Children of Earth: Day Three (TV story)

Children of Earth: Day Three
Main enemy:	The 456
Key crew
Writer:	James Moran
Director:	Euros Lyn
Producer:	Peter Bennett
Release details
Release number:	29
Premiere broadcast:	8th July 2009

Synopsis

The eyes of the world turn to Britain, as the 456 announce: "We are here," as the new Torchwood adventure continues. As a pillar of fire descends upon London, the members of Torchwood must battle to protect their own families as the fight gets personal. But will Clem's memories destroy everything?

Plot

The team have set up a base in an old factory that was used by Torchwood One for storage. The base is stocked with equipment and supplies "creatively acquired" by the team by stealing from people on the street.While researching the other people who were targeted for assassination, Jack recognizes them and runs off.

In Cardiff, Jack's daughter Alice is still trying to contact him; she goes outside and borrows a girl's mobile to phone the Cardiff police, but the Government's scanners pick up the mention of Jack's name and attempt to find the connection between them. Agent Johnson gets word of this and her team take Alice and her son away with them "To help them" as it would be safer for Alice and Steven. All of a sudden Steven points southeastwards to London. All the children on Earth are pointing towards London.

A pillar of light shoots out of the sky and enters Whitehall, filling the gas tank. Mr Frobisher and Mr Dekker meet with the aliens, who inform the humans to call them "456". During the discussion, Frobisher extracts a promise from the 456 that it will not mention its previous visit to Earth in 1965.

Gwen again meets Lois Habiba in the cafe and asks her to wear some special contact lenses that allow the Torchwood team to view what is going on through them. Lois protests but takes the contacts with her despite her fear of committing treason. Gwen then phones Andy Davidson to bail Clem out from police custody and brings him back to the base.

Jack sneaks into Frobisher's house and steals his wife's mobile. He phones Frobisher, having made the connection between the children and the events of 1964 and threatens Frobisher that he could "blow this thing sky high" with the information he has. In retaliation, Frobisher informs Jack that they have taken his daughter and grandson into custody will kill them if he does so.

Frobisher, Brigit Spears and Lois Habiba enter the gas chamber room where it is being filmed for the prime minister and being transmitted to a conference room where UNIT, the American general and the Prime Minister are watching. Frobisher demands that the 456 cease using human children to communicate through; in return the 456 demand a gift: 10% of the children on Earth.

Back at the old warehouse, Clem tells Gwen that he "smells the man" who brought the children to the aliens. When Jack walks in, Clem then regonises him as the man in 1965 who gave the twelve children up to the aliens. When Gwen protests that Jack is a "good guy," and that he fights aliens, Jack informs them that in this instance, he had done what was asked. He gave the 456 the children..."as a gift."

Cast

• Captain Jack Harkness - John Barrowman
• Gwen Cooper - Eve Myles
• Ianto Jones - Gareth David-Lloyd
• Rhys Williams - Kai Owen
• Lois Habiba - Cush Jumbo
• Alice Carter - Lucy Cohu
• Steven Carter - Bear McCausland
• Bridget Spears - Susan Brown
• John Frobisher - Peter Capaldi
• Johnson - Liz May Brice
• Clem MacDonald - Paul Copley
• Brian Green PM - Nicholas Farrell
• Andy Davidson - Tom Price
• Trinity Wells - Lachele Carl

Production crew

Written by - Russell T Davies and James Moran

References

• This is the second time in the recent Doctor Who multiverse that an alien asked for ten percent of a population, the first being in The Sound of Drums when the Master kills ten percent of Earth's population. Both stories involved Captain Jack Harkness.

• The Doctor is mentioned. This is the not first episode of Torchwood to explicitly reference The Doctor, he was first explicitly mentioned in Fragments.

• The Childrens program Trapped is seen on the television.

Story notes

to be added

Ratings

• 5.9 million viewers ( overnight )

Myths

to be added

Filming Locations

to be added

Discontinuity, Plot Holes and Errors

• When Lois Habiba wears the contact lens, she puts them both in the same eye (her left eye). It is possible that it was the same lens, it may have fallen out of her eye. And it's unclear which shots are of the bathroom mirror. Secondly, the lenses may require both on the same eye.
• The green goo sprayed on the front of the tank disappears and reappears in different shapes several times between shots. Actually, it runs to the bottom of the tank, look at the lower part of the glass
• When Gwen is demonstrating the lenses to Lois, several times she looks in different directions and moves her head, but the display on the laptop doesn't move. Maybe Eve Myles just couldn't keep in sync with the video. Still an in series continuity error though.
• It seems a bit suspicious that Ianto managed to buy another coat for Jack that was exactly the same in every way to his previous one. I'm sure Ianto knew where to buy Jack's clothes, you can't expect him to wear the same clothes every day, he would have had spares and after the explosion Ianto would have went to the shop the clothes are usually bought in and bought them. and Ianto said that he got it in specially from the RAF.
• Where on earth could Martha Jones be on honeymoon that she did not notice all this and phone the doctor

Continuity

• Lois wears contact lenses with same abilities as Martha wore in Reset.

DVD releases

• This Episode will be released on DVD along with the rest of Children of Earth on the 13th of July.

See also

to be added