April 4: Children of Earth: "Day One" (TW)

Now we've moved on to July 2009, and the start of a special Torchwood miniseries, Children of Earth -- a five-day event devoted to a single story.  (Why five episodes instead of a full series?  Because the BBC is dealing with budget cuts, that's why.)  Each episode takes place over the course of a day -- and so that's why we get a second episode of Torchwood called "Day One".  Russell T Davies takes the helm of the show he created and delivers a surprisingly tense conspiracy thriller -- surprising because although Torchwood has improved tremendously, "conspiracy thriller" hasn't really been in the mix up to this point.  But Davies and director Euros Lyn definitely deliver.

One of the ways this opening installment succeeds at this is by having the British government seeming to know more about this strange occurrence than Torchwood.  This puts Jack, Gwen, and Ianto on the back foot somewhat; although they're very good at putting the pieces together, they seem to lack the knowledge that the Home Office, as personified by a man named Frobisher²⁰⁶, already have.

All the children on Earth start screaming. (Children of
Earth: "Day One") ©BBC

And look, it's Peter Capaldi again as Frobisher -- so that's two appearances in the franchise before being cast as the twelfth Doctor.  Here he's a civil servant who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it becomes his responsibility to deal with what they'd previously called the Four Five Six, after the frequency that had been used the last time, in 1965.  And while they're trying to deal with the reappearance of the 456 -- working with UNIT, it seems -- Torchwood is also trying to figure out what made every child on Earth suddenly stop, and then stop again and start saying "We are coming" in unison.  It's a creepy and effective move from Davies, temporarily possessing all the children, and it really does make you curious as to what's going on.

The other interesting thing is that this affects every child on Earth -- and one elderly man, who Gwen learns was there in Scotland the last time the 456 appeared. "I was a kid," he says.  "... They took us out.  In the night, in the dark.  Isn't it, isn't it?  They told us, they said we were going to a new home. ... They drove us away for miles and miles.  They were there in the sky. ... Light.  The light took them. ... I ran.  There was something, there was people, there was. ... But they're coming back.  I've been smelling them for months.  In the air.  Long time coming."  So someone else remembers the last time, even if it appears to have traumatized him for life.

And we also get a couple family revelations; not only do we find out that Gwen is pregnant, but we learn that Jack is a father (and a grandfather!), as he goes to visit his daughter Alice -- although he has an ulterior motive, as he wants to examine a child, to see why only children were affected.  But still, it's something new that we've learned about Jack.

And then Davies really cranks up the conspiracy aspect in the last few minutes of the show.  Frobisher issues a "blank page" regarding the 456, which seems to involve destroying all the evidence of their previous visit -- including the people who were there.  And that seems to include one Captain Jack Harkness.  So an unidentified female soldier (from UNIT?) lures him into a trap (and good move, making the bait the nice young doctor Torchwood has been considering hiring all episode -- that really ups the paranoia factor), kills him, sticks a bomb in his stomach, and sets it off when he's back in Torchwood.  It's only a chance discovery that lets Gwen and Ianto get clear -- but the Hub and Jack both appear to be obliterated in the explosion.

And if that weren't enough, the children are possessed again.  "We are coming back," they say this time.  So now the whole world knows this isn't the first time that whatever is causing the children to behave this way (aka the 456) have been here...







²⁰⁶ Presumably not the shape-shifting penguin who traveled with various Doctors in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip.