Nick Cutter quotes from Primeval

Nick

Why do you want me now, after so long?

Helen

I'm human. I want company. I want to share this... incredible gift, but only with you. Nick, I have seen such wonders. Things you wouldn't believe...

Nick

You're asking me to abandon my life. Leave behind everything I know. People are dying back home, and you want me to just run away with you?

Helen

Animals die, Nick. Species die. [Nick scoffs] You know I'm right. One day humanity will disappear just like the dinosaurs, and nature doesn't care; something else will take our place. Nick, just leave all the other stuff behind. Come with me.

Helen

I offer you the key to time. The key to time, Nick. And you turn your back on it. Call yourself a scientist?

Nick

I call myself a human being.

Lester

Who's that idiot?

Nick

Connor Temple. He looks like a half-wit, but he has a very good brain.

Lester

We may stand on the brink of Armageddon, but at least we have an irritating student on our side. How reassuring.

Claudia

Do you know what I miss? Those soul-crushingly dull Civil Service meetings which made suicide seem like an exciting career option. I used to sit there, praying that something would happen with my life.

Nick

Be careful what you wish for!

I didn’t expect the SAS.

Nick

The town council takes pest control very seriously, Mrs. Davis.

Nick

Relax, everyone. It’s only a python.

[shrieks] Only a python? What the hell were you expecting?

Connor

[holding his ear] Ow.

Claudia

What are you doing?

Nick

[Shining a light in Claudia's eyes] I've absolutely no idea, but I've seen them do it on ER, so there must be something to it.

Nick

So you're absolutely confident that this creature doesn't eat mammals?

Stephen

Dung never lies. And if I'm wrong about that, at least you'll always have a special place in the history books.

Nick

I always wanted to be famous.

Helen

You have a serious creature incursion. A highly-evolved ambush predator. Intelligent, adaptable, and ruthless.

Claudia

If there was a creature on the loose, we'd know about it!

Helen

At least three people have gone missing in the last 48 hours.

Lester

Missing.

Helen

Killed. The creature has a lair nearby. It's taken them for food.

Nick

And how do you know that?

Helen

Because it almost got me too. [pause]

Nick

What is it?

Helen

It has no name.

Nick

Then which era is it from?

Helen

It doesn't come from any era... at least not one that can be identified yet.

Nick

I'm sorry; I don't understand.

Helen

Yes, you do, Nick. You knew it had to happen one day. You've known it ever since you first stepped into the past.

Nick

...The future? Are you saying we're being attacked by a creature from the future?

Nick

It was one step ahead of us all the time. It knew what we were going to do before we did it!

Helen

I warned you it was smart!

Nick

It would be more useful if you could tell us how to catch this thing.

Stephen

What we need is some kind of edge, a weakness in its defences that gives us an advantage, otherwise it's just gonna pick us off one-by-one!

Connor

Dogs. The dogs went crazy before it attacked. What would make them go off like that?

Stephen

Can't be smell. If there was a scent trail, they would have followed it.

Nick

Hearing. They heard something.

Connor

Sound. It's using sound.

Nick

That's why it was able to remain one step ahead of us! It can detect physical movement before it's within visual range!

Connor

And the dogs, they detect a higher frequency, therefore they know when it's nearby!

Ryan

Like echolocation?

Nick

High frequency sound waves, it's like a sonar system. Some animals use it to detect prey.

Stephen

Like a bat. Well, you said there was bat blood in the lion enclosure.

Connor

That's it. This thing must be some kind of...I dunno, super-bat.

Helen

He's right. Three quarters of all mammal species are bats or rats; maybe the future belongs to them.

Connor

I thought I was going to die then.

Nick

But you didn't.

Connor

No. Quite chuffed about that.

Nick

Maybe you should go home.

Connor

Nah, I'm gonna stay. I mean, Han Solo, he wouldn't give up before a job's done, would he?

Nick

I always thought of you more as R2-D2 myself, but I take your point.

Helen

We don't have to go back, Nick. The future anomaly must be here somewhere, we can still find it.

Nick

[sarcastic] The future: Helen Cutter's last great frontier.

Nick

I could kiss you, Connor.

Connor

That's really sweet, but maybe not while there's people watching.

Connor

So, guys, let me get this straight... all we have to do is to drag two of the angriest creatures in the known universe through a hole in time back into an ancient world where we don't know what's waiting on the other side for us?

Stephen

When you put it like that, it sounds so easy.

Nick

I'm going to do this on my own.

Abby

We'll help.

Connor

Who's "we?"

Nick

[Inspecting a Deinonychus knocked unconscious with a tranquilizer gun] Look at her. She's a perfect killing machine. You know in a fair fight, mammals wouldn't stand a chance.

Stephen

Well, speaking as a mammal, I'm all in favour of cheating.

Nick

Watch where you're swinging that thing!

Jenny

Next time, I'll leave it to you to get yourself out of trouble!

Nick

[to Connor] Are you all right?

Connor

Yeah, never been swallowed by a giant worm before, but I suppose it's all a learning experience, isn't it?