Greeks Bearing Gifts (TV story)

Greeks Bearing Gifts (TV story)

left

Greeks Bearing Gifts
Featuring:	Jack Harkness Gwen Cooper Toshiko Sato Owen Harper Ianto Jones
Main enemy:	Mary
Main setting:	Cardiff, 2007
Key crew
Writer:	Toby Whithouse
Director:	Colin Teague
Producer:	Richard Stokes
Release details
Release number:	7
Premiere broadcast:	26th November 2006

Greeks Bearing Gifts was the seventh episode in the first series of Torchwood. It primarily featured Toshiko Sato, as future story To the Last Man would.

Synopsis

Tosh is given an alien pendant which enables her to hear other people's thoughts. As the rest of the Torchwood team puzzle over a centuries-old skeleton, the pendant forces Tosh to question her commitment to Torchwood: is her new-found ability a blessing or a curse?

Plot

In Cardiff, 1812, a talkative prostitute leads a soldier into the forest. Afterwards, Mary says something to make him slap her twice. Mary scratches his face and runs further into the forest. She sees a bright light and hears a screech. The soldier catches up and shoots her. In 2007, the Torchwood team is at a construction site where a skeleton was found. Mary, the prostitute from 1812, is there in modern dress looking on amusedly. A strange object is by the skeleton, its function unknown. Toshiko and Owen discuss the skeleton.

Later, Toshiko is in a bar. Mary comes over to talk to her. Mary reveals that she knows about Torchwood and her. She is a "scavenger" or a "collector" of alien artefacts. Toshiko seems to bond with Mary, and reveals her innermost feelings. Mary offers Toshiko a pendant. When Toshiko puts it on, she suddenly hears people's thoughts. Mary asks her to refine this to just hear her, and Toshiko hears her think that she would like to kiss her. Shocked, Toshiko takes off the pendant. Mary tells her to keep the pendant. Toshiko says she must show it to the other members of Torchwood. However, Mary predicts she won't.

The next day, Toshiko goes to the Hub, and puts the pendant on. She tells Gwen and Owen she has something to show them, but upon hearing their thoughts, she learns that Gwen and Owen are having an affair, and that they both pity her. Later, when Ianto offers her some coffee, she hears his thoughts, malevolent and bestial. She hears his pain at the loss of Lisa Hallett. Visibly upset, she takes off the pendant.

She finds Mary, whom she tells about Owen and Gwen's thoughts. Mary explains that thoughts are complicated. Mary puts the pendant on Toshiko again, and hears her thinking about having sex with her. Mary and Toshiko kiss passionately, and the scene cuts. Toshiko is lying in bed, looking regretful. She tells Mary of her attraction to Owen, and how she was upset by his affair with Gwen. Mary tells her that good can come of the pendant, too. Toshiko asks Mary who she really is. Mary calls herself "Philoctetes". Toshiko heeds Mary's advice and listens to the thoughts of people in public. She hears a man planning to kill his ex-wife and son. She follows him and saves them. She returns to the Hub where Owen is being teased by the others about misidentifying the skeleton; it was actually a man who died of an unidentified trauma. Tosh asks Jack about the name "Philoctetes", and he says it is a mythological Greek character that was exiled to the island of Lemnos.

File:Greeks bearing gifts.jpg

Toshiko is ransomed.

Mary tells Toshiko to read Jack's thoughts about the item found with the skeleton. Toshiko can't read his mind, and Jack seems to notice when she tries. She tells Mary this, and Mary tells her that she is an alien exiled from her home world. Toshiko offers Torchwood's help but Mary refuses. She asks Toshiko to sneak her into the Hub to retrieve the artefact. There they find Jack holding the artefact. He explains that it is a two-man transporter for a guard and and a prisoner. Mary explains that she took the body of the young prostitute Mary, and has been ripping out people's hearts to feed her human form. She takes Toshiko at knife point and demands the transporter. Jack gives it to her. It turns on and she disappears. Jack programmed the device to teleport to the center of the sun. Later, Toshiko is confronted by Owen and Gwen about what she heard. Toshiko says that it was none of her business. Owen storms off. Gwen admits her affair with Owen is wrong but she can't stop. She says that Tosh seemed happier with Mary in her life, and that she should not let everything that has happened bring her down.

Jack and Toshiko sit by the fountain above the Hub and discuss the pendant. Toshiko believes that it may be the most powerful artifact ever found by Torchwood, and asks Jack for his advice. He says it is her choice. She crushes it with her foot. She asks why she could not read Jack's mind. Jack denies knowing why but admits he could tell she was trying. She tells him that it felt like she was trying to read the mind of a dead man. He doesn't answer.

Cast

• Captain Jack Harkness - John Barrowman
• Gwen Cooper - Eve Myles
• Owen Harper - Burn Gorman
• Toshiko Sato - Naoko Mori
• Ianto Jones - Gareth David-Lloyd
• Mary - Daniela Denby-Ashe
• Soldier - Tom Robertson
• Neil - Ravin J Ganatra
• Carol - Eiry Thomas
• Danny - Shaheen Jafargholi
• Weevil - Paul Kasey

Crew

Created by Russell T Davies

Executive Producers   Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner

Written by Toby Whithouse	Produced by Richard Stokes	Directed by Colin Teague

General production staff Co-producer - Chris Chibnall Script department Camera and lighting department 1st Assistant Director - Nick Rae 2nd Assistant Director - Lynsey Muir 3rd Assistant Director - Rhian Salisbury	Art department Costume department	Make-up and prosthetics General post-production staff Special and visual effects Sound

Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources.

References

• Toshiko is preparing a list for UNIT.
• When Jack is studying the alien device, he mentions that it has nanogenes technology.
• A man still sees Cybus Cybermen outside his house.

Music

• Drag - Placebo
• Spitting Games - Snow Patrol

Story notes

• At this point in the series, all the members of Torchwood 3 have had a same sex kiss: Owen and Colin in Everything Changes, Gwen and Carys in Day One, Jack and Ianto in Cyberwoman (although Ianto was apparently dead at this point) and Tosh and Mary in this episode.

Ratings

• BBC3 - 1.3 million viewers
• BBC2 - 1.9 million viewers

Myths

to be added

Filming locations

to be added

Production errors

to be added

Continuity

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.

• An Arcateenian appears in SJA: Invasion of the Bane.
• The x-ray of a Cybus Cyberman is seen behind Owen in the autopsy room.
• Owen mentions someone still recovering from the events of (DW: Doomsday) saying that he's still seeing Cybermen outside his mother's house

Home video releases

This episode was first released on DVD, with three other episodes entitled Torchwood: Series 1, part 2 on 26 February 2007. It was later released in Torchwood: The Complete First Series on 19th November 2007.

External links

• Greeks Bearing Gifts at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• Greeks Bearing Gifts at Shannon Sullivan's A Brief History of Time (Travel)
• Greeks Bearing Gifts at The Locations Guide