Episode 2.5 by Ben Court and Caroline Ip

In a housing estate in Hackney, a young girl named Taylor follows her dog, Sprat, as it runs into a drainage pipe and disappears into a strange, glowing vortex. At the Anomaly Research Centre, Nick and Connor are concerned when the anomaly detector inexplicably crashes; carrying out a full diagnostic they discover that its systems are contaminated by spyware –someone else is remotely accessing it. They are unaware that the culprit is Oliver Leek, who has used the information to locate the portal and sent the mysterious ‘Cleaner’ and two mercenaries through it. Arriving in a desert during the Silurian Era, the soldiers soon find Taylor; the Cleaner decides to shoot the girl to remove all witnesses, but before he can open fire, a giant monster bursts out of the sand and attacks him and his comrades… Stephen comes home to discover Helen in his shower; she warns him that the anomalies are getting worse, and that the A.R.C. have a secret agenda. When Stephen refuses to succumb to her advances Helen leaves; she then makes contact with Leek via radio, and learns that the mercenaries have failed to return from the portal. Called out of her engagement party, Jenny accompanies Nick to Hackney; their arrival at the anomaly site is seen by Leek, who is hiding nearby. After their surprise at seeing Sprat run out of the portal, Nick and Jenny and joined by Connor, Abby and Stephen. After asking Stephen for advice on Abby and Caroline, Connor unveils his latest creation: a robot camera cobbled together from household parts; once the device is sent into the portal it begins sending back pictures of the desert; seeing Taylor sitting atop a rocky outcrop, Nick and Stephen immediately head into the portal to rescue the girl; stepping into the past they soon come across a swarm of giant millipedes fleeing in terror, and then find the equipment dropped by the mercenaries. Playing back the recording on a pair of night-goggles, Nick learns that the men were slaughtered by a something under the sand; at that moment Taylor screams a warning, telling Nick and Stephen to get to the safety of the rocks – but before the two men can act giant scorpions explode up from the desert floor and scurry straight for them…

Douglas Henshall (Doctor Nick Cutter), James Murray (Stephen Hart), Andrew-Lee Potts (Connor Temple), Hannah Spearritt (Abby Maitland), Lucy Brown (Jenny Lewis), Ben Miller (James Peregrine Lester), Juliet Aubrey (Helen Cutter), Karl Theobald (Oliver Leek), Mabel Rogers (Taylor), Jay Simpson (Steve), Tim Faraday (The Cleaner), Bill Hurst (Mercenary #1), Errol Blake (Mercenary #2), Naomi Bentley (Caroline)

Directed by Andrew Gunn
Produced by Paul Frift
Executive Producer Tim Haines, Adrian Hodges and Cameron McAllister
An Impossible Pictures production for ITV / ProSeiben

TX:
9th February 2008 @ 7:20 pm

Notes:
*Featuring Doctor Nick Cutter, Stephen Hart, Abby Maitland, Connor Temple, Jenny Lewis, James Lester, Oliver Leek and Helen Cutter