Children Of Earth: Day Two
Even as Gwen and Ianto escape from a massive blast that destroys the Torchwood hub – with Jack inside – and most of Roald Dahl Plass with it, snipers and government agents posing as paramedics are waiting to pick them off. Gwen goes home to get Rhys and go underground; Ianto winds up more exposed and less armed. Mr. Dekker pays a visit to Frobisher, with a translation of the compressed message from the 456: it contains detailed specifications for a device of unknown function, and a very short timetable for completing its construction. The government operatives locate Jack’s body – or what’s left of it – in the ruins of the hub, and they gather the pieces. Astonishingly, Jack’s remains reform into a full body and he is resurrected yet again. Gwen tries to call Frobisher’s office, but instead finds herself talking to Lois; Lois arranges a clandestine meeting with Gwen, and warns her that Frobisher himself has ordered Torchwood’s elimination. Gwen and Rhys infiltrate a military complex where the revived Jack has been trapped alive in solid concrete. As it happens, Ianto has also tracked down where Jack has been taken to, and mounts his own rescue attempt just as Gwen and Rhys are trapped, also saving them in the process. The world’s children deliver a new message – “we are coming tomorrow” – as construction of the unknown device is rushed to completion atop the MI-5 building, and Mr. Dekker tests it: an environment chamber for the 456. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, the specifications for this chamber have only been sent to the British government. Without the resources of the hub, and marked for death, Torchwood has less than a day to find out who is coming, why they’re coming – and how to fight back.
written by John Fay
directed by Euros Lyn
music by Ben FosterCast: John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), Peter Capaldi (John Frobisher), Paul Copley (Clement McDonald), Nicholas Farrell (Brian Green), Susan Brown (Bridget Spears), Lucy Cohu (Alice Carter), Ian Gelder (Mr. Dekker), Tom Price (PC Andy), Cush Jumbo (Lois Habiba), Liz May Brice (Johnson), Katy Wix (Rhiannon Davies), Rhodri Lewis (Johnny Davies), Hillary Maclean (Anna Frobisher), Luke Perry (David Davies), Aimee Davies (Mica Davies), Bear McCausland (Steven Carter), Julia Joyce (Holly Frobisher), Madeleine Rakic-Platt (Lilly Frobisher), Gregory Ferguson (young Clem), Simon Poland (456 voice), Ashley Hunt (Recovery worker), Osi Okerafor (Kodak), Emmanuel Ighadaro (Paramedic), Robert Shelly (Sentry), Quill Roberts (Guard), Fay McDonald (Mother), Louise Minchin (Newsreader), Libby Liburd (Barmaid)
Note: This episode depicts the most critical damage that Captain Jack has been seen to endure (prior to this, the record appeared to be held by numerous point-blank blasts from Dalek weapons). He can apparently survive dismemberment, as what’s left of him is said to be “an arm, a shoulder, and part of a head.”
LogBook entry by Earl Green
Various companions of the Doctor recount their adventures with him. Professor Bernice Summerfield recalls her second adventure with the Doctor’s eighth incarnation, while the redoubtable (and irrepressible) Fitz Kreiner looks back on an adventure in which he had to become the hero of the hour. Comic-collecting companion Izzy tries to use time travel to add an elusive back issue to her comic collection, with disastrous results, and finally, much later in his own timeline, a grievously wounded Doctor arrives on the doorstep of an august gathering of 19th century literary luminaries. But since many of them are noted for writing early horror fiction, will they nurse him back to health… or consider him a freak upon whom to run their own macabre experiments?
The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Lucie to Paris for a night on the town, but turbulence in the time vortex alters the date of their arrival, and the two time travelers beome separated in Nazi-occupied wartime Paris. The Doctor draws the attention of the Gestapo patrols, while Lucie is forced to begin her career on the theatre stage run by the eccentric – and very, very non-human – family Baroque. These goatlike creatures have the technology to disguise themselves as humans, but why hide at the epicenter of one of human history’s most violent conflicts? And why must their grotesque show go on each night, climaxing with the grisly death of one of their own? In the meantime, the Doctor is accused by the Nazis of being an enemy spy with a top-secret aircraft capable of disguising itself. The Doctor finds this notion amusing, until he realizes that he can’t locate the TARDIS either…
In August 2010, Wikus Van De Merwe’s life changes forever. He is chosen to head up the effort by MNU to relocate a population of aliens to a new settlement. Since their ship appeared in 1982 in the sky over Johannesburg, South Africa, the aliens – generally known by the racial slur “prawn” – have been corraled into an inner city ghetto known as District 9. Johannesburg’s human residents have finally railed against the aliens enough that a very expensive and very risky resettlement has been undertaken. During the search of one alien residence in District 9, Wikus is exposed to some sort of seemingly makeshift biological weapon. Initially it only makes him nauseous, but within 36 hours of his exposure, he’s no longer entirely human. This is of particular interest to MNU, which is also one of the world’s largest arms dealers, and has long been frustrated by the inability of any human to use the aliens’ advanced weaponry. Wikus demonstrates – under duress – that he is the first human who can activate the aliens’ weapons. This makes him a hot property at MNU – though his employers now want to dissect him so they can corner the market on alien weapons, even if it means genetically re-engineering those who will wield them. Wikus is left with no choice but to escape, and now the only place where he has any hope of hiding is District 9 itself…but neither fully human nor fully alien, friends and allies will be hard to come by.
Blood and Earth: On the planet Auron, the cloned Cally “sisters” are plentiful, but when an aircraft crash leaves one Cally stranded in the woods, out of telepathic communication range and alone, the only voice she can hear in her mind to stave off despair and insanity is that of a woman claiming to be one of the very first Cally clones. With help from “Aunty”, Ariane Cally overcomes her lack of innate survival skills, and she surprises her benefactor by revealing that while she make lack basic outdoor survival knowledge, she can make up for it with ruthlessness.
In the aftermath of their fateful visit to near-future Manchester, the Doctor and Charley are at odds – the Time Lord doesn’t trust his companion’s story about not remembering her past, and she remains frustratingly tight-lipped. But before they can continue their conversation any further, Charley falls ill, and the Doctor is forced to take her to the TARDIS’ Zero Room to stabilize her. She has contracted some kind of virus, and the Doctor sets the TARDIS on a course for the Amethyst Viral Containment Station, a massive space station devoted to preserving – in complete isolation – samples of every virus known to exist; if the cure for Charley’s illness can be found anywhere, it will be here. But shortly after the time travelers arrive at Amethyst, each of them faces a dilemma. Charley isn’t alone in her own mind, which is now being shared with a chatty being named Mila, who claims that she has been with the Doctor, in noncorporeal form, since his first incarnation. And the Doctor is horrified to discover that two invasion forces are converging on Amethyst: a Dalek strike force seeking ammunition for viral warfare, and a Viyran ship whose crew will stop at nothing to stop the Daleks’ mission. Anyone caught in the crossfire is unlikely to find mercy. And Charley is losing the battle for control of her own mind and body…
The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Lucie to a space city which, according to the TARDIS sensors, is devoid of life. That doesn’t mean it’s completely uninhabited, however – the time travelers are quickly cornered by a band of marauding robots. A barrier separates the two, allowing Lucie to escape to safety, while the Doctor has to talk his way out of danger with a little help from his sonic screwdriver and a helpful cleaning robot who hasn’t joined his savage brethren. Lucie finds herself in the company of the Assemblers, a band of elder robots so pacifistic that they’re in constant danger from the Cannibalists, the all-consuming robots who see any other robot or life form as a source of spare parts. In the middle of the seemingly endless conflict between these two groups are Servo, a meek maintenance droid who simply wants to carry on the work of tending to the city’s needs, and Minerva, an access point for the city itself who could grant immense power to anyone, even to the point of resetting the entire system. Soon, the race is on to see who can control Minerva and rule the city… and the Doctor isn’t sure that either group has earned that power.
Christmas, 2009: retired UNIT Captain Mike Yates spots a classified ad seeking a retired Army captain with experience in dealing with alien threats. With an uneasy feeling that the ad was written specifically to catch his attention, Mike responds, visiting an isolated country cottage called the Nest. Here he finds a stern housekeeper, Mrs. Wibbsey, and the Doctor. The house is filled to the brim with examples of the art of taxidermy, but Mike is startled to learn that the dead animals return to life at night, ready to kill. Demanding an explanation from the Doctor, he learns that some force has reanimated the creatures to use them as pawns for a sinister plan. The Doctor, at great personal risk, has isolated all of the dead creatures in his cottage, using the TARDIS’ dimensional stabilizer to surround the house with a force field and using his own psychic abilities to keep the undead animals docile. But this has also trapped the mind behind the evil plan – a hive-mind swarm of alien hornets – near the house with him. And now Yates is trapped there as well…
The Doctor receives a summons from the Red Emperor of Draconia for an important state event; the TARDIS materializes and the Doctor discovers that the occasion is the Emperor’s own funeral and a vigil held in advance of the announcement of his successor. The time travelers haven’t even arrived on Draconia itself, but rather in the spaceborne tomb of the late Emperor, floating alongside the tombs of previous rulers of Draconia in deep space. Others are in the Emperor’s tomb as well: his late wife (and high priestess), his son (presumably heir to the throne), a lowly fisherman, a mercenary, and most alarmingly, the recently-murdered prefect who had come to deliver the decree of succession which would reveal the identity of the next Emperor. With aliens and commoners at odds with the nobles and their usual court intrigue, nerves are frayed and tempers flare. But elsewhere in this tomb lies an even deadlier threat – a dark secret that has outlived every Emperor of Draconia, and may now outlive everyone aboard the Emperor’s tomb, including the Doctor and Charley.
The Doctor and Lucie visit Earth a few years into Lucie’s future, at a time when a new religion called the Eightfold Truth has gained a foothold in Britain. The Doctor goes to assist scientists with a space probe that has mysteriously gone silent, while Lucie goes shopping and encounters her old nemesis, Karen, last seen with the Headhunter. Karen has joined the Eightfold Truth and says it has turned her life around, and at her urging, Lucie goes along to meet the other members of the Truth… and with the help of a blue crystal, they somehow make Lucie “realize” that her travels with the Doctor have been aimless, without purpose, and perhaps even part of a larger, sinister plan on the Doctor’s part. She turns her back on the Time Lord, though he’s not aware of the Eightfold Truth until he sees a TV interview with a journalist who hopes her new book will expose the movement as a cult built on a fraud. Gradually, the Doctor realizes that there’s a link between the Eightfold Truth and the failed space probe – and it’s only then that he discovers that Lucie has joined the Truth. Within that religious movement, an alien presence is gathering the power it will need to take over Earth… an old enemy who is working for an even older enemy of the Doctor, setting a trap for humanity and its constant defender.