering life, but Nick cannot forgive her for letting him think she was dead all this time. Enraged by his refusal, she states that he should have moved on after her apparent death, like herself, and that the people who die on the streets of London are just nobodies. She remarks that humans will be extinct soon. Nick realises that the Helen he knew is gone and, much to Helen's fury and disgust, goes back alone. While swimming for the anomaly, the Mosasaur attacks. He fires a harpoon at its head, but it has no effect. He keeps dodging, but it manages to rip open his air tube, leaving him drowning. Suddenly a bigger Mosasaur arrives and attacks the smaller one. Nick is towed back through the anomaly by the rope and needs artificial respiration, but he lives. When recovering he sees that Lester has sent Captain Ryan and an armed team through the anomaly and have brought Helen back by force. She is arrested and carted off to the Home Office. Nick can only look on in horror. soon after stven get his memory back and remembered everything. he had remembered seeing helen and tries to convinse nick cutter to go through and find her .
While Helen is at the Home Office being interrogated, Nick, Stephen, Connor and Abby have to respond to a creature call. However, they discover no anomaly, and the creature is only a relatively harmless, modern-day python. When Cutter arrives back at the Home Office he is needed to assist with Helen's questioning. Helen initially accuses him of setting her up, before abruptly changing tact. She warns Nick that unless the team act "a pride of sabre-toothed killers will be rampaging through Central London!" Helen leads the team to the kitchens of a deserted football stadium, where they find an anomaly, but no sabre-toothed cats. While the team prepare for the creatures, Helen escapes through the anomaly. Suddenly, the anomaly expands and animal sounds ring out, but the creatures that come through aren't as terrifying as they feared: a flock of curious, chirping Dodos. Helen's story about sabre-toothed tigers was a bluff. The team return all the dodos through the anomaly, save for one, which has mysteriously died. Back at the Home Office, Cutter, Abby and Stephen are about to perform an autopsy on the dodo, when a strange, worm-like creature slithers out of its beak and advances on Abby. Fortunately, Stephen kills it before it reaches her. After some study, the team call in Lester and tell him that the creature is a highly dangerous parasite that destroys its host's body, keeping them alive just long enough to reproduce itself. Once that is achieved, parasite and host die together. This particular parasite was using the dodo as its host. Just then they receive information from Connor that his friends Tom and Duncan have captured a dodo, and Tom is acting really strange. Cutter suspects that Tom has been infected with a parasite. The team head over there, and find the dodo's dead body, but not Tom. Seeing a broken lightbulb by the dodo's body, Cutter realises that the parasite is light-sensitive and wherever Tom is, he'll be trying to stay in the dark. He also warns Lester that they have to find Tom before he infects anyone else and they have a pandemic on their hands. Lester agrees, though remarking that this whole situation is one more part of Helen's 'twisted plan'. Cutter tries to defend his wife, claiming the infected dodos were purely coincidental, but no-one believes him. Matters are not helped when the team discover Tom has bitten a doctor at a hospital where he tried to get medical treatment. Realising that they need to understand more about what Tom is thinking, Cutter and Stephen quiz Connor and Duncan, who explain that Tom will likely be tracking the device that they used to find the dodo. It transpires that Tom goes after Abby, who ends up being chased round the football stadium by an increasingly vicious Tom. the team arrive just before Tom is going to bite Abby. Connor begs for the chance to appeal to his old friend and Cutter allows him. Tom eventually dies in peace. A grief-stricken Connor then tries to resign from the team, claiming that Tom would still be alive if he wasn't involved, but Cutter, in a display of remarkable compassion, tells Connor "There's a handful of people in the whole world who know exactly what we're dealing with and you're one of them. He would have loved it, it would have made his day. So you can't back out now". Cutter then consoles an upset Connor, who agrees to stay. conner is very upset because of his best friend but agrees to stay to help the world from creatures they would not understand.
"How are we supposed to cordon off the skies?"
Lester is now utterly convinced Cutter is trouble. He piles the pressure on Claudia to get answers but Nick has no neat solutions for the enigma of the anomalies. Meanwhile, at a nearby
golf course, the discovery of a murdered golfer brings the team in. Cutter examines the body and concludes that the man was torn apart by something of phenomenal power and savagery... something that could only have come through an anomaly. However, when Nick, Abby and Stephen scour the surrounding countryside, they can find no trace of an anomaly, but there is a strong magnetic field present. Suddenly, they notice there is no sound: the birds and insects have all been scared off. Looking up, they see the reason: an anomaly in the sky. This poses a whole host of new problems - as Nick says, "How are we supposed to cordon off the skies?" While Cutter wonders where the creature has gone, Stephen spots that their aerial killer may be closer than expected: a
Pteranodon, a huge winged reptile, swooping straight for them, skimming over their heads before flying off. The Pteranodon is now circling directly above Connor. Guessing that the it has decided on its next meal, the team can only watch in horror as the Pteranodon dives into an attack. But while Claudia orders Captain Ryan to shoot the creature out of the sky, Nick stops them. To his mind, something's not right. Claudia refuses to put Connor's life at risk on Cutter's hunch and orders Ryan to kill. Determined to prevent unnecessary slaughter, Nick pushes the gun away, much to Claudia's frustration. The Pteranodon escapes and Connor is left unharmed. Cutter and Stephen give chase after the pterosaur with Claudia in tow. The Pteranodon is caught and tranquilized but not before Claudia is knocked out by its flailing beak.
Nick and Stephen prepare to tranquilise the Pteranodon
Waking up in the club house on the golf course, Claudia has temporarily lost her sight, but Nick is there to comfort her. Suddenly, they get a call from Stephen, confirming Nick's theory: the Pteranodon is not the culprit- it didn't harm the golfer, and it wasn't after Connor, but Rex (whom Abby has secretly been keeping). If the Pteranodon didn't kill the golfer, what did? Cutter and a still-blinded Claudia, soaked in blood, swiftly find themselves under attack from a flock of flesh-eating
Anurognathus. After being chased around the house, Nick attempts to escape to get help, leaving Claudia in a secure room. However, just before he leaves, he kisses Claudia. Outside Cutter sees an explosion in the house. He initially assumes Claudia has been killed, but he is relieved to discover she is still alive. Nick is shocked to discover that she was rescued by Helen, but is unsurprised when he learns she has once again vanished without trace. When Captain Ryan discovers the explosion he looks at Cutter, who jokes it was him with a Zippo and some flammable gas, as if so small a combo could blow up a kitchen. The team meet up at the anomaly and release the Pteranodon: with some encouragement from the team, the pterosaur flies back home just before the anomaly shuts.
Helen returns claiming to know the reason behind a recent spate of disappearances: an incredbly dangerous predator is amongst them. It is lightning fast, ruthless, almost invisible until the moment of attack and has near-human levels of intelligence. But worst of all is that this creature is from the
Future, literally years ahead of them - a
Future Predator. Knowing this Nick has none of his qualms about killing animals from the past - as this enemy is from the future there is no danger of altering their present day. He orders Captain Ryan and his men to kill the Future Predator. The creature attacks the team a number of times, and Nick realises that it is by far the most powerful the team have faced so far. The team begin to track the beast, and they realise it is a highly-evolved form of bat, using echolocation to always stay one step ahead of its prey. They use an
oscilloscope to hunt down the Future Predator's lair, where they find a nest of babies. Suddenly a Future Predator appears on the roof. Nick kidnaps one of the babies to lure the crteature away into a greenhouse. He starts shooting at the glass panels to confuse the creature's echolocation, and then finishes it off with a shot to the head. The babies are all captured and Nick wants to finish them off there and then. However Helen argues that they can use the babies to find the future anomaly and secure it permanantly. Lester agrees with Helen's plan. To get to the future anomaly they have to travel into the original anomaly in the Forest of Dean, as an anomaly to the future has opened up in the Permian. Cutter, Helen, Captain Ryan and his men prepare to enter the anomaly with the babies.
The Future Predator fights the Gorgonopsid
Just before they go however, Claudia calmly walks up to Nick and kisses him, right in front of Helen. When they make it through they set up a camp and Cutter takes some souvenir photos. With a climactic shock he realises that the photos he had just taken were the same ones that he found in Helen's camera on the first mission into the Permian. He rushes down to the team's case of supplies and sees that it is the exact one that was found with the body. He is horrified, as this means that they have created their own past. Suddenly another Future Predator attacks - the remaining parent of the babies. It tears though Captain Ryan, but as it prepares to attack Nick a Gorgonopsid appears. The two colossal beasts charge towards each other and the Gorgonopsid stuns the Future Predator. While the Future Predator is down the Gorgonopsid feasts on the babies, appearing to eat them all. The Future Predator rises and a savage batle ensues, ultimately ending when the Gorgonopsid crushes the Future Predator under its own body. Nick goes to Ryan, who realises that the body they found the first time was his. Nick and Helen bury the men killed in the attack, and they return home. But Helen has one final blow to deliver. She tells everyone that she wishes to return through the anomalies, but this time with Stephen. Stephen then reveals to Nick his affair with Helen, but decides to stay in the present day. Cutter is left stunned as Helen walks back through the anomaly, but not as stunned as when he realises that Claudia has disappeared. When he tells this to the team they tell him they don't know anyone called Claudia Brown. This can only mean one thing: while in the Permian, Nick changed something which resulted in Claudia Brown never existing...
Nick and the Series 2 team
At the Forest of Dean anomaly site Nick tries to go back through the anomaly, desparate to find Claudia Brown, but Stephen and Connor hold him back. Cutter then realises the full extent of the changes that have occured to his world. Incredibly, the Home Office is no longer the team base. Instead the team have their own headquaters, an incredibly hi-tech, highly sophisticated facility named the
Anomaly Research Centre, or ARC. There is also a whole new team of secondary staff working for them, primarily
Oliver Leek, the man now doing Claudia Brown's job. Cutter is so shocked he nearly faints! When he tries to tell the team about his theory of the past being changed, everyone thinks he has gone mad - everyone, that is, except for Connor, who is the only one to believe Nick. Almost immediately the team get a call about an incursion at a
shopping centre. Cutter, Stephen, Connor and Abby head over there and arm themselves only with tranquilisers, as Cutter is adamant that they can't kill any more creatures as it risks changing the past. Stephen tries to discuss his youthful affair with Helen, but Cutter is unwilling to confront the issue. They eventually find three
Deinonychus in the mall: two adults and one child, and are attacked.
Nick and Stephen on motorbikes
The Deinonychus are a highly dangerous species of raptor from the Cretaceous period. When Connor and Abby go off to evacuate a
cleaner Cutter and Stephen are left on their own.
Cutter and Stephen lie in wait...
The two of them are attacked by one of the raptors, but when Nick tries to tranquilise it as it prepares to kill Stephen his gun jams. Stephen accuses him of intentionally allowing the creature to kill him in revenge, but Cutter rebuffs the claim on the grounds that if he wanted Stephen dead, he'd have shot him personally. The creature attacks again and is this time successfully tranquilised. Nick then forgives Stephen for his affair with Helen, on the grounds that he didn't go off through the anomalies, instead he stayed when it really mattered. Connor brings back the tranquilised baby Deinonychus. The team tie it up, hoping to draw in the remaining adult. The plan works and the raptor is tranquilised. Cutter notices that all the radios in the shop are suffering from some interference on the 86.7FM frequency and he suspects it to be connected to the anomaly. He theorises that they could build a receiver tuned in to that frequency that would alert them whenever any interference occurs - an
anomaly detector. Cutter decides to take the raptors back through the anomaly personally. After freeing the creatures he stops and starts to walk away, but Stephen, expecting Nick to do something like this, comes through afterwards and tries to get him to come back. Nick states that all he wants to do is travel through the anomalies, find out what went wrong and put it right, but Stephen convinces him to return, on account of the fact he has work to do, and the fear that by meddling with the anomalies he could potentially change things for the worse - even wipe out humanity - and still not get Claudia back.
Nick tries to find Claudia Brown
They start to go back, but the now awake Deinonychus come after them. They eventually get back through safely. The mall safe, they head back to the ARC. When they are there Lester introduces them to a new member of their team, a PR professional named
Jenny Lewis. But Cutter is shocked to the core when it is revealed that Jenny Lewis is a complete copy of Claudia Brown.
Nick is struggling to cope with the appearance of Jenny Lewis. Just when he was beginning to have feelings for Claudia, the past is somehow changed, which creates a world where she is now Jenny Lewis. Cutter begins to expand on this idea to the team, but is stopped by Connor. He prevents his professor from embarrassing himself even further, and urges him not to mention the subject again until he has gained proof. However, Cutter has other matters to attend to: he and Connor get down to the serious work of trying to build an anomaly detector system. For the first time since the crisis began the team will no longer be dependent on luck to find the anomalies. Lester is sceptical of the plan but Leek is enthusiastic and Lester reluctantly agrees to giving them a budget. Connor is immediately set to work. The team recieve a creature alert in a high-rise city centre office block and they head over there. Nick, Stephen, Connor and Abby enter the building, while Jenny remains outside as operations manager on the ground. The office block is covered in a thick fog, and lurking in that fog the team discover are giant, carniverous Worms. Jenny, who up to this point has been completely disbelieving about the team fighting creatures from other time periods, is determined to find out the truth. She enters the building and has to be rescued by Cutter, who, after fighting off the worms with her, is impressed by her bravery, guts and determination. The team have to rescue some executives who have become trapped. Nick suddenly realises that the Worms need the fog to survive. As they are from the Precambrian period they are used to a more sulphurus atmosphere, making oxygen poisonous to them. Connor and Abby set about turning up the heating in the building. They succeed in doing this but no one is prepared for the effect the heat has on these deadly creatures - they explode, shooting their parasitic young all over the room! Cutter warns everyone not to let them break the skin, and after setting off the building's fire control system, the worms fall to the ground where they die. That night Cutter goes to Jenny's house; he knocks on the door, and offers to explain everything to her. But he is shocked when her fiancé comes to the door. Making his excuses, he departs.
Cutter vs the Sabre-tooth
Nick climbs away from the sabre-tooth
Connor has finally perfected the Anomaly Detection Device, or ADD for short. However, it appears not to work as the team get a call saying that a paintballer at
Blue Sky Theme Park has been mauled to death. Upon reaching the theme park Nick agrees with Deputy Manager of the park
Valerie Irwin that the park should be evacuated, but Jenny and the Park Manager
Peter Campbell refuse, believing it would draw too much attention from the press. The team go looking for the beast. Peter Campbell is killed at a nearby railway station, but the incident was recorded on video by a trainspotter. Upon examining the foootage Cutter discovers that the killer is an enormous
Smilodon, a sabre-toothed killer from the
Pleistocene epoch. But why didn't the ADD alert the team? The team prepare to set traps to catch the creature, however Valerie reappears and becomes visibly agitated by what they are planning. Stephen is concerned, but Cutter and the others dismiss it as stress and shock over everything that has happened. While Cutter and the team dig traps for the creature, Nick finds a man's body buried in the woods. It has been clearly killed by the Smilodon. Before Cutter can work out the implications of this, the beast attacks them. While Abby fends the Smilodon off with a mechanical digger, Cutter is forced to escape on an zipwire slung between the trees, only to find the gigantic cat following him below. As he finally lands in easy reach of the cat's claws, Abby gets a shot with a tranquiliser gun, missing but scaring the creature off. Nick finds a photo of Valerie in the dead man's pocket. He comes to the conclusion that the anomaly opened years ago, before the detector was online, and the Smilodon came through as a cub. Valerie took it in, but she has had to cover up the deaths caused by it. Cutter sets off to search for Valerie. While searching her house he is cornered by Valerie, who traps him and sets the Smilodon on him. Cutter warns her that the animal is more than capable of killing them both, but Valerie is confident that it won't harm her. She flees, abandoning Cutter to his fate.
Oh no! That was my best table!
After a desperate race through the house with the Smilodon in pursuit, Cutter manages to escape the creature, but it kills Valerie when she gets too close to the creature while it is in a blood-frenzy. Just before the Smilodon can kill Cutter, the team arrive and tranquilise it. Stephen and Cutter argue: Stephen regarding how many more people like Valerie will die before knowledge of the anomalies becomes public, while Cutter accuses Stephen of having told her what they were doing. Stephen denies the accusation, but retorts that he wish he had spoken. Back at the ARC, Oliver Leek informs Cutter that the Smilodon died being transported back to the ARC. Cutter can't believe him, as the cat was perfectly healthy. Leek suggests shock, or an overdose of tranquilizer, but when Cutter asks to do his own post-mortem, Leek refuses, saying that the body had been destroyed to stop the spread of disease.
When an anomaly opens underwater a teenage boy named
Lucien Hope is dragged into a flooded drain on the
Isle of Dogs. Cutter and the team launch a frantic search that leads them from the drain to a nearby canal. The team begin to scour the canal for evidence of a creature, where Jenny narrowly escapes an attack by a strange kind of
shark, however, Cutter and Stephen arrive in the nick of time to save her and kill the shark. Back at the ARC the creature's post-mortem suggests it may not have come from the past. Lester thinks that the crisis is now over, while Stephen believes there is a second Future Shark in the water.
Nick finds out what a Future Shark has had for breakfast
However, Cutter thinks there is a different creature - a marine mammal - out there and he feels certain they are looking for it in the wrong place. Despite orders from Lester to the contrary, Cutter decides to follow his hunch. Before that however, he recognises one of their special forces guards as the cleaner that was meant to have been killed in he mall. He knocks Nick out and promptly dissappears. 'The Cleaner' appears to have been following the team. Eventually, Cutter, with Connor and Abby's help, puts into action a plan to lure the creature to them. The plan works a little too well when a creature jumps out of the water and grabs Abby, dragging her beneath the water.
The team desperately search the canal looking for Abby but they can find no trace of either her or the creature. Stephen and Cutter presume she must be dead and call off the search. Lester arrives and promptly fires Cutter for disobeying orders and indirectly causing Abby's death. In secret, Jenny provides Cutter with information about a flooded warehouse, which Cutter deduces could be the lair of the creatures. Cutter contacts Connor and convinces him to help find the creature. They search the warehouse that has apparently flooded and they find Abby and Lucien are still alive: the creatures were storing them for food. This excitement is short lived when Abby is taken by a creature, later dubbed '
the Mer'. Connor goes off to search for her, while Lucien and Cutter are left to fight the remaining Mer on their own. Fortunately Stephen arrives to save Cutter. It turns out that Connor has gone through the future anomaly to rescue Abby. Cutter and Stephen go after him and turn up just in time to save him and Abby from the gargantuan
MerQueen. Nick and Stephen gun the creature down. Lester joins the team back in the present day and thanks Cutter for returning to their aid. Abby asks Cutter if what they saw through the anomaly is their future. He explains humanity will be extinct long before then, or perhaps mankind will simply return to the waters from where they came: the Mer could potentially be descended from humans.
Watch out for those pincers!
In the ARC the anomaly detector registers an anomaly. Suddenly there is a power surge, and when Connor reboots the machine on it now registers no anomalies. Nick tells Connor that he expects someone has tapped the power and stole the location of the anomaly using spyware, but also to talk about it to no one. The team discover the anomaly's
location and Cutter, accompanied by Jenny, go to investigate. Cutter and Jenny find the anomaly when a small dog runs out. The team arrive and Connor sends his latest invention - a remote control camera buggy - through the anomaly. The arid desert landscape leads Cutter to deduce the anomaly leads to the
Silurian. On the screen, they see a girl, and Cutter and Stephen decide to go through the anomaly to investigate. On the other side, they come across the remnants of a group of mercenaries' battle with an unknown creature. Stephen points this out to be evidence of a traitor's presence in the ARC. when Cutter shows no surprise at this revelation, Stephen accuses him of withholding the information and remarks they are supposed to be working as a team. Moving on, they head in the direction of the girl and narrowly reach her position on a rocky outcrop, just ahead of a mysterious creature pursuing them beneath the sand. She tells them her name is
Taylor. Cutter, Stephen and Taylor are unable to reach the anomaly in time, and it closes, leaving them trapped in the Silurian. They are caught in a sandstorm. To their relief, the portable anomaly detector registers another anomaly, but its battery is fading fast. The group suddenly are confronted by the Cleaner, who was the leader of the mercenaries. He forces the trio to hand over their water and the anomaly detector at gunpoint. But one of the creatures attacks and kills the mercenary from beneath. The group are forced to cross a series of sand dunes slowly, to avoid attracting the attention of the creatures. Taylor draws one of the creatures towards them. It is revealed to be a
giant scorpion. But before it can attack them, a second, bigger scorpion attacks it. Cutter goes back to grab the night vision goggles: the proof of the traitor's identity. The trio race down the dune and run through the anomaly ahead of the scorpion. On the other side of the anomaly, the group find themselves in what they think are the days of the caveman. An early human appears and Cutter swiftly knocks him out with a well-placed punch. However, Abby and Connor then emerge from the forest. Lester is also present, but Stephen and Cutter, wary of treachery, deal with him coldly. Back at the ARC, Cutter leaves the night-vision goggles in his office for later study when he goes to get a cup of coffee: on his return, he finds they have been stolen.
Cutter now has conclusive evidence that there is a traitor in the team. His suspicions fall on Lester and Jenny. He is determined to prove that one or the other of them - or perhaps both - is the betrayor but his plans are interrupted when an anomaly is detected. A giant Columbian Mammoth from the Late Pleistocene epoch has appeared and is rampaging on the M25 in broad daylight. Cutter and the team respond but Stephen is nowhere to be seen. Dealing with the confused and angry Mammoth requires every ounce of Cutter's ingenuity but when the anomaly closes Cutter faces an even greater problem - how do you hide a Mammoth? Cutter formulates a plan and with the help of Connor and Abby manages to trap the mammoth in the back of a lorry. Cutter is bewildered and angry with Stephen when he finally turns up with no convincing explanation for his absence. To make matters worse, Stephen has brought Helen with him. Cutter refuses to talk to either of them, abruptly firing Stephen and dismissing any notion Helen has come to help. Stephen attempts to bring Cutter around to his way of thinking, but Cutter refuses to listen. Furious, Stephen calls Cutter arrogant and stubborn, snidely remarking "No wonder Helen turned to me!". Outraged, Cutter punches Stephen in the face and orders him out of the ARC. Cutter sets off to track down the enemy within. He sets a trap, letting only Connor and Abby in on his plan. They install a virus into the ADD to sabotage whoever is hacking into the system, then fake the appearance of an anomaly on the detector to see who will go to it first, knowing that whoever it is must be the traitor. The plan works, and reveals that the traitor is revealed to be Jenny. Cutter is badly shaken. When he confronts her, she claims to have no idea what he is talking about - she received an anonymous text telling her to meet him there. Jenny tells Nick that it was Oliver Leek who sent her: he is is the traitor. The team return to find Lester badly wounded after a vicious battle with a Future Predator Leek let loose in the ARC. They then find a bomb planted by Leek that Nick only just manages to deactivate. Cutter, Connor, Abby and Jenny track down Caroline Steel (Connor's ex-girlfriend who was actually working for Leek) to a disused MOD base, hoping to recover Rex. Leek, however, is waiting for them and he captures the team: they are knocked unconcious. When they come around, Cutter and the team are not alone: with them is Leek... and Helen. She has been in a conspiracy with Leek the whole time. The team then take in their surroundings with horror. They see Leek has acquired a menagerie of creatures from different times, including Rex, Scutosaurus, Arthropleura, Raptors, the Smilodon, Mer Creatures and Silurian Scorpions, as well as many Future Predators. To be continued...
Blimey, that looks sharp...
Oliver Leek has control of dozens of creatures from the past and future in a
Creature Prison. The team are also trapped: Cutter and Jenny in one cell, Abby and Connor in another. Cutter deduces that Helen is in charge, since Leek 'doesn't have the wit to do this', and that whatever Leek is planning, Helen will have her own agenda.Cutter admits to Jenny he still has feelings for Helen when she asks him: a revelation that causes Helen to release him from the cells. She explains that Claudia Brown's transformation into Jenny Lewis was an accident, but she wishes to replicate the accident as a scientific experiment to see the effects of altering time through the anomalies, in order to prove her hypothesis the anomalies appeared to help humanity create its own future. Cutter realises the reasons for Leek and Helen's alliance: she is helping him to gain power and influence through her knowldge of the creatures and anomalies, whilst he in turn is helping her to perform her experiments to change time by giving her a base of operations. Leek then proceeds to torture Cutter by locking Jenny, Abby, Connor and Caroline in a sealed room and releasing a Smilodon to attack them. When Leek ignores Cutter's pleads, he desperately turns to Helen to back him up: however, Leek also ignores her demands. In desperation, Cutter damages Leek's computer system: when he re-boots it, the virus implanted into the system by Connor beforehand wipes out the system, freeing the group from their captivity and unleashing the caged creatures. Helen helps Cutter escape from the guards. She offers her help, but he refuses; instead, he turns a gun on her and insists she lead him out of the base, upon which she will be handed over to Lester. Helen rebuffs this, saying she knows Nick still has feelings for her, but he retorts what he said in the cells was an act designed to get her attention and his release.
Which is more scary: Helen or the Predator?
Helen also shows Nick a Future Predator controlled through a
neural clamp attatched to the creature's skull. However, when they are jumped by guards, she escapes and locks herself in a cupboard to protect herself from the creatures now rampaging through the base. Nick makes his way through the base, stalked by a Future Predator Leek has sent to kill him. Cutter reaches the feeding chamber with the creature in pursuit. He distracts it with blood from a cut on his hand, then tears out the neural clamp, killing the Predator from the resulting brain damage.
Cutter examines the neural clamp
Leek re-emerges and reveals he has control of an entire pack of Future Predators, which he will use as a Praetorian Guard to make himself invincible, ignoring Cutter's comments that the predators will likely destroy mankind if they ever escape their captivity. Leek tries to engineer a hostage situation, ordering Lester to call off the soldiers protecting the public from the creatures or he will order the Predators to kill Cutter. Lester refuses; before Leek can go through with his threat, Cutter deactivates the neural clamps by inserting one in a circuit box. The electrical charge short-circuits the device, deactivating them all and freeing the predators from Leek's control. Cutter narrowly makes his escape as the Future Predators descend
en masse and devour Leek. Stephen arrives and Cutter convinces him and Helen to help contain the creatures, lest they escape and wipe out mankind. Helen suggests a plan to lure the creatures into the feeding chamber by sounding an alarm they associate with food, before locking them in where they can destroy each other. However, in the chamber, an attacking Deinonychus destroys the external door controls in an attempt to get Helen. When Nick tries to shut the door, he is unable to. Helen explains that now they are only able to lock the chamber from the inside, requiring the sacrifice of one of them to do so. Nick prepares to go back, but before he can, Stephen knocks him to the ground and seals himself in, ignoring Cutter's desperate pleas to open the door. Nick and Helen watch in horror as Stephen is surrounded and killed by the creatures, who then turn on each other. As Nick weeps over the death of his friend, Helen makes good her escape. At Stephen's funeral all the team turn out.
The team gather at Stephen's funeral
Jenny offers to go for a drink with Cutter: he refuses for the time being, but implies he'd enjoy doing so. Lester appears and says that there is another Anomaly, apologising for the untimely interruption. As the team leaves, Cutter hangs back and pulls out a photo of himself and Claudia Brown. Accepting that the changes to time are permenant and he has lost her forever, he tears up the photo and throws the pieces away, before catching up with the team to go deal with the anomaly.
Nick and the Series 3 team
In the ARC, Jenny tries to dissaude Cutter from blaming himself for Stephen's death, when the ADD goes off after detecting an anomaly in the
British Museum. Nick, Jenny, Connor and Abby, along with their newest team member and security chief
Captain Becker, enter the museum, find the body of an attacked
woman, and start searching for the anomaly.
Nick and Jenny in the British Museum
The team have a brief encounter with
Sarah Page, an employee of the British Museum, who runs off upon seeing Marion dead. The team follows her and finally find her in the room containing the
Sun Cage (an
Ancient Egyptian artifact made of
magnetite). They break the door down and get in, but just too late, as they see a giant crocodile-like creature escape through an opening door. The Sun Cage contains the anomaly. Cutter and Abby follow the beast through the town. Connor finds out the identity of the creature, identifying it as a
Pristichampsus and alerts Cutter, Abby and Becker. By this stage, the creature is on the rampage and Nick and Abby give chase, narrowly rescuing a cleaning lady from the creature's jaws and severely injuring it in the process. Cutter calls Connor and tells him the Pristichampsus is heading back to the anomaly. Nick, Abby and Becker arrive back at the British Museum and, thanks to some quick thinking by Sarah, the Pristichampsus is eventually returned back through the anomaly to the
Eocene epoch. Cutter and Connor jokingly comment that Stephen would have liked Sarah. Back at the ARC Sarah makes a throwaway remark that gives Cutter an idea: could there be a connection between legends and anomalies? To do research on that, he asks Lester to get Sarah onto the team, which Sarah accepts, setting her the task of researching mythological beasts and seeing if they correspond to prehistoric creatures that may have come through anomalies. He also sets Connor to work on experimenting on the effects of magnetite and electricity on anomalies (magnetite can allow anomalies to be contained and moved, and electricity can temporarily close them). The team also argue about the fate of the Sun Cage: Cutter argues it is now too dangerous to be put on public display; however, Lester informs him the artifact has left the British Museum, and is now being shipped to
Pyongyang,
North Korea.
Nick, Connor and Sarah are discussing their various research projects. Sarah, trying to determine the origins of a Chinese mythological beast called the Qilin, has come up with data to put into Cutter's 'Matrix'. The Matrix is an intricate graph device designed to be a 3-D representation of all anomalies throughout history, combined with Sarah's research that mythical beasts are simply animals from anomalies. Nick explains to Jenny the Matrix's ultimate aim is to try and predict where and when the next anomaly will appear. Using the information, Cutter predicts that the next anomaly will appear in a local area, specifically an abandoned house, but he is uncertain of the time it will open. Jenny, Abby and Connor are dispatched to investigate. Once the team have gone there is a crisis at the ARC. The building is put into lockdown. The cause is an invasion by the Cleaner, the one killed in the Silurian. He is trying to break into Cutter's locker, but is shot dead by Becker. Cutter claims there is only one logical explanation for the intrusion: Helen has returned (as Cutter puts it: "Something inexplicable - Helen's usually behind it!"). The team eventually return, having dealt with a Camouflage Beast from the Future and a persistent Detective Constable named Danny Quinn. At the end of the day Cutter returns to his home, but he seems wary, as though he knows someone has been there...
- "The future is still more important than either of us!"
- ―Helen Cutter as she kills Nick[[Episode 3.3|[src]]]
The annual ARC staring contest
Nick is still working on his Matrix, explaining its function to an unimpressed Lester. Just then the Anomaly Detection Device dectects an anomaly opening in the middle of a crowded
hospital: Cutter, Connor, Abby and Becker proceed to investigate. After some investigation, the team discover that a group of cute but not completely harmless
Diictodon have emerged through an anomaly from the Late Permian, chewing through electrical wires and playing havoc with the hospital's electrical systems. Nick and Abby fall afoul of journalist
Mick Harper, who locks them in an operating theatre with the anomaly and a young woman going into labour. Cutter has to help Abby deliver the woman's baby. The birth goes fairly smoothly, and all but two of the Diictodons (who are kept by Connor as pets and named
Sid and
Nancy) are safely returned. Upon their return to the ARC, Cutter, Connor and Abby are ambushed by some
clones of the Cleaner. It turns out that the ARC has been attacked by Helen. She used a
clone of Cutter to infiltrate the facility and then ordered her clones into an all-out attack. Abby and Connor are trapped along with Jenny, Sarah and Becker, while Helen leaves Cutter free. Helen and the Cutter Clone interrogate Nick. Helen explains that the ARC's work will ultimately result in the creation of the Future Predators and the eventual destruction of the earth unless she stops it, despite Cutter's warnings her interference with evolution will never yield the result she desires.
I can't see a thing with all this bloomin' smoke!
Nick and Connor wonder what to do
Helen also produces
the Artifact, claiming that Nick knows its purpose. Unaware of what it is or what it does does, but unwilling to let Helen know that, Nick pretends to know its purpose, but refuses to tell Helen. Helen orders the Cutter Clone to shoot Nick unless he reveals the Artifact's purpose. Nick tries to appeal to the clone, telling it it has free will and the right to make its own decisions, not blindly following Helen's will, but the clone remains focused on its task. With a second to spare Nick gives in to Helen's demands. Just then the others manage to break Helen's control over all the clones except Cutter's. She orders it to complete its mission, then flees into the ARC. The Cutter clone takes out a bomb and prepares to detonate it, when Nick pleads with it, telling it to make its own decisions, rather than obey Helen. He urges it to want to live, but the clone, having no fear of death, is unmoved, though it tells Nick to save himself before it detonates the bomb. Once he is safe, the Cutter clone detonates the bomb, killing itself and the Cleaner clones, along with causing massive damage to the ARC. The ARC is evacuated, but in the aftermath, Cutter realises Helen is not present. Despite the pleading of the team not to go back for her, Nick runs back into the ARC, finding a semi-concious Helen and the Artifact. He takes it from her, but Helen is not done: she gets to her feet and pulls a gun on Cutter, telling him "The future is more important that either of us!". Helen apologises for what she is about to do as she takes aim at Nick, but claims it is the only way to save the future. Cutter coldly taunts her, saying "You know what, Helen? You're not as smart as I thought you were!". Furious, Helen shoots him in the chest, then runs off. Connor goes back into the ARC looking for Nick, only to find him dying on the floor. Cutter hands Connor the artifact, and tells him to unravel its secrets, before, in Connor's arms, he finally dies.
Nick tells Connor to work out the Artifact
[edit] After Death
[edit] Episode 3.3
Connor carries Nick's body out
After dying in Connor's arms Nick is carried outside by Connor and laid in the ground. The team mourn Nick's death as one. Many of them, especially Connor, are brought to tears. A funeral service is held a few days later.
The team are still struggling to come to terms with Cutter's death. Connor is overworked, with unravelling the Artifact added to his workload of building an Anomaly Locking Mechanism. Lester appoints Jenny the temporary field team leader. After fighting off a Giganotosaurus Jenny and Connor congratulate each other on a job well done. Jenny says, "Cutter would have been proud of you." Connor replies, "And you."
Jenny is given Cutter's personal items, since he has no family to pass them onto. She is horrified to discover a photo of Claudia Brown, extremely confused and frightened at the meaning of it. Lester's boss Christine Johnson insists that he take on military officer Captain Wilder as Cutter's permanent replacement. Danny Quinn has been following the team. After defeating a Fungus Creature he is made the permanent team leader. Jenny resigns from the ARC, traumatised by recent events, including Nick's death. She says that she wants to try for a life where she can 'just forget the ARC, the creatures, the anomalies and above all, forget about Nick Cutter and Claudia Brown'.
The 'anomaly map' from the artifact
Connor and Sarah begin experimenting with the Artifact. On unlocking it with a laser beam they discover a series of lights projected out that look just like Cutter's Matrix. They theorise that the Artifact is a device used to predict anomalies.
After Cutter dies, from Episode 3.4 onwards, he was replaced in the opening credits by Danny Quinn, played by Jason Flemyng.
[edit] External Link
- Character guide on ITV.com [1]
