Day One (TV story)

For the Children of Earth: Day One, see separate entry.

Synopsis

Gwen's first day on the job sees Cardiff's nightlife at the mercy of an alien who consumes its victims during orgasm, leaving behind only dust. Torchwood tracks the alien to a sperm bank, but too late for the patrons within. Gwen tricks it into leaving its host and captures it within a portable cell, where it peters out, itself turning to dust.

Plot

The Torchwood team arrives at an asteroid crash site the Army is already there. The team use their Torchwood authority to get through the troops. As the others move into action, taking samples and readings, Gwen feels inexperienced and out of place. When Owen taunts her, calling her the "New Girl", Gwen tosses a chisel at him and misses, puncturing the skin of the meteor. A purplish gas hisses out of the meteor, coalescing and rising into the air.

At a night club in Cardiff a young woman, Carys, is leaving a voice mail to her boyfriend when she is confronted by the gaseous creature. It backs her against a wall, then flows into her body. Suddenly sexually aggressive, she regains entry into the club by kissing the bouncer, and picks up a man, and takes him into the women's toilet, they proceed to have sex, at the moment of climax Matt dissolves into a glowing cloud of dust, the energy portion of which Carys absorbs.

Ianto informs them of the incident at the nightclub. Arriving, the team finds the CCTV tapes that show Carys and Matt having their deadly sex, and then the alien taking her over in the alley. Jack arranges for a body to be taken out of storage to fake a suicide for Matt, the concept of which horrifies Gwen.

While the team tries to track Carys by cross-checking video from the surveillance cameras with a database containing the faces of the UK population, Carys is feeling the effects of the alien in her body, which is causing her pain. The postman arrives, and Carys pulls him into her house for sex, but the team manages to arrive before she can do the deed.

Whilst in a holding cell in the Hub a consciousness takes over Carys momentarily, explaining to Gwen that it is not here for conquest, but to feed off human orgasmic energy.

Toshiko discovers the alien presence in Carys is producing an ultra-powerful cloud of pheromones around her, turning her into a walking aphrodisiac. They realise, too late, that Owen might be affected, and they find him naked and cuffed in the cell.

Owen demonstrates the results of his biosscan of Carys on a rat showing that the physiological effects of the gaseous creature will make the body literally explode.

Checking her background, the team discovers that Carys had temporarily worked as a receptionist at a fertility clinic, an ideal source of orgasmic energy. They also determine that the alien takes hosts because Earth's atmosphere is poisonous to it. Carys is already at the clinic, dragging the sperm donors into rooms. When the team arrives, there are piles of dust everywhere. When they surround her, Carys collapses, too weak to fight the alien any more. Jack kisses her, giving up some of his life force to revitalise her.

Gwen then offers to take the host into herself, asking the alien to spare Carys. When the alien flows out of Carys's body, Gwen drops a portable prison cell and traps it inside. Separated from its host, the alien dies, falling into a pile of dust. Gwen and Jack then take Carys back to her father.

Cast

Crew

Writer - Chris Chibnall
Director - Brian Kelly
1st Assistant Director - Peter Bennett
2nd Assistant Director - Steffan Morris
3rd Assistant Director - Lynsey Muir
Executive Producers - Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner
Producer - Richard Stokes
Co-Producer - Chris Chibnall

References

A picture of Torchwood House can be seen in the background in the Hub.

Story Notes

This story had a working title of; New Girl.
The alien is never given a name in the episode, although in Torchwood Declassified Russell T. Davies refers to it as the "sex monster" or the "sex gas orgasm eating monster".
This episode has the distinction of featuring the first explicit sex scene in the Doctor Who franchise.

Russell T Davies says in Torchwood Declassified that this episode reflects how sexualized our community is and the scene when Carys is in the city surrounded in sexual images, Davies says this is his favorite scene because it best defines it.

Ratings

BBC3 - 2.5 million viewers
BBC2 - 3.0 million viewers

Myths

to be added

Filing Locations

Cyncoed Consulting Rooms - Cyncoed Road

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

As Matt dissolves to dust, Cary's legs disappear under the knee.
Jack teaches Gwen how to shoot firearms, and she displays clear unfamiliarity with guns, yet she's a trained police officer who presumably should know how to do this. In the UK, not all police officers undergo the same sort of firearms training received by cops in the US and elsewhere. In fact it was only relatively recently that London "bobbies" were even allowed to be armed.
In the scene when Cary's is raping the men at the clinic, in a small clip, one says he is gay, meaning he - in theory - he would not be aroused by Carys. Despite of this, when Torchwood arive, all the men are dust. The pheromones are overwhelming; after all, they were able to affect the normally-straight Gwen Cooper.
When Jack is ordering for a dead body to be mutilated, and made to look like it commited suicide, two legs are seen sticking up from the bin in on right hand side. The legs seem too 'fleshy' to be plastic, and - strangely - Jack and no one else notices them. Irony may also creep in here, since a possible dead body, is actually next to him.
When Carys knocks out the receptionist, see isn't seen again when torchwood arrives.

Continuity

The severed hand seen in TW: Everything Changes, which is from DW: The Christmas Invasion. When Jack cradles the hand, a few instrumental notes of "Flavia's Theme" can be heard.
The blue energy of the portable prison cell resembles the technology used by Jack in The Empty Child to rescue Rose and to stop the bomb in The Doctor Dances and also the lift in Forest of the Dead.
The first episode of the the third series is also called Day One.

DVD Releases

Included in the Series 1 DVD box set.

External Links