'Greeks Bearing Gifts' by Russell T Davies and Toby Whithouse

Cardiff, 1812: a young prostitute’s foray into the woods with a soldier ends in violence, and she is forced to flee for her life. Making for a strange light in the darkness ahead, the girl, Mary, encounters something unearthly – just as the soldier arrives and shoots her point blank with his pistol.

Now: the Torchwood team are called to a building site where digging has unearthed an ancient corpse; their arrival is watched by a young woman: Mary… Owen identifies the corpse as female, one-hundred and ninety-six years old, killed by a gunshot would to the heart; next to it lays a piece of alien technology, suggesting that the body is of alien origin. Annoyed by Owen and Gwen’s flirtatious behaviour during the investigation, Toshiko heads for a bar to unwind after work; here she meets Mary, who announces that she knows all about Tosh and Torchwood, having scavenged information from the most secret parts of the internet. Although initially suspicious, Tosh soon finds herself opening up to her new found friend, discussing details of her work and her own personal feelings. Flirting heavily, Mary gives Tosh a small pendant as a gift, which allows her to hear everyone’s innermost thoughts; the experience overwhelms Tosh, until Mary shows her how to control it. The next day, Tosh wears the pendant to work and listens to Owen and Gwen’s thoughts about each other – and their low opinions of her. Tosh is shaken, and after learning of Ianto’s emptiness following the death of Lisa, she takes off the device and heads home, only to find Mary waiting for her outside; Mary’s comforting words have an effect on Tosh, and she shocks herself by going to bed with the girl. Afterwards, Mary describes herself as “Philoctites”, and then offers to show Tosh how to use the pendant properly; Tosh puts on the device in a shopping arcade, and enjoys hearing the frivolous thoughts running through people’s heads – until she hears one particular man thinking of murder. The man, Neil, heads for his ex-wife’s house to collect his son, Danny; as his former partner ignores him and witters on, Neil pulls out a shotgun and prepares to kill his family – only to be knocked out from a blow to the head by Tosh. Owen’s announcement that he misdiagnosed the corpse is met with derision from his colleagues; the body is that of a man, who died from an unidentified trauma. Having learned from Jack that Philoctites was an archer in the Trojan War who was marooned on a remote island for ten years, Tosh meets with Mary for lunch; the young woman is pleased that Tosh is using the pendant for good, and rewards her actions with a kiss; however, Mary’s motives become questionable when she questions Tosh about the body, and then sows the seeds of dissent and suspicion about her colleagues. Learning of Tosh’s act of bravery from his police contacts, Jack wonders why she did not mention it to him; while he continues to examine the alien tech, Tosh tries to read Jack’s mind, but is disturbed to find she cannot. Tosh’s subsequent decision to give Torchwood the pendant forces Mary to reveal her true form: that of a beautiful, diaphanous alien creature. Mary explains that she was exiled to Earth as punishment for religious dissention; the pendant is her communications device, and the machine now at Torchwood her transporter; believing that a new, sympathetic government will have come into power since her exile, Mary needs to recover the device so that she can go home. Meanwhile, Owen determines that the corpse’s heart was ripped from its chest – and that a similar series of unexplained deaths has taken place over the last two centuries. Tosh agrees to help Mary retrieve the transporter from Torchwood, but as the two of them sneak into the Hub they are met by Jack – his suspicions had been aroused by Tosh’s recent uncharacteristic behaviour, and he has been waiting for their arrival. Aware that the transporter was a two-man device, Jack confronts Mary over the whereabouts of her guard; the alien reveals that she killed her captor and then took over the body of Mary, and when the soldier’s pistol failed to stop her, she ripped out his heart and consumed it – something she has continued to do for food ever since. Tosh is appalled, and fails to stop Mary from grabbing her and holding a knife to her throat; Owen and Gwen attempt to stop Mary from killing their friend, but Tosh reads their thoughts with the pendant and stops them from trying to tackle her deadly alien captor. Jack agrees to exchange the device for Tosh, and gives Mary the transporter; however, as Mary activates the device, Jack reveals that he reprogrammed its coordinates – sending Mary to her death in the centre of the sun. Some time later, Owen and Gwen struggle with the fact that Tosh now knows their darkest secrets, particularly Gwen, now wracked with guilt at her betrayal of Rhys. Although Tosh realises that the device was a blessing as well as a curse, as it allowed her to see herself in a different way, she also knows that it could be dangerous in the wrong hands; as Jack looks on, Tosh crushes the pendant to pieces beneath her heel.

John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Burn Gorman (Owen Harper), Naoko Mori (Toshiko Sato), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Daniela Denby-Ashe (Mary), Tom Robertson (Soldier), Ravin J. Ganetra (Neil), Eiry Thomas (Carol), Shaheen Jafargholi (Danny), Paul Kasey (Weevil)

Directed by Colin Teague
Produced by Richard Stokes
Executive Producers Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC3):
Sunday 26th November 2006 @ 10.00 pm
(BBC2 TX: Wednesday 29th November @ 9.00 pm)

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