List of Primeval characters

Matthew "Matt" Anderson is portrayed by Ciarán McMenamin. He is a private man who guards the secrets of his past and the reason he has joined the ARC team. He is an ex-soldier and a zoologist, and can understand animal behaviour, demonstrating this ability in his first appearance by securing the escaped ''Dracorex'' inside of James Lester's (Ben Miller) office by luring it with a water dispenser, as the dinosaur was thirsty.

He and Captain Becker (Ben Mansfield) get along well enough, but neither misses the opportunity to make remarks of the other. In episode 4.2, Matt is unsure of Abby Maitland (Hannah Spearritt) and Connor Temple (Andrew-Lee Potts) when they first return, and follows Abby out of suspicion, but this brings him to save both of their lives from a ''Kaprosuchus'' before he comes to accept them. In episode 4.3, a mysterious woman goes through an Anomaly, Matt went after her because he assumed she was from the present, but upon returning her learnt that Emily Merchant (Ruth Bradley) was from the Victorian era and had been living with other people throughout time. He was sympathetic towards her and kept her in his flat because he believed the ARC would treat her like a criminal and agrees to help her find her companion Ethan Dobrowski (Jonathan Byrne). But while he is dealing with another Anomaly she is kidnapped by Ethan so he goes to Lester, who helps him track her down and saves her life when she was trapped inside a coffin. In episode 4.6 he takes Emily to the anomaly site and admits to her that a disaster is going to happen because of the anomalies. He later saw Gideon (Anton Lesser), who was on the verge of death, and promised to use Emily as bait to catch Ethan since they suspected he was involved. As he died Matt wept and told Emily that Gideon was his father. In episode 4.7, he realises Ethan, in fact Danny Quinn's (Jason Flemyng) brother Patrick, is not involved as he and Gideon suspected. In the end he tells Emily that he is from the future, explaining that in his time everyone lives underground because the Earth is sterile and cannot support life. He and his father, Gideon, were sent back in time to help prevent that future from happening. At some point between the present time and Matt's time, an "event" happened which changed the way Anomalies appear and their effect on the Earth, making it a barren wasteland. At the end of the episode, he convinces Emily to return to 1867 so that he can focus on stopping "the event".

In episode 5.1, he is caught by Abby trying to hack into Connor's computer to find out what he and Philip Burton (Alexander Siddig) are up to. After showing his knowledge of the Giant Burrowing Insects from the future, Abby realised he was from the future and he asked for her to help in his mission. In episode 5.3, he goes to Victorian London to capture a raptor they sent through the anomaly, telling Abby to steal data from Connor in the meantime, and encounters Emily again. Having earlier learned that she would end up in an asylum because of her husband Henry, he attempted to convince her to come back to the present as he regretted telling her to go, and was thankful to Abby when she handed over a copy of Connor's hard drive. He wasn't happy when Connor opened his own anomaly in the ARC during episode 5.4, and worked with Connor to eradicate a swarm of future beetles. In episode 5.5 he explains his mission to the whole team, and after bringing down a ''Tyrannosaurus'' he heads to New Dawn to stop Philip, only to be restrained as Philip activated his anomaly. In episode 5.6 he rescues Connor from the future, and risks himself to close the anomaly. He somehow manages to survive the implosion and returns to the ARC. However he is confronted by another version of himself who tells him to return to his home. Provided by Wikipedia