The first series of the British science fiction programme Primeval began on 10 February 2007 and concluded on 17 March 2007 after airing six episodes.

Primeval follows a team of scientists tasked with investigating the appearance of temporal anomalies across the United Kingdom through which prehistoric and futuristic creatures enter the present.

The first series stars Douglas Henshall, James Murray, Andrew-Lee Potts, Lucy Brown, Hannah Spearritt, Juliet Aubrey, Ben Miller and Mark Wakeling.

Haines came up with the idea of producing a television drama with prehistoric creatures created with the same techniques used for Walking with Dinosaurs; his first attempt was the successful The Lost World (2001), an adaptation of the Arthur Conan Doyle novel of the same name.

[4] Among the influences for Cutter's Bestiary were the old science fiction films of Ray Harryhausen,[5] fossil ghost lineages,[6] Jurassic Park and King Kong.

[7] Haines was joined on the project in 2004 by Adrian Hodges,[4] who devised the new title Primeval and produced some scripts for the BBC, the first of which envisioned it as merely a 90-minute television film.

[10][11] Lead actor Douglas Henshall did not audition for the role of Nick Cutter but was approached personally by Haines and Hodges, who explained the premise of the series to him.

[4] Haines and Hodges approached Henshall due to finding him talented, looking "like an action hero" and thinking that he brought a "kind of credibility".

Henshall had at the time a choice between Primeval or a gritty drama, a type of project he had long been involved with, and "though it might be nice to go and chase dinosaurs for a while".

[6] Much like Henshall, James Murray saw the opportunity to play Stephen Hart as a chance to live out his childhood dreams and found the series to be "very new and very ambitious".

The website's critic consensus reads, "Unbelievable characters aside, Primeval is old-fashioned, fantastical family fare with decent visuals and a sense of adventure.

Ray Richmond of The Hollywood Reporter called it "crackling-good" and praised both the effects and the storyline, a sentiment echoed by Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, who called Primeval a "rollicking adventure with decent special effects" and stated that it surpassed the series offered on the American Sci-Fi Channel in terms of story and character development.

Primeval was also praised by Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune, Hal Boedeker of the Orlando Sentinel, Matt Roush of TV Guide Magazine and Ginia Bellafante of The New York Times.

[27] Mary McNamara of Los Angeles Times gave Primeval a mixed review, stating that there was "far more galumphing than trotting going on, and not all of it done by prehistoric feet".

[27] Rob Hunter of Film School Rejects gave Primeval a highly positive review, stating that it might be the "best monster-of-the-week show since The X-Files".

[28] Rob Buckley of The Medium is not Enough stated that although Primeval was clearly "ITV's answer to Doctor Who", the series managed to be "something completely different and acceptable in its own right".

[29] Iain Clark of Strange Horizons gave the first series of Primeval a slightly more mixed review, finding some of the scripts to be "clichéd" and the characters (with the exception of Nick Cutter) to be poorly developed due to there often being little breathing-room for them.

He commended the pace of Primeval as "seldom [dwelling] on any one scene or character long enough to become dull" and found all episodes other than the first to be "focused and engaging".