Torchwood responds to an accident involving a shipment of meat – from the packing plant where Rhys, Gwen’s fiance, works. The truck has wrecked, the driver is dead, and Jack and the team arrive to take a sample of the meat. Rhys has also gotten as call about the aaccident, and sees Gwen on the scene, assuming it’s part of her police work…but she later denies having been there. Owen identifies the meat, and as the team expected, it’s a creature that’s slipped through the rift. Suspicious, Rhys trails Gwen the next day, as she and the rest of her team converge on the slaughterhouse. But before he can confront her, he’s accosted by the men running the operation, and bluffs his way in…where he discovers that they’ve captured a huge, whale-like alien, still alive, which keeps growing and regenerating itself after meat is cut out of its body. Rhys tells Gwen about what he’s seen, and she brings him to the Hub, where it’s decided – very much against Gwen’s wishes – that Rhys is now Torchwood’s best chance to shut down the alien meat operation. Gwen feels that Rhys is taking on the assignment to impress her, trying to compete with her life of secrets and danger, but he temporarily joins the team anyway – even if this mission sends him to the abattoir.

written by Cahterine Tregenna
directed by Colin Teague
music by Ben Foster

Guest Cast: Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), Colin Baxter (Policeman), Patti Clare (Ruth), Garry Lake (Vic), Gerard Carey (Greg), Matt Ryan (Dale)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Rhys helps make Gwen just a little bit late for work, and when she arrives, there’s an unfamiliar face at Torchwood – a man named Adam who everyone else already seems to know. When he puts his hand on her shoulder, however, Gwen remembers him instantly – of course, it’s Adam, a longtime member of the Torchwood team. But when Gwen gets home, she suddenly can’t remember Rhys and thinks he’s an intruder (despite everyone else in Torchwood knowing who he is). Everyone confides in Adam, and more importantly, everyone’s got nothing but good memories of working with Adam. But by chance, Ianto encounters evidence that Adam isn’t a part of Torchwood and never has been – and when he confronts Adam with this discovery, Adam threatens to reveal Ianto’s dark secret.

written by Catherine Tregenna
directed by Andy Goddard
music by Ben Foster

Guest Cast: Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), Bryan Dick (Adam), Demetri Goritsas (Jack’s Father), Lauren Ward (Jack’s Mother), Jack Montgomery (young Jack), Ethan Brooke (Gray), Rhys Myers (young Ethan), Paul Kasey (Weevil), Jo McLaren (Murdered Woman)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

A series of unexplained deaths attracts the attention of both Torchwood and UNIT, resulting in a rare collaboration. UNIT loans out its new medical officer, Dr. Martha Jones, to Torchwood – and the rest of Torchwood seems terribly surprised when Martha and Jack seem to go back a long way. But even more troubling is the evidence Martha finds during the autopsy of the latest victim – a needle mark in his eye, and a substance in his bloodstream that she thinks is erasing medical evidence. Another victim turns up, alive, but shortly before she dies, she tells Martha and Owen that she had previously had HIV, but that it was miraculously cured by a drug called Reset that she took as part of a clinical trial. When she dies, insects erupt from her open mouth, and then die just as suddenly. They turn out to be of alien origin, but the organization conducting human trials of Reset is keeping everything very hush-hush – and they’re aware of Torchwood’s investigation. Martha volunteers to pass herself off as a new clinical test subject, but even with Jack and his team backing her up, she may be in over her head – and getting her out of danger turns out to be a deadlier endeavour than usual.

written by J.C. Wilsher
directed by Ashley Way
music by Ben Foster

Guest Cast: Freema Agyeman (Dr. Martha Jones), Alan Dale (Copley), Jacqueline Boatswain (Plummer), Jan Anderson (Marie), Rhodri Miles (Billy), Michael Sewell (Mike), John Samuel Worsey (Policeman)

Notes: The “mayfly”’s method of incubating its larvae inside the human body have led some fans to draw the conclusion that the enormous insects are, or are related to, the Wirrn fought by the fourth Doctor in The Ark In Space, though there’s nothing in this episode to confirm that. Martha’s boyfriend is presumably Thomas Milligan, seen in Last Of The Time Lords. The Doctor apparently put in a good word for Martha after she left his company in that episode, leading to her UNIT recruitment.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

As the team struggles to come to terms with Owen’s death after the Reset incident, Jack insists on using the other resurrection gauntlet – the opposite number of the one used by Suzie Costello – but unlike the first glove, it brings Owen back for two minutes – and then some. Even when Jack removes the glove, Owen is still walking around and talking, but he has no pulse. Martha determines that something is bringing about drastic changes to Owen’s biochemistry: he’s already only 40% human. What the other 60% is, no one knows – until Owen’s eyes change completely to black and he begins speaking in an alien language in a voice that isn’t his. Even the Weevils fear him. With time running out, and an alien presence apparently using him as its foothold on Earth, Owen comes up with an option that horrifies his teammates: having himself enbalmed while still alive to rob the presence of its host.

written by Matt Jones
directed by Andy Goddard
music by Ben Foster

Guest Cast: Freema Agyeman (Dr. Martha Jones), Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), Skye Bennett (Little Girl), Paul Kasey (Weevil), Joanna Griffiths (Nurse), Ben Walker (Jamie Burton), Lauren Phillips (Hen Night Girl), Golda Rosheuvel (Doctor), Janie Booth (Hospital Patient), Rhys Ap William (Police Officer)

Notes: The first resurrection gauntlet was last seen in the first season’s They Keep Killing Suzie, another instance in which it didn’t exactly behave as advertised.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Having survived thus far, Owen is driven to the brink of insanity with the knowledge that he simply can’t die – but with his body hovering between life and complete death, he can’t eat, sleep or have sex either, which rules out most of his favorite activities. Relieved of his duties at Torchwood and replaced by Martha, Owen is reduced to making the coffee until an assignment arises that requires a way to get someone in past heat sensors. Since Owen’s body generates no heat, he’s perfect for the mission, but he also has to make sure not to take any physical damage since his body doesn’t heal either, which may make this a suicide mission – and this, too, may suit Owen just fine.

written by Joseph Lidster
directed by Andy Goddard
music by Ben Foster

Guest Cast: Freema Agyeman (Dr. Martha Jones), Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), Richard Briers (Parker), Christine Bottomley (Maggie), Louis Decosta Johnson (Farrington), Brett Allen (Taylor), Gil Kolirin (Webb)

Notes: Joseph Lidster got his start as a professional writer by sending in a spec script for Big Finish Productions’ Doctor Who audio adventures, which – after a few revisions – became 2003’s experimental and somewhat controversial story The Rapture. He’s become one of the most prolific and popular writers in the Big Finish stable, and has also written print fiction for official Doctor Who annuals and short story collections. A Day In The Death was his first professional TV script. Guest star Richard Briers appeared as the evil Chief Caretaker in Sylvester McCoy’s second story as the Doctor, Paradise Towers, in 1987; at least here he didn’t have to act next to any enormous neon eyeballs.

LogBook entry by Earl Green