The New World (TV story): Difference between revisions

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|series number = [[Series 4 (Torchwood)|Series 4]]
|series number = [[Series 4 (Torchwood)|Series 4]]
|number = 32
|number = 32
|featuring = [[Jack Harkness]]<br>[[Gwen Cooper]]<br>[[Rhys Williams]]<br>[[Rex Matheson]] (introduction)<br>[[Esther Drummond]] (introduction)<br>[[Anwen Williams]] (introduction)
|featuring = [[Jack Harkness]]<br>[[Gwen Cooper]]<br>[[Rhys Williams]]<br>[[Rex Matheson]] (introduction)<br>[[Esther Drummond]] (introduction)<br>[[Oswald Danes]] (introduction)
|enemy =  
|enemy =  
|setting = [[Cardiff]], [[Wales]]<br>[[Washington, D.C.]]<br>[[Jacksonville, Kentucky]]<br>[[Heathrow Airport|Heathrow]]<br>[[2011]]  
|setting = [[Cardiff]], [[Wales]]<br>[[Washington, D.C.]]<br>[[Jacksonville, Kentucky]]<br>[[Heathrow Airport|Heathrow]]<br>[[2011]]  

Revision as of 21:34, 10 July 2011

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The New World was the first episode of the fourth series of Torchwood.

Synopsis

One day, nobody dies. All across the world, nobody dies. And then the next day, and the next, and the next, people keep ageing – they get hurt and sick, but they never die. The result: a population boom, overnight.

With all the extra people, resources are finite. It’s said that in four month’s time, the human race will cease to be viable. But this can’t be a natural event – someone’s got to be behind it. It’s a race against time as CIA agent Rex Matheson investigates a global conspiracy. The answers lie within an old, secret British institute. As Rex keeps asking: “What is Torchwood?”, he’s drawn into a world of adventure, and a threat to change what it means to be human … for ever. [1]

Plot

Oswald Danes is about to be put to death by lethal injection. As he is receiving the fatal concotion, he starts thrashing around on the gurney. At the CIA, Esther Drummond is on the phone with Rex Mattheson, who keeps asking what Torchwood is. She starts to tell him, only to be impaled by metal from a truck. Gwen Cooper, former Torchwood agent, has woken up from a nightmare. Oswald is talking to a govenor's assistant whom Oswald tells he can't be held and executed again because of the Eighth and Fifth Amendments. Gwen is talking to her daughter telling her about Torchwood, but Rhys walks in, upset she is going on about that again.

Cast

Crew

to be added

References

  • Jack uses the alias Owen Harper.
  • Gwen and Rhys have gone into hiding, seemingly under a witness protection program.
  • UNIT and Geneva are referenced to.

Story notes

  • Oswald Danes's release from prison plays with the audience's expectations. According to old American frontier legend, anyone who survives an execution is automatically set free. As this legend is actually untrue, the episode depicts a series of legal arguments — including unlawful imprisonment and force majeure arguments — that lead to Danes's release.

Ratings

to be added

Myths

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Filming locations

to be added

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.
  • The first time Rex has his phone taken from him on the plane, the arm is bare. However, during the flashback, the arm is covered with Jack's vortex manipulator and sleeve. This is apparently deliberate to keep Jack's identity hidden.
  • The television station most prominently covering Danes' parole has an on-screen graphic identifying it as both in Kentucky and yet having the call sign of KCNU. This is an impossibility, as all Kentucky stations have a first letter of "W". Since all the stations on Rex Matheson's Washington, D.C. hospital television properly have "W" call signs, it doesn't appear that the production team are trying to establish a different paradigm for the DWU. It just looks like they didn't know the dividing line between "K" and "W" stations is the Mississippi River, a natural feature to the west of Kentucky. Thus, this seems more like production error on the part of the graphics department than anything else.

Continuity

  • Esther finds files that show pictures of the 456 incident. (TW: Children of Earth)
  • Esther also sees a picture of Jack, actually a publicity still from DW: The Empty Child.
  • Gwen is said to have joined Torchwood in October 2006, the time the first episode of Torchwood aired. However, it was actually 2007, as Gwen joined Torchwood a year after the Doctor accidentally brought Rose Tyler to 2006 instead of 2005. (TW: Everything Changes, DW: Aliens of London)
  • Jack's comment about being "plain old human" after losing his immortality is similar to comments made by the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor in DW: Journey's End.
  • After Esther comments about how she feels responsible for Rex's life-threatening accident, Jack replies he knows the feeling, possibly referring to the deaths of many Torchwood members and his grandson, which he previously claimed to feel responsible for. (TW: Children of Earth: Day Five)

Home video releases

to be added

Footnotes

External links

to be added