Anomaly (Primeval) - Attributes and Effects

Attributes and Effects

Nick Cutter describes them being somewhat like an earthquake in time which occur along temporal fault lines. They resemble glowing shattered shards of glass floating in mid-air, through which people, animals and objects can travel. It is also stated in Episode 2, 3 and 8 that atmospheric gases and liquid can also pass through.

The anomalies are highly magnetic, they can draw ferrous objects – for example keys, and pens – into them, they also render compasses useless near them. Connor proved this multiple times by throwing metal objects into the anomalies (once accidentally throwing his front door key into the first one that was found). However it is shown in Episode Four that the magnetic field is not strong enough to penetrate through the metal of a stainless steel fridge door. The anomalies also produce radio interference on the frequency 87.6FM as demonstrated by the shopping center anomaly.

An anomaly can either have a fixed location at both "ends" of the anomaly or one end may be unstable and thus move location, for example the present end of an anomaly moves in the 3rd while the past location of the anomaly was fixed.

It is also possible to enter only partway into an anomaly without being sucked in, for example a person can take a look through an anomaly simply by poking their face through without travelling all the way through. In Episode Four it is shown that dozens of anomalies can be open at the same time and all lead to different eras and locations.

They can cut across distance as well as time, as creatures which were never native to Great Britain, nor the area which Britain has passed through in its geological past, have passed through the anomalies into modern Britain. For example the dodo was only found on tropical islands around Mauritius, and Scutosaurus were located in Russia and parts of Europe.

Also the team encountered dodos at one anomaly a bird which did not evolve until well after the time of the dinosaurs ended (the dinosaurs became extinct at the end of Cretaceous period 65 million years ago whereas the dodo had not separated from its common ancestor with the Rodrigues Solitaire until around 25 million years ago). This would indicate that the anomalies can be linked to any period in the earth's history.

In Episode 6 it's demonstrated that interference with the past can alter the future in unspecified ways. Also, the ending of the sixth episode ended with a cliffhanger where the anomaly appeared to start to expand for reasons unknown, although Episode 7 showed this was just the anomaly closing. It has not yet been established how many time anomalies have occurred nor where they originate from, though the capture of an extinct form of Sarcopterygian suggests that there have been others before the Forest of Dean anomaly seen in Episode 1.

The strength of the anomalies weaken over time. They slowly lose their magnetic power, shrink in size, and eventually collapse in on themselves. Although they can be re-opened such as the Permian anomaly, which has closed and reopened at least three times, and the Carboniferous anomaly which never closed at all.

In the spin-off novels "Shadow of the Jaguar" and "Extinction Event", an anomaly opens in the Peruvian Jungle and Russian Tundra (respectively), proving that anomalies exist outside the UK. However, the canonicity of the book has yet to be determined.

It is shown in episode 4.7 that two anomalies opening on the same place cause them to become fused and create satellite anomalies that lead to the same place and time as one of the original anomalies. The satellite anomalies are unstable and paler in colour. Two fused anomalies can't be locked in the normal way, they will keep reopening, but using two locking devices it is possible to separate and lock both anomalies, stabilising them and closing the satellite anomalies.