Everything Changes (TV story)

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Everything Changes is the first episode of the first series of Torchwood. It introduces four of the five members of Torchwood Three: Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato, Ianto Jones and Suzie Costello, as well as Gwen Cooper.

Synopsis

Torchwood Three arrives on the scene of a brutal murder. PC Gwen Cooper's curiosity is challenged by their attitude; their approach and their technology is at odds with everything she believes in, but in investigating them she finds a dark, dangerous and mysterious world, right in the heart of Cardiff.

Plot

During a murder investigation in Cardiff, PC Gwen Cooper spies on a mysterious group of people from "Torchwood" led by Captain Jack Harkness, with one member Suzie Costello using a metal gauntlet to temporarily bring the victim of murder to life in an attempt to learn the identity of his murderer. Jack notes Gwen's presence, causing her to flee the scene. The next day, she runs into once more Jack at a hospital, and following him, finds a sealed-off area where she runs into a Weevil, who kills a porter. Jack arrives, spraying something at the Weevil giving Gwen a chance to escape. As she leaves the hospital she sees the Torchwood vehicle, and follows it herself while learning from her office that the vehicle is unregistered, and that while there was a "Jack Harkness" that disappeared in 1941, there is no record of one today. She follows the vehicle to Roald Dahl Plass, and though is able to follow them on foot, somehow loses sight of them as they pass by the Water Tower (the large fountain). She learns from her partner Andy that all personnel at the hospital have been accounted for.

Catching sight of a pizza delivery scooter, she inquires at the local pizza store and learns they make deliveries to Torchwood. Diguised as a pizza delivery girl, she enters a tourist centre where Ianto allows her entry into Torchwood she walks down a secret passageway and lets her through. Following it, Gwen eventually finds herself at the Hub of Torchwood, where the rest of the Torchwood team initially tries to ignore her entrance but break out into fits of laughter, well aware of who Gwen is. Jack shows Gwen around the Hub, showing her the captured Weevil from the hospital, then they leave the Hub via a path slab lift, ending up right in front of the Water Tower in Roald Dahl Plass. Jack explains that a perception field exists around the spot they are standing, making them invisible to passer byes and why Gwen lost track of the team earlier. Jack takes Gwen to a pub, and over a drink, explains the purpose of Torchwood, there to help control the flotsam and jetsam of the time-space vortex that falls to Earth due to the presence of the rift that exists right where the Hub is located. As Gwen wonders why Jack is telling her all of this, he explains that he has placed an amnesia pill in her drink, and she will have forgotten all of this in the morning. Gwen races home to try to type out a message to herself before the pill's effects are complete, but falls asleep; Ianto hacks Gwen's computer and wipes the message clean.

The next day at work, Gwen is shown a drawing of the knife believed used on the victim two days ago, which begins to trigger a series of memories. These solidify when she spots a Millennium Centre programme with the word "Remember" in her own handwriting at home, and she returns to the Plass. There, Suzie is waiting for her, and explains the effects of the amnesia pill could be broken with a specific image, that being the knife. Suzie goes onto explain that she was the one that killed the man before as well as other victims, all in order to test the metal gauntlet and to try to learn how to make the resurrection permanent. Suzie then pulls a gun on Gwen, but just as Jack rises from the pavement elevator, Suzie turns and shoots him in the head. However, Jack survives, his wounds healing themselves, and tries to coax Suzie to stop. Suzie puts the gun under her chin and kills herself. Gwen falls to her knees, remembering everything.

In the Hub, the metal gauntlet is sealed away, while Suzie's body is placed into their morgue. Standing on the roof of the Millennium Centre, Jack tells Gwen that he died once, but was brought back to life. Since then, he has been immortal, at least until he can find the right sort of doctor who can explain what happened. Jack goes on to explain that in the 21st century, "everything changes", and agrees with Gwen that perhaps Torchwood can do more to help people, and offers her a job, which she accepts.

Cast

Crew

References

  • The resurrection gauntlet and the life knife make their first appearance.
  • The only information the Cardiff police have on a Captain Jack Harkness is an American volunteer who went missing from RAF 133 Squadron on 21st January 1941 at the height at the Blitz.
  • Jack explains to Gwen that the base in Cardiff is actually Torchwood Three. Torchwood One was in London, but it was destroyed during the Battle of Canary Wharf, Torchwood Two is in Glasgow and is run by a very strange man, and Torchwood Four has gone missing, but they’re hoping to find it again sometime soon.
  • Captain Jack Harkness' explanation for the 'not-being-seen' square at Roald Dahl Plass is that they have detected signs of a 'perception filter'. This perception filter would later be used in The Sound of Drums.
  • The SUV has a registration CF06 FDU and does not officially exist.
  • There is a Pterodactyl living in the roof of the Hub.
  • There are a couple of hundred 'Weevils' living in the sewers beneath Cardiff. Their origin and name is unknown due to their inability to communicate.

Music

Featured tracks in this story include;

Story notes

  • This story was filmed in HD.
  • It was transmitted back to back with the next episode Day One on its UK premiere.
  • This story had two working titles; The Valley of Death and Flotsam And Jetsam' (the former being the earliest title).
  • As the first post-watershed production of the Doctor Who franchise, the episode features several firsts, including the first use of the F-word in a televised Doctor Who franchise production.
  • A pre-credits sequence of Gwen and Jack on top of the Millennium Centre in a flash forward to the end of the story was cut but appears on the deleted scenes of the series one box set.
  • This first episode uses the very human character of Gwen in much the same way as Doctor Who did with the character of Rose Tyler in 2005, taking the viewer along with them for the journey.
  • A scene showing John Tucker being chased and murdered was shot but dropped.
  • Two alternative scenes where shot showing Gwen being retconned - with the one in a traditional bar being dropped, in favour of the Buffalo Bar that was used for transmission.
  • 'Buffalo' was also a password used by the Tenth Doctor to access UNIT files.
  • Retcon is a reference to the 'retrospective continuity' a means of covering up plot discrepancies used in many sci-fi shows. Other names considered for Retcon were Goldfish or Scooter.
  • Several scenes were trimmed from the episode for broadcast on the CBC in Canada, including a scene in which Owen, using the pheromone spray, also seduces the blonde's angry boyfriend.
  • It has been suggested that Owen's use of the pheromone spray was effectively "date rape".[1]

Ratings

  • BBC3 - 2.52 million viewers (22/10/2006 at 21:00)
  • BBC2 - 3.03 million viewers (25/10/2006 at 21:00)

Myths

  • The missing Torchwood 4 is a sly Babylon 5 reference: Babylon 4 also mysteriously disappeared. Although if the TW novels can be counted as canon - Torchwood is 'somewhere in Yorkshire'.

Filming locations

  • Millicent Street, Cardiff, Wales (Resurrection in the rain)
  • NCP Tredegar Street, Cardiff, Wales (Gwen spies on Torchwood resurrecting)
  • NCP Cardiff Rapports, Cardiff, Wales
  • Old Natwest Bank, Cardiff (Entrance of police station)
  • Dorset Street, Cardiff, Wales
  • Cornwall (pub), Cardiff, Wales (Pub where Gwen and Andy break up fight)
  • Newport Road Lane, Cardiff (Location where Gwen first sees Torchwood SUV)
  • A4232 (Grangetown/Butetown Link), Cardiff (Gwen in pursuit of the Torchwood SUV)
  • Mumbai Bay Takeaway, James Street, Cardiff (Jubilee Pizza, where Gwen goes, tracking down Torchwood)
  • Cardiff Castle, Cardiff (Part of the tunnel entrance into Torchwood)
  • Icon, Cardiff, Wales (Location where Owen tries the spray)
  • Buffalo Bar, Cardiff, Wales (Bar where Jack and Gwen have a beer, prior to him retconning her)
  • St Mary's Street, Cardiff
  • Altolusso, Bute Terrace, Cardiff (One of the tall building shots with Jack standing on top)
  • King Edward VII Avenue (A4161 underpass), Cardiff (Location where Gwen runs home after her meeting with Jack and her subsequent retconning)
  • Mermaid Quayside, Cardiff Bay (The tourist information shop/entrance to Torchwood)
  • Roald Dahl Plass, Cardiff (Exterior of Torchwood)
  • BBC Studios, Upper Boat Studios, Upper Boat Tonteg Road, Treforest Industrial Estate, Pontypridd

Production errors

  • A poster advertising a Doctor Who exhibition in Cardiff can be briefly seen in a background shot.
File:01 01 14m 15s Who Poster.jpg


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.
  • How he reached the Earth in his subjective past is explained in DW: Utopia.

Home video releases

This episode was first released on DVD, with four other episodes entitle Torchwood: Series 1, part 1 on 26 December 2006. It was later released in Torchwood: The Complete first series on 19th November 2007.

See also

Torchwood Declassified

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Cult Spy: Catching Up With 'Torchwood' Accessed on 11th October 2008
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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