Primeval Series 5 Episode 4 Details

Philip and Connor secretly open an anomaly within the ARC, which connects to a time far in the future. Philip is excited; this is providing them with the best anomaly data yet, and even better, they created it themselves. But Matt is worried – an anomaly should be locked. Philip strongly refuses, and even posts a guard at the lab to prevent the team from interfering.

Matt expresses his concerns to Abby, who asks him to give her some time to try to persuade Connor to stop before Matt destroys the machine. As she does so, the guard is overwhelmed by vicious beetles that strip him to the bone.

Very soon the swarm of beetles is taking over Connor's lab, chewing through everything in sight. The ARC bio-scan soon kicks the building into lockdown, isolating the creatures and Matt realises the beetles will suffocate inside the room. But before long, the creatures are chewing through the wall and into the air ducts, quickly swarming through the building.

While the others track down the beetles through the ducts, Matt sees his chance and destroys Connor's machine while he can.

The team work out a way to stop the creatures, using their queen to lure them into the Ops area and pesticides to take them down. However, in the operation Jess is bitten by a beetle and goes into anaphylactic shock. In his anger, Becker shoots at the queen, killing her and losing control of the swarm. The ARC quickly becomes overrun with the creatures, which are spreading throughout the building. As the outer boundaries of the ARC become threatened and Prospero Industries - the scientific company that owns about half of the ARC - comes under scrutiny, Philip has a solution but it will destroy the ARC, taking the team with it.

As Becker, Abby, and Emily attempt to find a way to treat Jess, Connor has an idea to try to redeem himself and his actions: he can harness the power of this future anomaly to create a shockwave that will wipe out the beetles. The problem is, Matt has destroyed the machine. It seems all is lost, until Matt produces from his pocket a hard drive containing the data that Abby downloaded from Connor's machine. With time running out, the pair fix the machine and fight their way back through the beetles to join the others in the menagerie. We see the building rock as the pulse created by the closing anomaly echoes through the ARC, shaking it to its very foundations . . .

Battered and bruised, the team emerge from the room, having defeated the creatures and closed the anomaly in one go. But as the massive ARC clean-up begins, Connor is beginning to doubt Philip's motivations. Does he really have the best interests of the ARC at heart?

This creature will be bigger and meaner than the one that exists now. They are coming through the anomaly from the future and have evolved into something that can withstand the hostile environment that the Earth's surface has become.

The Devil's Coach Horse beetle, which is part of the same family, raises its long and uncovered abdomen and opens its jaws, rather like a scorpion, when threatened. Although it has no 'sting in its tail' it can give a painful bite with its strong pincer-like jaws. It also emits a foul-smelling odour as a defensive secretion from a pair of white glands at the end of its abdomen.