T-Rex Returns

T-Rex Returns is the very first episode of Prehistoric Park (Series)

Plot
The episode starts with the crew erecting the prehistoric animal enclosures. Nigel immediately knows which animal he wants to bring back first: the huge dinosaur Tyrannosaurus.

Nigel goes through the time portal, aiming to bring back a Tyrannosaurus. He finds a flock of Ornithomimus and tries to catch one by putting a sock over its head to quieten it, but must let it go when three Tyrannosaurus arrive. Nigel is pursued by the Tyrannosaurus, but they give up when he heads into the deeper forest where they cannot pursue as they are so top-heavy, tripping could kill them.

He tracks the Tyrannosaurus to the middle of their territory. He finds some Tyrannosaurus eggs, hoping to bring some back for hatching, but they are broken and empty, either hatched or eaten. As he returns to camp, in the sky are meteors running ahead of the asteroid which will wipe out the dinosaurs.

The next day he finds a herd of Triceratops. The pride of Tyrannosaurus attack the Triceratops herd. A female Tyrannosaurus is gored in the thigh during the attack. The male Tyrannosaurus back off, leaving the wounded Tyrannosaurus to catch her prey alone. It goes after a 3-ton young male Triceratops, Nigel opens the time portal and leads the Triceratops through it by waving his jacket at it matador-fashion. It follows him through but the Tyrannosaurus does not follow. The Triceratops is named Theo and becomes the park's first exhibit. Theo starts persistently charging the same tree, and his neck frill changes color. Susanne thinks that it is rutting. This gives Bob an idea.

Nigel heads back through the time portal and finds a Tyrannosaurus track in volcanic ash, and sees by the dragged toes that it is the female with the gored thigh. Nigel sees that the Tyrannosaurus is walking alongside a river following a drifting Triceratops carcass. The carcass gets stuck in rocks in the riverbed. She cannot reach it and carries on downriver. Nigel and others build a crude stockade wall alongside the river out of local fallen timber, trying to funnel her through the time portal. A flock of Ornithomimus appear and run ahead, and the Tyrannosaurus chases them through the time portal into the park. The Tyrannosaurus catches a straggler, a young Ornithomimus near Nigel and turns back. Instead of eating it there, she carries it towards the volcano despite her injured thigh. Nigel follows.

Back at the park, Bob puts the Ornithomimus into their new paddock and gets back to his plan for Theo.

Meanwhile, Nigel continues to follow the wounded Tyrannosaurus until he finds that she has two babies. Nigel plans to bring the Tyrannosaurus mother and her babies back to the park with him, but a male Tyrannosaurus attacks the female for her kill. In the ensuing battle, the male Tyrannosaurus smashes the female's head against a rock formation, an injury that results in the mother's death.

At this point, a 6-mile-wide asteroid enters the Earth's atmosphere at 20,000 mph (32,000 km/h) and hits the Gulf of Mexico. The explosion is 7 billion times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, and its blast column can be seen in Montana. It leaves Nigel with three minutes while the blast front travels from Chicxulub to Montana at 200 times the speed of sound (c 245,000 km/h) and reaches him. Under a sky full of bright meteors, he uses the only meat that he has (what appears to be a ham sandwich) to entice the two young Tyrannosaurus through the time portal with a second to spare; a bit of the impact blast chases him through the Time Portal. In the park, they are put in an observation pen and named Terence and Matilda.

The head keeper copes with Theo's rutting by making a "rival" for Theo by using old tires and oddments attached to a tractor to build a crude mock Triceratops head and neck on the front of a tractor, providing something for Theo to take his aggression out on. Later, Terence and Matilda are moved to their new enclosure. The Park takes into account that keeping the pair under control is going to be a major challenge.

Details
Montana, 65 million years ago, Cretaceous. Genera encountered:
 * Ornithomimus
 * Tyrannosaurus
 * Triceratops
 * Nyctosaurus (unidentified)

The colorful glow of The Portal is what made the mother of Tyrannosaurs, Terrence and Matilda, stop chasing the Park's Ornithomimus, as it looked too much like Water for her liking.