Children of Earth: Day One (TV story)

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For the Series 1 Torchwood episode Day One, see separate entry.

Synopsis

When every child on the Earth stops and starts chanting "We Are Coming", the Torchwood team has to investigate. Could this be the start of a global crisis?

Plot

One night in Scotland, 1965, a group of young children in are being driven in a school bus to an undisclosed location. When the bus stops, the children exit and walk towards a light that gets brighter as they draw closer. One of the children is hesitant, and eventually flees as the light covers a large area.

The children stop...

44 years later, in Cardiff, September 2009, at 8:40 am GMT, Gwen Cooper is withdrawing money from an ATM when she notices two children standing completely still and completely unresponsive. In fact, all the children all over the United Kingdom freeze. After a minute, the children start moving again, acting as if nothing had happened. Gwen goes to the Hub and begins to investigate the incident.

Meanwhile, at a hospital, Dr. Rupesh Patanjali attempts to save a man's life, but is unsuccessful. Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones, whom Dr. Patanjali believes are the man's neighbours, ask if they can see the body alone. It is also the first time in the series Jack and Ianto are exclusively referred to as a couple, with Jack assuring Ianto they are. Jack uses a laser torch to open up the man and extracts an alien organ. Dr. Patanjali suddenly re-enters, sees the alien organ, and asks if the men are Torchwood, which Jack quickly denies. Dr. Patanjali tells them that the bodies of five ethnic males have disappeared over the past two months, but Jack tells him that it's a problem for the NHS to handle, and he and Ianto drive away. Back at the Hub, Gwen tells them what has happened with the children.

Meanwhile, a woman named Lois Habiba begins her first day at work for her new boss, Bridget Spears, assistant to Permanent Secretary to the Home Office, John Frobisher. Frobischer is visited by UNIT Colonel Oduya, who tells him that children 'stopped' at the exact same time all over the world, as the Torchwood team also discovers. Oduya says that UNIT has been taken to yellow alert, although they don't yet know if the phenonemon is extraterrestrial in origin.

Dr. Patanjali appears, wandering in the plaza outside the Hub. Gwen goes out to meet him, as the self-appointed "recruitment officer," since, as Jack says, the team needs a doctor. While the two are talking, all the children again suddenly stop at 10:30 am. This time, they begin to scream, then chant in unison: "We are coming." The Torchwood team later discovers that an adult patient in an East Grinstead mental institution — Timothy White — also stops and speaks the same words as the children. The Torchwood team then discover that every child in the world spoke the same words — in English.

Frobisher is told by the Head of MI5's Technology division, Mr. Dekker, who is also in charge of alien monitoring, that the aliens called The 456 have re-established contact for the first time since 1965, transmitting a burst of compressed information on frequency 456. Frobisher meets with the Prime Minister, Brian Green, and suggests that "it might be best if certain historical events were taken off the record." Green agrees, but refuses Frobisher's request that he issue a 'blank page,' saying that he doesn't want his name attached. Green places Frobisher in charge of the crisis so Green can have deniability if the things go wrong.

Lois fields a phone call from Jack Harkness, and when she logs it, the computer flags Torchwood as classified. Curious, she logs on as Bridget

Gwen Cooper trying to talk to Clem MacDonald

Spears and discovers that Torchwood was established to defend the Earth against extraterrestrial threats.

Back at the Hub, Jack and Ianto realise that they need to question a child. Jack visits his daughter, Alice Carter, and her son Steven, Jack's grandson. Alice refuses to let Jack use Steven. Ianto visits his sister, Rhiannon Davies, and tries to talk her into letting him take one of her children on an 'outing,' but she refuses. She also questions Ianto about his having been seen out to dinner with a man, and Ianto admits his feelings for Jack. Ianto's Torchwood car is stolen while he is visiting his sister.

Gwen visits Timothy White who tells her that when he was a child, he was put on a bus and taken away with a group of children; they were told that they were going to a new home. He watched the other children approach a bright light, which took them. But he escaped; he had gotten scared and ran away. His real name is Clem MacDonald. He has an unusually heightened sense of smell; Clem tells Gwen that the aliens are coming back, that he has been smelling them for months -- and that she is three-weeks pregnant. Leaving the psychiatric institute, Gwen calls Ianto, now back at the Hub, and tells him to initiate a search for information about MacDonald, missing children, and Scotland. Ianto's research triggers an alarm at an unidentified military monitoring station.

At the Home Office, Frobisher orders Bridget Spears to issue a blank page; that is, an order to kill. Four people are on the list, one of which is Captain Jack Harkness (The others are Colinel Michael Sanders, Ellen Hunt and Captain Andrew Staines). Lois, watching Bridget and seeing that she is in some distress, goes into Bridget's e-mail account and sees the blank page order. She recognizes Jack's name from his earlier phone call.

Johnson looks on a dead body of Jack Harkness

Jack goes back to Cardiff hospital hoping to question a child in the Children's Ward. Dr. Patanjali tells him that another ethnic man has died; when Jack goes with him to examine the body, Dr. Patanjali shoots him. A young woman named Johnson comes in and waits to see if Jack revives, proving the rumours about his immortality. She kills Jack again, then orders her men to surgically implant a bomb in his body. Patanjali is shown to have been a spy, under orders to infiltrate Torchwood. Johnson cold-bloodedly kills Rupesh to stop Jack from finding him and learning why he was shot. Jack revives again, finding Patanjali's body on the floor next to him. He returns to the Hub.

Using a scanner in the Torchwood Hub, Gwen realises that Clement's claims are true -- she is pregnant. Jack arrives and places his hand on hers, inadvertantly scanning himself. There is a bomb in his stomach. He tells Gwen and Ianto to get out before the bomb denonates. Ianto wants to stay behind, to try to work defuse the bomb, but there is no time. Jack forces him to an exit, saying "I can survive anything!" He kisses Ianto, watches him rise on the elevator, and tells him, "I'll come back...I always do." The Hub blows up in a massive explosion, knocking the running Gwen to the ground.

Meanwhile, all the children chant, "We are coming, we are coming, we are coming ... back".

Cast

Production crew

to be added

References

  • Humorous nod to BBC Comedy Gavin and Stacey, "What's occurring?!" Ruth Jones, one of the creators of Gavin and Stacey, guest starred in the series 2 episode Adrift
  • Jack and Ianto are jokingly called "The Chuckle Brothers" by Gwen.
  • Frost Lynch, the company owned by Mark Lynch in Combat is the realty agency promoting the house Rhys is visiting.
  • The setting of the hospital is the same as BBC hospital show Casualty.
  • A photo of Toshiko Sato and Owen Harper is on Gwen's workspace.
  • The families of both Jack and Ianto Jones are introduced. It is learned that Jack has a grown daughter and a grandson.
  • Although in a relationship with Jack, Ianto establishes he has never felt this way for another man.
  • Jack dies three times.
  • Brian Green is the fifth Prime Minister to appear in the revived Doctor Who universe, following the unidentified PM killed by the Slitheen in DW: Aliens of London, Harriet Jones, Harold Saxon, and Aubrey Fairchild. (Tony Blair was also mentioned as having been Prime Minister in DW: Rise of the Cybermen.)
  • UNIT as an organisation is mentioned many times, and a UNIT officer meets with Frobisher. Despite the real-life decision to remove the "United Nations" name from the UNIT acronym, it is stated in dialogue that UNIT is still under the command of the UN as it orders UNIT to yellow alert.
  • Either intentionally or by coincidence, Frobisher is also the name of a 1980s-era companion of the Sixth Doctor in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strips.
  • A UNIT officer is said to have been relocated to Vancouver, Canada. This was also the city where the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie was shot.

Story notes

to be added

Ratings

  • 5.9 million viewers, according to unofficial overnight figures. 6.47 million viewers, according to official viewing figures.

Myths

to be added

Filming Locations

to be added

Discontinuity, Plot Holes and Errors

  • Wouldn't Tosh's Time Lock (DW: Journey's End) contain the explosion in the Hub? (No. When the Dalek exploded in Journey's End, it took out the time lock. Gwen remarked on it when it happened.)
  • The time rift would be uncontrolled because of the destruction of the hub, however everything still seems to be unaffected. (The Hub was more often used to monitor the rift, not specifically to control it. Also, the Hub was, most likely, only created some time in the nineteenth century; hence, there rift is most likely not volatile enough to often cause major trouble in Cardiff within only six months, despite the destruction of the Hub.)
  • When Lois looks up the history of Torchwood on the Government Information Network using Bridget's password, it says that Torchwood was established by "HRH Queen Victoria". It should have said "HM Queen Victoria". (Queen Victoria was the first monarch to be called "Her Imperial and Royal Majesty" which was still shortened to HRH and was not changed to HM until after her reign.)
  • Why doesn't Jack just run out of the hub and allow the explosion to happen in the sea or in the open. This way the hub would be safe. It was said by RTD in the 'Inside Look' for either this episode, or the next, that Torchwood Three was "too powerful" with the Hub, because of all the technology and resources they had, so "that was the first thing to go". Also, realistically, there simply wasn't enough time for him to get to the sea)
  • Why doesn't any of the Torchwood Team use the Singularity Scalpel to remove the bomb from Jack. It would have taken time to find the scalpel, which is a precision instrument easy to misfire anyway, and destroy the bomb. Alternatively, an attempt to destroy the bomb may have made it explode prematurely.
  • A running joke in the episode involves Ianto and Jack bantering about whether they're a couple or not. Hadn't this already been established during Series 2? (Ianto is clearly uncomfortable with the realisation that he is being viewed as part of an established gay couple. Of course he already knew it intellectually, but sometimes these things take awhile to sink in. People need time to adjust to big personal developments in their lives. They were never called an official couple in Series 2 despite their physical relationship no longer being kept private from the rest of the team.)
  • When Ianto Jones is entering the LOCKDOWN Protocol into the computer a Error message is clearly seen on the screen near him showing that the Computer's Operating system is in fact Linux.
  • When Ianto Jones enters the protocol for the lockdown, why isn't he locked in, as surely the lift would be locked?
  • When Lois comes out of the office that Colonel Oduya and John Frobisher are talking in, she asks Bridget what uniform the Colonel is wearing, saying that it is not British Army, but actually it is; the only difference is the UNIT logo on the left breast above his medal ribbons. So it therefore isn't British Army But the British Army have lots of patches that can be used to embelish their uniforms depending on certain specialities; unless Lois is an expert at identifying British Military insignia, surely she wouldn't think that a small patch is anything out of the ordinary.

Continuity

  • Martha Jones has gone on honeymoon. When last seen at the end of DW: Journey's End, she was engaged to Tom Milligan; in DW: The End of Time she is married to Mickey Smith. It is not indicated which individual she is actually honeymooning with.
  • At this point, Martha appears to still be with UNIT, as Jack bemoans that a sergeant is his contact with UNIT instead of Martha, which means that Martha did not take Jack's implied offer of a job with Torchwood in Journey's End. By the time of The End of Time, Martha will have left UNIT and be working freelance together with Mickey.
  • Colonel Mace has been relocated to Vancouver by UNIT.
  • When Rhys calls Gwen about a house that he has seen up for sale, the estate agent sign outside it says Frost and Lynch which is the same estate agency from the episode Combat which Mark Lynch owned alongside running the Weevil fight club.
  • The "Gizmo" which Gwen uses to turn off the CCTV appears to be the same device that Dr Tanizaki used to examine Lisa Hallett in Cyberwoman.
  • Whether intentional or not, the "blank page" resembles psychic paper.
  • Although Torchwood is still supposed to be a "secret" organisation, the fact it is becoming known by the public is referenced in several scenes, most notably when Gwen states that if you ask people about Torchwood, they usually send people towards Cardiff Bay (where the Hub is located), and at one point Gwen exchanges humorous words regarding her job with a man outside the main entrance. (This isn't the first time Torchwood's "secrecy" is called into question; see, for example, TW: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and TWA: Lost Souls.)
  • When Lois reads up on the history of Torchwood, the text on screen references the events of DW: Tooth and Claw.
  • Rupesh states that due to recent events (not specifically referenced but likely to include things like the Webstar attack (DW: The Runaway Bride) and the relocation of Earth (DW: The Stolen Earth), half the world now knows of or believes in the existence of alien life, while the other half is in denial. Suicide rates have risen since the events occurred, which Rupesh ascribes to crises of faith. This may also be reflected by the insanity and suicide of Alex Hopkins, who learns about upcoming events in 1999 (TW: Fragments).
  • The destruction of the Hub in a massive explosion leaves open the question of the fate of artifacts and creatures kept within the facility, including any imprisoned Weevils as well as Jack's brother, Gray, last seen to be in stasis.

DVD releases

  • This Episode was released on DVD along with the rest of Children of Earth on the 13th of July, 2009 in the UK.

See also

to be added

External links

to be added

Footnotes

to be added

v • e
Torchwood television stories
Series 1
Series 2
Series 3
Children of Earth: Day One • Day Two • Day Three • Day Four • Day Five
Series 4
Stories listed here are only those that have been officially licensed by the BBC.
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