O.K, so I REALLY couldn't sleep last night, so I started thinking about Primeval and mulling some stuff over that I thought was a bit odd, so I thought I'd write it all down, more to ease my insomnia than anything else. But if you're reading this, then you may as well read the whole thing, I'd be interested to see if anyone had any answers...I was gonna put it as a post, but it's kinda long for that...

So, season two of Primeval starts, and Cutter is suddenly in completely different timeline to season one. He's confused. He's worried. He's trying to find out what went wrong, trying to find out if it's even possible to change things back. Trying to find out what's different, changed... Actually, no he isn't. Why not?

When I first saw Primeval, I didn't watch a lot of season 1, I only saw intermittent episodes. So when I started watching season two, I had a vague idea of what was going on, and it all seemed very good, and it is of course. But when I went back to refresh my memory of season one, after watching it all, season two didn't really seem to track...

Don't get me wrong, I do love season 2, and it all makes sense, in a fictional kind of way, but I just found Cutter's reaction to the timeline change pretty surprising. I mean, as a scientist of sorts, and someone who's been studying the anomalies for a while now, you'd think he'd realise the gravity of his mistake. He's pretty much ripped apart the space/time continuum! O.K, it wasn't really his fault, but you'd think he'd be a bit more...I don't know, concerned? In season one, he seemed to think that it was vitally important to preserve the 'timeline', to the extent that he didn't want to kill the creature from the past, in case it affected the future, even when lives were at stake.

In fact, in the final episode of season one, we see Cutter's reaction for the first time after he realises what's happened, and it is more what I expected. He seems naturally panicky then, but where did it all go in season two? He spent about ten minutes worrying about it, then seemed to forget the whole thing.

Again, as someone who's been studying these things, wouldn't he even try to find out what happened? What they did wrong? Isn't he interested at ALL in the possible repercussions? Doesn't he want to find out if Helen, who went with him through the anomaly, knows what happened?

I could understand his reaction if just one thing had changed; after all, at the end of season one, all he knew was that Claudia no longer existed (I'll get to that in a minute), but when he found out about the existence of ARC...that's a BIG change. Who now lives who would have died? Who died who would have lived? Knowing that there was such a big change surely implies that there are other things different too, but he seems to be making no attempt to find out what. Leek is a case in point. Granted, Cutter and the others did try to find out who was a traitor, and expose Leek, but Cutter doesn't seem at all perturbed (more so than the others) that he is indirectly responsible for this. By accidentally changing the past, and creating a world in which Leek exists, or just one where he's in the right place at the right time. And the people he knew have also changed. Not so obviously, of course, and maybe this bit is just me, but for a start, Steven seems to want to show the world the anomalies, whereas in season one, it was really Cutter who wanted that. Abby seems less hung up on Steven, although I admit that could also just be attributed to time passing. But the fact remains, that they are not quite the people he knew, albeit not by much, because they have led slightly different lives.

Which brings me to the whole Claudia/Jenny thing. Watching the second season, for the first couple of episodes, I got the impression that yes, someone who was there before, wasn't there now, or was in a slightly different incarnation. But after seeing season one, I felt like Cutter was being a bit callous. True, he seemed upset, for all of about half an hour, but after that he didn't seem very concerned that someone he had known personally was now, for all intents and purposes, dead. And it was kind of his fault too; not directly, I know, but that's never stopped him blaming himself for stuff in the past. As someone who lost his wife for, what was it, eight years? You'd think he's be a bit more...guilty? I mean, I admit that he wasn't really in a relationship with Claudia Brown, but he did admit to Helen that he might be in love with her, and as such, doesn't seem to be taking the fact that she's been wiped from existence very hard. Maybe this is because he sees Jenny Lewis as a sort of Claudia replacement. But, since about the first time she appeared, it was clear that her personality was completely changed, and she had led a completely different life. So, as my friend so concisely put it, she may look like Claudia Brown from the home office, she may sound like Claudia Brown from the home office, but she 'aint Claudia Brown from the home office. And as, personality is what really make us who we are, she's no more Claudia than an identical twin would be.

Quite apart from the fact that he knew her personally, I would think that he would be upset if ANYONE no longer existed, because, as I said, it's basically death. And Cutter seemed to value human life quite highly.

It's almost as if he's just decided to forget the other timeline, the world in which he spent the first forty or-so years of his life.

So, had Cutter just accepted his fate? Has he just decided to stay put, to do the job in front of him? Does he not feel even a LITTLE bit guilty that he is indirectly responsible for creating a world in which an evil, if dorky, civil servant is trying to take over the world by using vicious predators from the past and future?

Another thing, that is not really an argument, but occurs to me now, is that he doesn't seem to be wondering about the other timeline at all. Considering that he has just discovered that 'that the past exists, in a fourth dimension as real and solid as those we already know', isn't it also possible then, that two parallel timelines could exist simultaneously, alongside one another? We certainly know that the old one USED to exist, but has it been wiped from existence and replaced? Or has Cutter just gone to the past and come back to what, simplified, amount to the wrong timeline? If so, because they had a Cutter, and the one that came back clearly wasn't originally from there, is it possible that the original Cutter from their timeline has made a similar switch, and is now running around in the world from season one, wondering why everything is so badly organised? O.K, so that's not exactly likely, it was just a thought. But it is perfectly possible to think that the other timeline is still out there somewhere...and this is starting to slip into branching universe theory, about which I know nothing, so I'm going to leave it at that.

But just one last thing...when Helen asked Cutter to come with him and explore the future, he refused. She attributed it to not wanting to leave Claudia, but that, he said, was not the point. What he said was:

'The point is, I know where I belong'

Does he?

But I wanted to put something on here in the vain hope that I might progress beyond level 1. So for anyone weird enough to be reading this: yo.