'Children of Earth' (Part 1: 'Day One') by Russell T Davies

“We. Are. Coming.” – the children of Earth

Scotland, 1965: a school bus takes a group of children out into the countryside at night, where they walk into a bright white light and disappear…

Cardiff, the Present: Gwen is in the high street when she witnesses a number of children behaving oddly, all standing stock still and unresponsive. All across the country other children on their way to school suddenly just stop…only to return to normal minutes later, completely oblivious of their strange behaviour. As Gwen heads for the deserted Torchwood Hub to begin researching the phenomenon, Jack and Ianto are already busy at St. Helen’s Hospital, posing as a couple who have just brought in a patient for emergency treatment. When the doctor, Rupesh Patanjali, is unable to save the man’s life, Jack and Ianto ask to be alone with the patient’s body – but only so that they can cut open the corpse and extract an alien life form from within. When Rupesh sees what is happening he instantly deduces that the couple are from Torchwood, and he informs them of a number of bodies that have mysteriously vanished over the last few weeks. At the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, the Permanent Secretary, John Frobisher, arrives at his office to find an unexpected visit from Colonel Oduya of U.N.I.T., who informs him that every child in the world stopped at precisely 8.40 a.m. G.M.T. Returning to the Hub, Jack and Ianto learn the same information from Gwen; Jack tries contacting U.N.I.T., but his contact, Martha Jones, is away on honeymoon. Seeing Rupesh on the C.C.T.V. hanging around outside, Gwen realises that her colleagues have deliberately allowed the doctor to follow them so that they can recruit him. Gwen goes outside to introduce herself to the doctor, and together they have a chat over coffee about Torchwood and aliens; but their conversation is soon curtailed when all the children in the Bay Area once again stop. The same happens all over the world, but this time, the children all scream in unison and then chant the words “we are coming” – a sentence repeated by a single, elderly man in a nursing home in East Grinstead… When the children return to normal as if nothing has happened, Jack, Ianto and Gwen race back to the Hub, leaving Rupesh to return to St. Helen’s to answer his pager. In London, Frobisher’s Personal Assistant, Bridget Spears, and her new junior, Lois Habiba, struggle to field the calls now flooding the Home Office. Frobisher receives a visit from M.I.5 technical expert Dekker, who warns him that the “456” have returned. Jack finally gets through to the Home Office and gives Lois a message to pass on to the Permanent Secretary; when this triggers an internal security alert on Lois’ PC her interest is piqued, and she uses Bridget’s username and password to access the department’s files, and learns of Torchwood’s remit to counter extraterrestrial threat. Dekker takes Frobisher to an office located beneath Thames House, where an ancient monitoring system has recently recorded a burst of compressed information broadcast on frequency 456; the Permanent Secretary decides that it is time he informed the Prime Minister.... With the aid of the internet, Jack, Gwen and Ianto realise that all the ‘stopped’ children have been speaking in English; learning that Timothy White, the patient at the Duke of York Psychiatric Hospital in East Grinstead, was also affected, Gwen immediately drives off to talk to him. Frobisher visits the Prime Minister, Brian Green, and briefs him on the situation; refusing to be complicit in a cover up over the events of 1965, the P.M. appoints all responsibility to the Permanent Secretary to ensure his plausible deniability. With Torchwood requiring a child for observation, Jack pays a visit to his daughter, Alice Carter; it is an awkward reunion, and Alice easily sees through her father’s words to his real motive to gain access to his grandson Stephen. Meanwhile, Ianto visits his sister Rhiannon and her two children, Micha and David, but things don’t go to plan: Rhiannon refuses to allow her children to leave the house, preferring instead to quiz her brother on his relationship with Jack; then Ianto’s brother-in-law, Johnny, arrives with the news that the Torchwood SUV has been stolen by yobs from the estate. Gwen arrives at the Duke of York Hospital, where a nurse tells her that Timothy has been in care ever since he was found wandering the streets of Leeds at the age of eleven. After earning Timothy’s trust Gwen learns of the events of 1965, and how he fled in terror while the rest of the kids from his orphanage were abducted. Timothy reveals that his real name is Clement MacDonald, and that his heightened sense of smell tells him the aliens are returning – and that Gwen is three weeks pregnant. Reeling from the news, a shocked Gwen contacts Ianto at the Hub and instructs him to run a search on Clem; they are unaware that their conversation has been bugged, and has triggered a ‘red flag’ in Westminster. Frobisher instructs Bridget to carry out some top-secret instructions; Lois is intrigued, and when she accesses her superior’s computer account she finds an email order to kill several key personnel – including Captain Jack Harkness. Meanwhile, Jack receives a call from Doctor Rupesh informing him of the appearance of another suspicious corpse; but when Jack arrives at the hospital, Rupesh promptly pulls out a gun and shoots him in the back. As a squad of soldiers arrives and seals off the building, Rupesh complains to their commanding officer, Johnson, on how his mission to infiltrate Torchwood been changed; the woman ignores him, as she is busy cutting open Jack’s stomach and implanting something inside… At the Duke of York Hospital, Clem’s sense of smell alerts him to the arrival of a squad of soldiers, and he runs for his life. Back in London, Johnson orders her troops to leave and then shoots Rupesh in cold blood, leaving his body next to Jack as part of her plan. When Jack returns to life with no recollection of the events that led to his and Rupesh’s death, he immediately rushes back to Torchwood – unaware that he is being followed by soldiers. Arriving at the Hub, Jack learns that Ianto has tracked down records of Clem’s orphanage in Scotland, and that Gwen has used the medical scanner to confirm her pregnancy. Jack and Ianto are overjoyed at Gwen’s news – until Jack clasps Gwen’s hand and the medical scanner detects a bomb hidden inside his abdomen. As Torchwood’s security system counts down the seconds until the device’s detonation, Jack urges his colleagues to safety. Racing outside, Gwen and Ianto only just reach the safety of Roald Dahl Plass before the bomb inside Jack explodes, blowing him to pieces and devastating the Hub. Then the children of Earth stop once more – and this time they chant “We are coming – again.”

John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), Peter Capaldi (John Frobisher), Paul Copley (Timothy White / Clement ‘Clem’ McDonald), Nicholas Farrell (Prime Minister Brian Green), Susan Brown (Bridget Spears), Lucy Cohu (Alice Carter), Ian Gelder (Mr Dekker), Cush Jumbo (Lois Habiba), Liz May Brice (Johnson), Charles Abomeli (Colonel Augustus Oduya), Rik Makarem (Doctor Rupesh Patanjali), Katy Wix (Rhiannon Davies), Rhodri Lewis (Johnny Davies), Hilary Maclean (Anna Frobisher), Anna Lawson (Nurse), Rachel Keriani (Parliamentary Secretary), Christopher James (Press Officer), Phylip Harries (Wales Taxi Driver), Ben Lloyd-Holmes (Operative), Luke Perry (David Davies), Aimee Davies (Mica Davies), Bear McCausland (Steven Carter), Julia Joyce (Holly Frobisher), Madeline Rakic-Platt (Lily Frobisher), Gregory Ferguson (Young Clem), Crisian Emmanuelle (Mother), Melanie Barker (Mother 2), Scott Bailey (Father)

Directed by Euros Lyn
Produced by Peter Bennett
Executive Producers Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1):
6th July 2009 @ 9:00 pm

Notes:
*Featuring Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones

*Unlike previous seasons, the episodes in Season Three have a running time of sixty minutes each, and were shown over five consectutive days

*This episode was simulcast in High Definition on the BBC's HD Channel