Primeval – ITV’s new science-fiction blockbuster and ‘potential rival to Doctor Who’ – hits our screens next Saturday when prehistoric creatures burst through a rip in time and "the team" find themselves running for their lives from the hungry jaws of a flesh eating Gorgonopsid.

There are three possible outcomes: Primeval will be totally brilliant, or it will be a kind of Torchwood with ad breaks (it’s already got its own version of the rift) where it has a great premise but somehow falls short of its potential, or it will be a laughable action version of Prehistoric Park. Place your bets.

Evolutionary zoologist Nick Cutter is surprisingly confronted with the subject of his studies when he, along with graduate student Connor Temple, and his lab technician Stephen Hart go to investigate strange animal sightings in the Forest of Dean. Already in the forest, animal handler Abby Maitland is checking out a young boy’s story of finding his strange pet lizard in the woods. Abby believes the small lizard could be an entirely new species.

Meanwhile, Claudia Brown, Home Office Civil Servant in charge of investigating rogue animal sightings (this post is even more unbelievable than "evolutionary zoologist") is hoping Cutter will dismiss the sightings as fakes. But Cutter has another agenda: eight years ago his wife disappeared from the heart of the forest and he’s still looking for answers.

Cutter invites Claudia along to join the search for the mystery beast and when they enter the woods, they find a petrified Abby face to face with a Scutosaurus; a dinosaur from the Permian Era. But if the Scutosaurus is a herbivore, how can they explain the sickening sight of a dead cow hauled high into a tree? The team soon discover that a second dinosaur – a savage Gorgonopsid, one of the most dangerous predators of the Permian Era – is also on the loose. Searching for answers on how these 250-million-year-old creatures are wandering a 21st century woodland, the team discover a shimmering portal, through which the Scut is seen to disappear.

Cutter has a revelation – if creatures come from their era to ours, maybe humans can go the other way. And just maybe, that holds the answer to his wife’s disappearance. He makes up his mind to enter the anomaly and continue the search for his wife in whatever he finds on the other side.

* Primeval, ITV1, 7.45pm, Saturday 10 February