Andrew-Lee Potts, the Wibsey-born actor, has just started filming the second series of Saturday night dinosaur adventure TV series Primeval after critical acclaim for the first season.

Primeval wowed critics and viewers alike earlier this year when it was aired by ITV in the prime-time Saturday evening slot - made popular for edge-of-the-seat family viewing by the resurgent Doctor Who.

Andrew, 27, plays geeky science student Connor Temple, who gets drafted into a team of misfits charged with tackling the problem of prehistoric beasties appearing through "time anomalies" in the present day.

He co-stars with Douglas Henshall, Ben Miller, James Murray and former S Club 7 singer Hannah Spearitt - with whom Andrew struck up a romance on set. The couple now live in Brighton.

ITV announced this week that production for the second series of Primeval is now under way and it is likely to be aired around February or March next year.

Andrew himself is bursting to spill the amazing plot developments of the new series ... but has been sworn to secrecy.

He said: "All I can say to fans is, expect some changes. Some major changes. I can't reveal what they are, but they are huge. It's fair to say that this series is going to rock."

The new season will comprise seven episodes, one more than the inaugral series. Andrew said: "We haven't had all the scripts yet, but the writers really have put everything into the episodes we've seen so far. They're really pushing the boat out. The scripts are total page-turners."

As series one reached its conclusion, team leader Nick Cutter (Henshall) had lost his wife in the prehistoric past and returned to the present to find the world had been changed because of something he or hshe had done in the past.

The series is replete with glorious computer-generated imagery of dinosaurs and prehistoric monsters and the new episodes promise a family of raptors going wild in a shopping centre, a sabre-tooth tiger at an amusement park and a woolly mammoth holding up traffic on the M25.

Tim Haines, of creators Impossible Pictures, said: "The response to the first series of Primeval was tremendous, so it is a huge pleasure to start making the second. For Cutter and his team, the new series will present them with a whole new set of problems. I only hope they make it to the end of the filming schedule alive!"

Is that a hint that one of the major characters might die? Andrew is keeping mum. "I really can't say anything," he said. "But if people thought the first series was good, they haven't seen anything yet."

There are two more treats for Potter fans lined up in connection with Primeval. Andrew - a film-maker in his own right who has done plenty of work on the other side of the camera - has been given a behind-the-scenes documentary on the TV show to direct, which will probably make it on to the DVD of the series at the end of the run.

And by Christmas fans can expect to buy a range of action figures of the characters, including Andrew's character Connor.

"That will be really weird," he said.