'Adam' by Catherine Tregenna

Arriving at the Hub one morning, Gwen is surprised to see a stranger amongst the team: a good-looking man named Adam Smith, whom everyone appears to be treating like an old teammate. When Adam touches her shoulder Gwen is immediately infused with false memories – and then she too treats him like an old friend… The Torchwood team have all been altered by Adam’s fake memories: a more confident Toshiko believes she and Adam have been in a year-long relationship; Owen is now a nerd hopelessly in love with Tosh; and Jack is disturbed by visions of a mysterious young boy. Returning home Gwen believes Rhys is a stalker who has broken into her home; holding him at gunpoint she calls Jack and Adam for help, only to learn that her prisoner is in fact her fiancé. As they take Gwen back to the Hub for tests, Jack promises an incredulous Rhys that he will make things right. When Owen’s examinations prove fruitless, Jack tries to trigger Gwen’s memory by asking Rhys to recount incidents of their time together; however, Gwen is only able to recall vague impressions of her past… Having determined that the Rift opened recently, but that nothing came through, Tosh asks Owen to help open an old wooden puzzle-box amongst Torchwood's unclassified artefacts; however, the object stubbornly remains locked. After seeing the image of the young boy once again, Jack heads off to investigate a Weevil sighting in the city sewers; but while searching the tunnels he sees another apparition, this time of his late father. Returning to the surface in shock, Jack meets Adam, who immediately alters Jack’s memories to make him believe he accompanied him. Playing on Jack’s emotions, Adam coerces his colleague into relating the painful memories he is now experiencing; Jack recounts an incident during his childhood, when his community at the Boeshane Peninsula was under attack from alien invaders: Jack’s father told him to take his brother, Gray, to safety, but in the confusion the two boys became separated, and Jack has been searching for his lost sibling ever since… Back at the Hub, Owen’s admission of his love for Tosh is met with anger and revulsion – his colleague only has eyes for Adam. Checking his diary, Ianto is puzzled to finds no mention of Adam; however, before he can tell Jack and the others, Adam appears out of thin air and implants a harrowing series of memories in Ianto’s mind, forcing him to believe he murdered and raped three women. Satisfied with his work, Adam leaves to spend the night with Tosh. The following morning, Jack returns to the Hub to find a traumatised Ianto begging to be locked up for his crimes; immediately suspicious, Jack replays the base’s CCTV recordings and sees footage of Adam manipulating his team’s memories – everything they believed is a lie: instead of working with Torchwood for three years, Adam has only been with them for twenty-four hours… Tosh arrives with Adam, and is surprised by Owen’s gift of apologetic flowers; Gwen joins them, now feeling much better after making up for lost time with Rhys. When Jack holds a gun to Adam’s head and demands an explanation Tosh is incredulous; she pulls a gun on her boss, but is promptly disarmed by Ianto. Locking Adam in a cell, Jack listens as he insists that he only altered their memories in order to survive; Adam is an alien that feeds off painful memories, and believes his actions have made everyone better than they were before. Using hypnosis, Jack attempts to restore Ianto, Tosh, Owen and Gwen to their proper selves by helping them relive a special memory that defines them; as Gwen thinks of Rhys, Owen of his unloving mother, Tosh of living alone, and Ianto of his late girlfriend, Lisa, they all reaffirm the special place in their hearts they hold for Jack. Having given everyone short-term amnesia pills to forget the last forty-eight hours, Jack confronts Adam. Playing for sympathy, Adam explains that he lived in the Void until the richness of Jack’s memories drew him to Earth; he then offers to retrieve Jack’s last good memory of his father, before he was killed in the attack. However, as Jack recalls the happy time he and Gray played ball with their father on the beach, Adam corrupts events by placing himself inside the memory; he then promises to give back the real memory upon his release. Knowing that he cannot allow Adam to go free, Jack takes an amnesia pill, and as he slips into unconsciousness, he watches as the alien infiltrator dissipates into nothingness. The following morning, Jack awakes to discover that neither he nor his team have any recollection of the last two days. Finding a puzzle box inside a plastic bag curiously labelled “Adam”, Jack unlocks it with the accompanying key – but all he finds inside is sand…

John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Burn Gorman (Owen Harper), Naoko Mori (Toshiko Sato), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), Bryan Dick (Adam Smith), Demetri Goritsas (Jack's Father [Franklin]), Lauren Ward (Jack's Mother), Jack Mongomery (Young Jack), Ethan Brooke (Gray), Rhys Myers (Young Adam), Paul Kasey (Weevil), Jo McLaren (Murdered Woman)

Directed by Andy Goddard
Produced by Richard Stokes and Chris Chibnall
Executive Producers Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC2):
13th February 2008 @ 9.00 pm

Notes:
*Featuring Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato and Ianto Jones

*Working title: 'Memory Adam'

*Shots of Adam were included in the standard title sequence

*This episode was repeated as a specially-edited pre-watershed version the following day, on BBC2 at 7.00 pm