WEBVTT NOTE This transcript was created on 2026-06-07 at 09:15:51 1 00:00:33.420 --> 00:00:37.320 Hello, dear listener and welcome back to 500 Year Diary. 2 00:00:37.380 --> 00:00:43.619 The only Doctor Who podcast with no children, except that Daft sod who keeps dropping his phone in the sea. 3 00:00:43.679 --> 00:00:45.719 I'm Nathan. 4 00:00:46.140 --> 00:00:46.560 I am Adam. 5 00:00:46.619 --> 00:00:47.520 I'm James. 6 00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:48.539 And I'm Peter. 7 00:00:48.600 --> 00:00:52.560 It's Monday, the 6th of July, 2009. 8 00:00:52.799 --> 00:01:03.539 It's been just over a year since Owen and Tosh died on BBC 2 and just over 2 years and 8 months since Gwen 1st met Jack over on BBC 3. 9 00:01:03.840 --> 00:01:20.700 But tonight at 9 p.m. on BBC One, Torchwood will become a massive television event, as nearly 6000000 people tune in to watch, as Earth's children deliver a terrifying alien message, and as torchwood blows itself to smithereens. 10 00:01:20.760 --> 00:01:24.840 It's time to watch Torchwood, Children of Earth, day one. 11 00:01:40.079 --> 00:01:49.379 So, we've done one episode, I think, of Torchwood on 500 year diary, and I have no idea how we all feel about it. 12 00:01:49.439 --> 00:01:52.920 So what's your feeling about tortured, Adam? 13 00:01:52.980 --> 00:01:56.099 I enjoyed it up to a point. 14 00:01:56.159 --> 00:01:58.019 I felt like it was. 15 00:01:58.019 --> 00:01:59.939 Was that .2 minutes into episode one? 16 00:02:00.659 --> 00:02:03.900 Maybe about 15. more generous than you. 17 00:02:03.959 --> 00:02:09.360 No, I think it was, like, it kept being sold to me as Doctor Who for grownups. 18 00:02:09.419 --> 00:02:14.639 Yeah, because it was going to have, you know, violence and sex and they were going to swear maybe. 19 00:02:14.759 --> 00:02:29.039 And it ended up being Doctor Who for adolescents, who were had far too many hormones, way too obsessed with sex and no real idea of what to do with themselves as an adult. 20 00:02:29.099 --> 00:02:30.719 So a male Doctor Who fan then? 21 00:02:32.099 --> 00:02:36.719 I mean, it was also kind of like unpleasantly nasty in places. 22 00:02:36.780 --> 00:02:41.699 Yes. and I'm picking things like countryside. and what's that one with the screaming adult? 23 00:02:43.439 --> 00:02:45.539 adult who just screams all the time. 24 00:02:45.599 --> 00:02:47.580 Anyway, doesn't matter. 25 00:02:47.639 --> 00:02:52.080 Like, there were a couple of cute episodes, like the one where the people were out of time. 26 00:02:52.139 --> 00:02:53.400 That was really sweet. 27 00:02:53.460 --> 00:02:55.199 Isn't that called Out of Time? 28 00:02:56.819 --> 00:03:00.599 It kind of shows it shows you how much we can remember. 29 00:03:00.659 --> 00:03:01.379 I know. 30 00:03:01.439 --> 00:03:04.680 I liked the Sex Gas Alien episode. 31 00:03:04.740 --> 00:03:07.080 The sex gas alien episode. 32 00:03:07.139 --> 00:03:12.419 Was that was that the one that was literally an Eddie Murphy routine come to line? 33 00:03:12.539 --> 00:03:16.560 Which he used to do this thing during the AIDS crisis. 34 00:03:16.620 --> 00:03:17.460 It was 1983. 35 00:03:17.639 --> 00:03:18.360 He goes, what happens next? 36 00:03:18.419 --> 00:03:19.979 You just stick your dick in and explode? 37 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:23.939 And then that became a whole plot in torture. 38 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:25.560 I'm like, Jesus, that is thin. 39 00:03:25.620 --> 00:03:29.039 It is also called day one, like this episode. 40 00:03:29.099 --> 00:03:31.379 Isn't that the episode we did? 41 00:03:31.979 --> 00:03:34.439 It's always that's everything changed. 42 00:03:34.500 --> 00:03:35.280 Everything changes. 43 00:03:35.340 --> 00:03:45.060 My feelings on Torchwood are that like anything that pitches itself as more adult and more serious, it inevitably ends up as more camp. as like series D of Lake 7. 44 00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:48.000 We're going to be all gun as, no, it's impossibly camp. 45 00:03:48.060 --> 00:03:59.879 And I think, I do appreciate that aspect of torchwood, but it's also not interesting enough, I think, as a concept or in the bunch of characters that they assemble to really sustain that. 46 00:03:59.939 --> 00:04:13.979 And so I was pretty well astonished coming into children of Earth, how little we miss Owen and Tosh, you are not terrible characters, but you realise they didn't actually add anything apart from being part of the gang. 47 00:04:14.099 --> 00:04:16.439 Yeah, I missed Susie the most. 48 00:04:16.500 --> 00:04:18.120 She's gone in episode one. 49 00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:19.139 Yeah. 50 00:04:19.199 --> 00:04:20.879 Indira Varma. 51 00:04:20.939 --> 00:04:25.439 Yeah, I mean, Andy Pryor is a spectacular casting director. 52 00:04:25.500 --> 00:04:31.800 Like, I did not know half of the people who were in this 1st episode, but like, I didn't know Kush Jumbo was in it. 53 00:04:31.860 --> 00:04:34.860 And she's one of my favourite actors of all time now. 54 00:04:34.920 --> 00:04:36.660 Love her in the good fight. 55 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:38.579 She's the best in the good fight. 56 00:04:38.639 --> 00:04:39.180 She's so good. 57 00:04:39.240 --> 00:04:42.420 She's wonderful in this. she's great in this. 58 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:51.000 And also, you know, I didn't realise the series she does on Apple TV with Peter Capoldi was a reunion. used to be his secretary. 59 00:04:52.319 --> 00:04:54.899 But yeah, it's things like that. 60 00:04:54.959 --> 00:04:57.420 People like who turn up and you're like, 0 my god. 61 00:04:57.480 --> 00:04:59.579 Has this person always been around? 62 00:04:59.639 --> 00:05:04.019 And I have to say, like, the woman who plays Yanto's sister, Rhiannon? 63 00:05:04.079 --> 00:05:06.180 I think is astonishingly great. 64 00:05:06.300 --> 00:05:10.800 And the woman who plays Jack's daughter, Alice. 65 00:05:10.860 --> 00:05:11.639 Oh my god. 66 00:05:11.699 --> 00:05:13.199 Both of them are so rustly. 67 00:05:13.259 --> 00:05:14.040 Yes. 68 00:05:14.100 --> 00:05:15.000 Yeah, yeah. 69 00:05:15.060 --> 00:05:15.839 They've written. 70 00:05:15.959 --> 00:05:22.259 I mean, you know, Russell Wright's good kitchen sink and his best scenes are around kitchen sinks in this episode. 71 00:05:22.439 --> 00:05:27.779 Like, frankly, they're just the ones that make you actually have hair standing up on your arm. 72 00:05:27.839 --> 00:05:29.699 You're like, oh, it's real. 73 00:05:29.759 --> 00:05:30.540 It's people. 74 00:05:30.600 --> 00:05:33.360 It's average, everyday people are being affected by this. 75 00:05:33.420 --> 00:05:46.920 Actually, can I just say, I think that's what Torchwood, up until this point, broadly has been missing, is kind of the actual intimate to hand the scenes of people talking about life as opposed to the science fiction threat of the week. 76 00:05:46.980 --> 00:05:53.819 And I think, really, you can only contrast that as being the different approaches of Chris Chipnell and Russell T. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 77 00:05:53.879 --> 00:06:05.579 I mean, I think actually perhaps the most grown up thing about children of Earth, which is vastly more grown up than series one and 2 of Torchwood is that it has children in it. 78 00:06:05.639 --> 00:06:12.360 And having children in Doctor Who is controversial and we know people who absolutely hate it. 79 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:14.639 Right here. 80 00:06:15.360 --> 00:06:20.279 That's why we hide them off and put them into their own show and try and kill them all. 81 00:06:20.339 --> 00:06:21.360 Yeah, yeah, that's right. 82 00:06:21.420 --> 00:06:31.740 But for me, you know, the worst thing I think about classic Doctor Who is at times it is just the story of men at work meeting aliens. 83 00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:33.660 And so children are excluded from that. 84 00:06:33.720 --> 00:06:55.199 But in fact, the experience of having children and being responsible for them, the experience of loving a child, of sitting awake at night, you know, remembering that your job is to keep this child alive until the next day, all of that stuff, which I don't know, none of us have experienced here. 85 00:06:55.259 --> 00:07:00.360 But is, you know, an important part of adulthood for most people. 86 00:07:00.420 --> 00:07:02.819 And it's interesting. 87 00:07:02.879 --> 00:07:08.160 I think that this show that children of earth lands very differently for people who have children. 88 00:07:08.220 --> 00:07:12.240 See also space babies, which does a similar thing. 89 00:07:12.300 --> 00:07:14.279 Well, you say lands. 90 00:07:15.899 --> 00:07:26.699 You know, I think part of what made this episode so terrifying is how children are used as the horror. 91 00:07:26.759 --> 00:07:29.399 Like, they're suddenly all joined up. 92 00:07:29.459 --> 00:07:36.540 They're suddenly screaming and chanting and for people like us and many Doctor Who fans. 93 00:07:37.019 --> 00:07:41.040 That is terrifying because children symbolise our friends being taken away from us. 94 00:07:44.639 --> 00:07:46.860 Isn't that just children? 95 00:07:46.920 --> 00:07:48.120 Yeah, exactly. 96 00:07:48.120 --> 00:07:49.800 They're all joined up and they're always screaming. 97 00:07:49.860 --> 00:07:56.579 It is true though, but like Russell's tapping into what it is to be a gay man and have all of your friends, all of your straight friends, especially. 98 00:07:56.639 --> 00:08:03.000 And now most of your gay friends as well be taken away by these screaming, needy creatures that want to be fed all the time. 99 00:08:03.060 --> 00:08:08.279 In fact, there's that shock of discovering that Jack has a child. as well. 100 00:08:08.339 --> 00:08:19.620 And because Jackson Mortal, in a way, he sort of opts out of the children thing because one thing terrifying that children do is that they replace you and they end up getting all your staff. 101 00:08:19.680 --> 00:08:22.139 And that's not going to happen to Jack. 102 00:08:22.199 --> 00:08:25.860 So in a way, he's got one foot in either camp. 103 00:08:25.920 --> 00:08:31.980 But we discover that Jack as a child, we discover that Gwen is pregnant during the course of this episode. 104 00:08:32.039 --> 00:08:33.899 And you're right. 105 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:43.320 That thing about children, like it's a little bit like the mid-itch cuckoos, which obviously this is in some way kind of riffing on, that children are actually kind of terrifying. 106 00:08:43.379 --> 00:08:49.980 I mean, I'll stand in a year 7 Latin class with sort of, you know, 24, 12 year olds in front of me. 107 00:08:50.039 --> 00:08:51.779 And if they all decide to rush me. 108 00:08:51.840 --> 00:08:52.620 Do you know what I mean? 109 00:08:52.740 --> 00:08:55.799 I'm not sure there's much I could do about it Really? 110 00:08:55.799 --> 00:08:59.879 It's also visually the midage cuckoos, well, village of the dam. 111 00:08:59.940 --> 00:09:00.720 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 112 00:09:00.779 --> 00:09:02.279 Most of those kids are blonde. 113 00:09:02.340 --> 00:09:03.659 Yeah, and white. 114 00:09:03.779 --> 00:09:10.919 No, when you said about your kids rushing you, all I could think of was that scene in Blake 7's, the web, where the decimas were. 115 00:09:14.039 --> 00:09:15.960 I was seeing weapons. 116 00:09:16.860 --> 00:09:20.519 Which is riffing on suddenly last summer. 117 00:09:27.720 --> 00:09:32.220 I mean, the children are absolutely terrifying. 118 00:09:32.279 --> 00:09:43.919 And one of the things about this story, I think, which makes it very, very different from Torchwood series one and two, is how immediately cinematic it is. 119 00:09:43.980 --> 00:09:59.340 And because torch would generally is like small things happening in corners of Cardiff and stuff. to suddenly have a aliens of London style worldwide crisis involving children. 120 00:09:59.399 --> 00:10:00.539 Just opens it out. 121 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:04.200 And one of the things that, you know, the 1st episode of Torchwood does. 122 00:10:04.259 --> 00:10:06.840 It has a couple of scenes. 123 00:10:06.899 --> 00:10:10.860 Television will tend to have a scene in a place and then move to another plane, right? 124 00:10:10.919 --> 00:10:12.659 But these intercuts between people. 125 00:10:12.720 --> 00:10:18.720 So we see Lois and Frobisher arrive at work in the morning and we intercart between them. 126 00:10:18.779 --> 00:10:25.080 When the children start talking in unison, we see shots of Stephen at school. 127 00:10:25.139 --> 00:10:27.419 We see shots of David and Misha at school. 128 00:10:27.480 --> 00:10:34.980 We see other schools that we don't know the children in because it's sort of happening all over England as well at the same time. 129 00:10:35.039 --> 00:10:37.500 And so the scale of it. 130 00:10:37.559 --> 00:10:43.679 Just the way it's shot and the way it's told is much, much more cinematic, I think, than torchwood has tended to be. 131 00:10:43.740 --> 00:10:50.399 Yeah, except it's still kind of stuck in that let's fill a 169 frame with someone's entire head. 132 00:10:50.460 --> 00:10:51.600 Yeah, yeah. 133 00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:54.000 Because your television is a small thing. 134 00:10:54.059 --> 00:10:56.100 It's like, no, no, my television is the size of my room. 135 00:10:56.159 --> 00:10:59.220 Yeah, and I don't really need to look up Gwen's nostrils. 136 00:11:00.419 --> 00:11:02.279 In HD. 137 00:11:02.340 --> 00:11:05.700 That's the way that Russell does alien invasion. 138 00:11:05.759 --> 00:11:06.539 Yeah, yeah. 139 00:11:06.600 --> 00:11:11.879 So all throughout the 1st 4 series of New Doctor Who, which had preceded this. 140 00:11:12.059 --> 00:11:16.080 Anytime you get an alien invasion, then you have those kind of worldwide implications. 141 00:11:16.139 --> 00:11:17.100 Yeah, Trinity Wells. 142 00:11:17.100 --> 00:11:20.879 Yeah, Trinity Wells to pop up commenting on it. 143 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:26.460 I think you can make it worldwide without leaning into the camp when there's an existential horror. 144 00:11:26.519 --> 00:11:27.120 Yes. 145 00:11:27.120 --> 00:11:30.299 And as you correctly pointed out, the loss of children is that. 146 00:11:30.360 --> 00:11:34.980 And it has, I mean, we can feel it, even though none of us have children that we know of. 147 00:11:35.039 --> 00:11:42.779 And it leans into that kind of every, everyday thing that happens where you learn about children being taken. 148 00:11:42.840 --> 00:11:49.679 So we've learnt in recent years about Russia abducting Ukrainian children and taking them to Russia. 149 00:11:49.679 --> 00:11:54.480 When I was in South Korea a couple of years ago, I went to the Museum of the War there. 150 00:11:54.539 --> 00:12:05.220 And it was astonishing how many people, like 100s of 1000s of people, including children, were abducted and taken to the north when the north invaded at the start of the 1950s. 151 00:12:05.279 --> 00:12:08.519 And I think there's something absolutely horrific about that. 152 00:12:08.580 --> 00:12:17.639 And when you get a big high concept like that, which people react viscerally to, it sets the stage for something that feels important and global. 153 00:12:17.940 --> 00:12:23.460 The other interesting thing is, of course, the 1st time the children stop, they just stop and they don't say anything. 154 00:12:23.519 --> 00:12:29.879 And none of the adults that we see interacting with the children actually notice it happening. 155 00:12:29.940 --> 00:12:31.980 Like, that's not quite right. 156 00:12:32.039 --> 00:12:40.259 When they 1st stop, obviously Gwen's getting money out of the ATM and she sees 2 children stopping and 2 parents kind of remonstrating with them. 157 00:12:40.379 --> 00:12:51.899 But when we go to the Frobisher's house and when we go to Alice's house and when we go to Rhiannon and Johnny's house, the Davies household, like no one actually notices them stop. 158 00:12:51.960 --> 00:12:56.100 And the fact that children are not expected to be the centre of this narrative and they aren't. 159 00:12:56.159 --> 00:12:58.860 Like there are no child characters in this. 160 00:12:58.860 --> 00:13:05.460 As such, there are children who are kind of backdrops or props or, you know, set dressing. 161 00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:09.960 And then suddenly, they get foregrounded in a really horrific way. 162 00:13:10.019 --> 00:13:14.159 But they are still kind of weirdly incomprehensible to us. 163 00:13:14.220 --> 00:13:18.779 Like we don't understand how they behave or why. 164 00:13:18.840 --> 00:13:23.460 The parents are kind of like suspect that the children are joking or playing a game. 165 00:13:23.519 --> 00:13:38.580 I like all of those various reactions from parents, including the best one, I thought, was, Yanto's sister, who sort of looks a bit askance at the 2 kids who then break out of the spell and she just kind of slightly rolls her eyes and goes on with things like that, playing a little game. 166 00:13:38.639 --> 00:13:39.659 Yeah. 167 00:13:39.720 --> 00:13:40.019 Yeah. 168 00:13:40.080 --> 00:13:42.059 They're often thought to be playing a game. 169 00:13:42.120 --> 00:13:49.740 And very frequently, when the 456 kind of drop the kids and and they stop being possessed, they go back and start playing. 170 00:13:49.799 --> 00:13:50.340 Yeah. 171 00:13:50.340 --> 00:13:50.580 Yeah. 172 00:13:50.639 --> 00:13:53.039 Like that's what they kind of... they've had no memory of it. 173 00:13:53.100 --> 00:13:54.179 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 174 00:13:54.240 --> 00:13:59.820 I feel like Russell's childhood is showing here and I think he was a fan of John Wyndham. 175 00:13:59.879 --> 00:14:03.299 Because as you said, the midwitch cuckoos. 176 00:14:03.360 --> 00:14:08.759 But also, I've just read The Kraken Wakes for the 1st time in like about 30 or 40 years. 177 00:14:08.820 --> 00:14:10.200 There you go. 178 00:14:10.259 --> 00:14:13.080 That's what you call the episode with Jack's butt crack. 179 00:14:13.139 --> 00:14:15.120 Kraken wings. 180 00:14:15.179 --> 00:14:19.440 But like this feels like that same thing where it's all over the world. 181 00:14:19.500 --> 00:14:21.779 Yeah, but we're just seeing the English side of it. 182 00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:25.019 Like it's happening everywhere, but we're just seeing the English side of it. 183 00:14:25.080 --> 00:14:31.740 And it made me realise that the war between the hoozy and the doozies is, in fact, the Krakenwakes, again. 184 00:14:31.799 --> 00:14:32.279 Yeah, yeah. 185 00:14:32.340 --> 00:14:33.659 Like they're coming from the sea. 186 00:14:33.720 --> 00:14:36.360 Like he has been trying to make. why doesn't he just adapt it? 187 00:14:36.480 --> 00:14:37.559 It would be great. 188 00:14:37.620 --> 00:14:49.379 I mean, the sea devils actually explicitly forbid travel like over the sea, which is a thing that becomes impossible in the Kraken Wakes because there's something that slices the bottom off boats as they sort of travel. 189 00:14:49.500 --> 00:14:51.000 It's a great book. 190 00:14:51.059 --> 00:14:53.100 And also it ends terribly. 191 00:14:53.159 --> 00:14:53.519 Yes. 192 00:14:53.519 --> 00:14:55.259 Like it ends in catastrophe. 193 00:14:55.320 --> 00:14:57.600 It is, you know, a full apocalypse. 194 00:14:57.659 --> 00:15:06.360 And that's kind of what I feel like Russell's going for, but then his TV head kicks in and goes, oh, I've got to reset the dial, so everyone's fine. 195 00:15:06.419 --> 00:15:08.639 Yeah. 196 00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:19.139 And we will we will talk about how it ends because, of course, it ends in a deeply terrifying and unsatisfying way with evil Denise in charge of Great Britain. 197 00:15:19.200 --> 00:15:21.059 Yeah. 198 00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:26.460 But yes, it is very, it is very kind of Wyndham. 199 00:15:26.519 --> 00:15:27.539 Yeah, it is. 200 00:15:27.600 --> 00:15:32.460 I feel like he's, you know, going, oh, these were all the things I loved when I was a kid as well as Doctor Who. 201 00:15:32.519 --> 00:15:33.240 Yeah, yeah. 202 00:15:33.240 --> 00:15:37.259 And so Torchwood is his John Wyndham Pastiche show. 203 00:15:37.320 --> 00:15:38.039 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 204 00:15:38.159 --> 00:15:39.419 Yeah, absolutely it is. 205 00:15:39.480 --> 00:15:40.860 And Chipnell didn't listen to him. 206 00:15:41.820 --> 00:15:43.799 Seasons one and two. 207 00:15:43.860 --> 00:15:47.340 That's kind of the overall impression I get with children of earth. 208 00:15:47.399 --> 00:15:49.500 I don't know which came first, the chicken on the egg. 209 00:15:49.559 --> 00:15:56.639 I don't know if they decided what they wanted to do, and then the BBC went, this would go well on BBC One in a primetime spot. 210 00:15:56.700 --> 00:16:04.740 Or if they knew they were being promoted to BBC One and Russell just sat there going, I know that this show can be better and deeper and more serious. 211 00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:06.000 And so let's pitch for that. 212 00:16:06.059 --> 00:16:06.840 Yeah. 213 00:16:06.840 --> 00:16:10.379 And the fact that it was 5 days worldwide. 214 00:16:10.500 --> 00:16:15.659 Like, we got to watch it every day as it happened was pretty spectacular. 215 00:16:15.720 --> 00:16:19.500 And the fact that it's 5 days, like in story terms. 216 00:16:19.559 --> 00:16:20.639 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 217 00:16:20.700 --> 00:16:30.120 Which I think is an advantage that sort of Aristotelian unity is an absolute advantage that it has over the war between the land and the sea, which happens over a period of months. 218 00:16:30.299 --> 00:16:37.679 And I also just think just the way it's structured is really quite incredible because the aliens don't arrive until day three. 219 00:16:37.740 --> 00:16:40.320 They're not here on Wednesday. 220 00:16:41.639 --> 00:16:45.299 They arrive on a Wednesday. 221 00:16:45.419 --> 00:16:46.200 It's hump day. 222 00:16:46.259 --> 00:16:50.879 It is literally Monday to Friday because people are going to work every day. 223 00:16:50.940 --> 00:16:53.820 So it does happen, you know, at the same time. 224 00:16:53.879 --> 00:16:56.100 But those 2 days. 225 00:16:56.159 --> 00:17:00.419 Like the 2 days leading up to that isn't just preparation. 226 00:17:00.480 --> 00:17:05.579 In fact, it's Frobisher trying to kill Jack, isn't it? 227 00:17:05.640 --> 00:17:08.220 Because he was involved in the thing in 1965. 228 00:17:08.400 --> 00:17:11.519 Oh yeah, the blank page thing where you're like, what does that mean? 229 00:17:11.579 --> 00:17:12.900 And then she's like, oh, I know. 230 00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:14.759 I'm going kill all these people. 231 00:17:16.319 --> 00:17:18.660 I mean, that's great too. 232 00:17:18.779 --> 00:17:20.759 The blank page thing is so good. 233 00:17:20.819 --> 00:17:23.640 Oh, it's so creepy because you're like, what is it? 234 00:17:23.700 --> 00:17:24.299 What does it mean? 235 00:17:24.359 --> 00:17:25.500 She's looking at a blank page. 236 00:17:25.559 --> 00:17:26.099 Yeah. 237 00:17:26.160 --> 00:17:29.279 And then we don't find out until Lois logs, yeah. 238 00:17:29.940 --> 00:17:33.539 Like, why is the password to a super top secret? 239 00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:34.500 I know. 240 00:17:34.500 --> 00:17:36.480 Organisation on a posted note? 241 00:17:36.539 --> 00:17:38.279 On the on the screen? 242 00:17:38.339 --> 00:17:39.359 Because she's a boomer. 243 00:17:39.480 --> 00:17:40.740 Bridget's a boomer. 244 00:17:40.799 --> 00:17:41.759 What's coyotes? 245 00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:45.900 Gwen is going to an ATM. 246 00:17:46.380 --> 00:17:48.960 I mean, we can't talk. 247 00:17:49.019 --> 00:17:54.779 The reason they were able to steal all that jewellery from the Louvre is because the password was the Louvre. 248 00:17:57.900 --> 00:18:00.599 I mean, Granton, most people can't spell it. 249 00:18:01.859 --> 00:18:03.779 Can we take a moment? 250 00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:10.980 I know they don't feature very much in this episode, but can we take a moment to appreciate the elegance of the naming of the 456? 251 00:18:11.099 --> 00:18:11.400 Yeah. 252 00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:18.299 There is no other sequence of 3 single numbers that sounds in any way ominous? 253 00:18:18.359 --> 00:18:19.559 They can't be called the 234. 254 00:18:19.740 --> 00:18:21.420 They can't be called the 6, 7, 8. 255 00:18:21.480 --> 00:18:22.680 That sounds ridiculous. 256 00:18:22.740 --> 00:18:25.380 Or the 7, 8, 9. 257 00:18:25.380 --> 00:18:27.299 Which is a joke. 258 00:18:27.359 --> 00:18:29.460 They did that in Voyager. 259 00:18:30.359 --> 00:18:33.900 Whereas the 456 sounds ominous. 260 00:18:33.960 --> 00:18:35.220 For some reason. 261 00:18:35.279 --> 00:18:37.920 It's just the sound of those words following each other. 262 00:18:37.980 --> 00:18:45.180 I think too, that just the fact that each number goes up by one and we're counting down to their arrival all the way through. 263 00:18:45.240 --> 00:18:47.819 So I think, you know, there's that as well. 264 00:18:47.880 --> 00:18:50.579 And just the fact that they don't get a name. 265 00:18:50.640 --> 00:18:58.980 I mean, they are more than any other kind of Doctor Who villain, a kind of weird Lovecraftian, inexplicable thing. 266 00:18:59.039 --> 00:19:00.720 And we'll obviously get there. 267 00:19:00.779 --> 00:19:02.759 I think that they are incredibly brilliant. 268 00:19:02.819 --> 00:19:04.740 They could never appear in Doctor Who. 269 00:19:04.799 --> 00:19:06.779 Like, they're just not a Doctor Who Monster. 270 00:19:06.839 --> 00:19:12.119 I think also there's a subconscious thing going on in that we know at the beginning it's only 5 episodes. 271 00:19:12.180 --> 00:19:12.720 Yeah. 272 00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:19.079 And calling them the 456 implies there's more than we're not going to see it all. 273 00:19:19.140 --> 00:19:22.259 Like it's not explicit, but it just feels like the what is six? 274 00:19:22.319 --> 00:19:24.420 Like we're only getting 5 days. 275 00:19:24.480 --> 00:19:26.819 Like what, what if there's something awful on the sixth? 276 00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:28.200 It is good. 277 00:19:28.619 --> 00:19:33.420 It kind of sets up a thing in the back of your mind that you're like, no, it was something awful on the sixth. 278 00:19:33.480 --> 00:19:34.440 It was called Miracle Day. 279 00:19:35.700 --> 00:19:37.859 Oh, that was more than six. 280 00:19:47.819 --> 00:19:58.200 The other thing that having a five-part story enables, and something that we've missed in Doctor Who, Sandifer points out that this is the longest Doctor Who story. 281 00:19:58.259 --> 00:20:01.259 It's about 10 minutes longer than Dalek's Master Plan. 282 00:20:01.380 --> 00:20:05.220 It's, you know, an hour longer than the war games. 283 00:20:05.279 --> 00:20:09.059 It's not quite as long as Trial of a Time Lord, but that's... 284 00:20:09.059 --> 00:20:10.140 Is that one story or four? 285 00:20:10.259 --> 00:20:10.920 Of course it's not. 286 00:20:12.240 --> 00:20:19.079 And it enables us to have a much, much bigger regular cast, and that's another thing that's cinematic. 287 00:20:19.140 --> 00:20:26.759 I mean, we think, you know, we've lost Tosh and Owen, and then so we only have 3 people in Torchwood, but, you know, there's a five-part story. 288 00:20:26.819 --> 00:20:28.140 People appear in every episode. 289 00:20:28.200 --> 00:20:34.440 It's the biggest cast of the Torchwood season and it also just enables us to open things out. 290 00:20:34.500 --> 00:20:42.599 You know, as you said before, Adam, they're incredibly well cast, but I also think that they're really just terrifically well drawn as well. 291 00:20:42.660 --> 00:20:50.099 Also, the fact that we get the bait and switch of the new doctor, like, oh, we need a new medical guy. 292 00:20:50.940 --> 00:20:58.200 He's obviously being groomed to go and work in torchwood and at the end of the episode where like, oh, he was a secret plant of the government. 293 00:20:58.259 --> 00:21:00.059 Oh, he's now not a thing at all. 294 00:21:00.299 --> 00:21:08.579 I've always loved faint in drama where they set up characters who are as well drawn as a new regular character would be. 295 00:21:08.640 --> 00:21:10.799 And then, as you said, beat and switched them out. 296 00:21:10.859 --> 00:21:13.440 See Susie in episode one. 297 00:21:13.500 --> 00:21:25.980 And, you know, people like, I mentioned Star Trek Voyager earlier, Cesca. set up as a member of the regular crew, like, or at least in a semi-regular role and then becomes villain. you know, I think that really works well. 298 00:21:26.039 --> 00:21:35.579 And I think also what day one of Children of Earth brings home is just how essential Jack and Gwen are to the series and that's it. 299 00:21:35.640 --> 00:21:40.259 It's really a series about them and their contrasting characters. 300 00:21:40.319 --> 00:21:43.920 Yeah, I mean, I don't want to spoil episode four. 301 00:21:43.980 --> 00:21:47.220 Oh, you can tell that it's happening because there's a little too much. 302 00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:48.059 Are we a couple? 303 00:21:48.119 --> 00:21:50.160 say, oh, yeah, not for long, long. 304 00:21:50.339 --> 00:21:59.579 But also I think I remember feeling that Yanto was safe because we killed Owen and Tosh at the end of the previous year. 305 00:21:59.700 --> 00:22:02.339 And that just leaves us with 2 regulars. 306 00:22:02.400 --> 00:22:08.880 So we obviously have a massively expanded role for Kai Owen as Reese. 307 00:22:08.940 --> 00:22:13.559 We give a really unexpected family to Yanto. 308 00:22:13.619 --> 00:22:14.220 Yeah. 309 00:22:14.279 --> 00:22:17.579 And I think it's a brilliant choice, actually. 310 00:22:17.640 --> 00:22:19.619 It is a really good choice, isn't it? 311 00:22:19.680 --> 00:22:32.940 We need, we need there to be working class children or children on a council estate for episode 5 to work once we decide that we're just going to give all of the children of the poor people to the 476. 312 00:22:32.940 --> 00:22:34.140 476. 313 00:22:34.500 --> 00:22:36.000 You see? 314 00:22:36.839 --> 00:22:40.500 It doesn't work. to the 456. 315 00:22:41.160 --> 00:23:15.359 Once we decide that, we need to see them and we absolutely need to see that, but also just giving that backstory to Yanto, you know, who's super secretive and super private, in series one and two, and then we get that thing towards the end of this where Gwen tries to connect with Rhiannon by talking about the father only to discover that his backstory, that cheesy backstory, about his father, the master tailor as if that's a thing in like 2007 or whatever. 316 00:23:15.839 --> 00:23:29.880 I kind of love that the implication is that, you know, in this episode that Yanto has so tried to distance himself from his past that he absolutely forgets that you cannot leave a car in the street there. 317 00:23:29.940 --> 00:23:31.440 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 318 00:23:31.980 --> 00:23:34.319 Those kids have been given to the forefighters. 319 00:23:34.440 --> 00:23:39.240 Well, they were planning to do that. literally what was on the cards. 320 00:23:39.299 --> 00:23:40.259 I think. 321 00:23:40.319 --> 00:23:44.460 That's the best scene of the story between Yanto and his sister. 322 00:23:44.519 --> 00:23:46.680 The best scene in the episode, I should say. 323 00:23:46.740 --> 00:23:48.240 There's better scenes to come in the story. 324 00:23:48.299 --> 00:23:51.359 And it's because it has emotional truth to it. 325 00:23:51.420 --> 00:23:51.900 Oh good. 326 00:23:51.960 --> 00:23:59.039 When she says, dad died in you and you left, you know, you'd never tell me anything anymore. 327 00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:02.279 And she's like, she's not twisting the knife. 328 00:24:02.339 --> 00:24:04.859 She sort of is, but she doesn't seem whiny or anything. 329 00:24:04.920 --> 00:24:09.779 No, it feels very kind of like, you know, I'm just telling you that it hurt me. 330 00:24:09.839 --> 00:24:12.180 Also, I want to know what's going on. 331 00:24:12.240 --> 00:24:16.920 Like it's still a very fraternal, you know, moment. 332 00:24:16.980 --> 00:24:26.519 It's like we're brother and sister, like it also, I think, mirrored the stories of some gay men, especially going back. 333 00:24:26.579 --> 00:24:30.059 Yeah, yeah, yeah. where through choice or no choice. 334 00:24:30.119 --> 00:24:31.799 They had to turn their backs on their families. 335 00:24:31.859 --> 00:24:33.539 They had to walk away from that. 336 00:24:33.599 --> 00:24:39.839 And even the sympathetic members of families who were left, like maybe a sister didn't really have a window into their lives. 337 00:24:39.900 --> 00:24:42.660 And that's awkward and painful. 338 00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:45.420 And I think you can see that with Ianto and his sister. 339 00:24:45.480 --> 00:24:55.380 The one thing that I think they would change now, if they were making it 15 years later, was that his brother-in-law coming in and wisecracking about taking up the arse doesn't quite land. 340 00:24:55.440 --> 00:24:56.460 Oh, God, no. 341 00:24:56.460 --> 00:25:05.339 It's a little bit too much, but I do think it is kind of funny because, of course, Rhiannon has just told him that his secret is... 342 00:25:05.339 --> 00:25:10.079 And then Johnny comes in and calls him, oh, you've gone bender, you know, like that's awesome. 343 00:25:10.440 --> 00:25:12.059 It's fine. 344 00:25:12.119 --> 00:25:20.700 I also think that it's very rustly in that scene, how they're kind of like they're talking across purposes to each other a little bit. 345 00:25:20.759 --> 00:25:25.019 But then she just breaks slightly and says, but is he a good man? 346 00:25:25.079 --> 00:25:25.740 Is good to you? 347 00:25:25.799 --> 00:25:26.519 Yeah, yeah. 348 00:25:26.519 --> 00:25:28.799 And that's that's a very rustly thing to ask. 349 00:25:28.859 --> 00:25:43.440 And that reminded me of a scene, in the film, beautiful thing from the 90s, where the lead guy's mother who is played by the wonderful Linda Henry from EastEnders, is struggling to understand his relationship with his schoolmate and his next-door neighbour. 350 00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:45.599 And all she asks him is, is he good to you? 351 00:25:45.660 --> 00:25:49.140 And he says, yes, and she just breaks down tears and says, is he? 352 00:25:49.200 --> 00:25:55.559 And like, that's a very important beat, I think, for someone who's learning these things about someone close to them that they didn't know. 353 00:25:55.619 --> 00:25:59.160 All they really want to know is, is that person good to you? 354 00:25:59.220 --> 00:25:59.519 Are you happy? 355 00:25:59.640 --> 00:26:02.940 I think too, you know, like it's 2009. 356 00:26:03.119 --> 00:26:04.920 So it's not the Middle Ages or anything. 357 00:26:04.980 --> 00:26:16.380 But I mean, it's still a big TV event written by a gay man and centring the gay experience in that way and in that broader way that you were talking about, sort of alienation from family. 358 00:26:16.440 --> 00:26:22.140 And so I do think Johnny coming in and cracking wise works well to kind of diffuse that a little bit. 359 00:26:22.200 --> 00:26:25.140 I think you also get away with it because it's working-class Cardiff. 360 00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:26.220 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 361 00:26:26.279 --> 00:26:33.900 And Johnny will show himself to be a very good man, even as early as the very next episode, I think. 362 00:26:33.960 --> 00:26:38.640 I'm not quite sure why he throws a brick about 2 feet away. 363 00:26:38.819 --> 00:26:40.380 I know. 364 00:26:40.380 --> 00:26:41.519 It's Auros. 365 00:26:41.640 --> 00:26:45.119 I think that's what happens when you let a gay man director. 366 00:26:45.180 --> 00:26:46.079 I could just throw something. 367 00:26:46.559 --> 00:26:49.140 That's what butcher men do throw things. 368 00:26:49.799 --> 00:27:00.119 As with many gay men back in the day, you know, taking you back to the school baseball field and that, you try to throw that ball and you think it's going to go the entire length of the pitch, but it just lands. 369 00:27:00.180 --> 00:27:08.579 Yeah, when you, like, what you should do is get someone who is good at bowling with their right hand and then ask them to do it with their left hand and go, that's how we all throw. 370 00:27:10.380 --> 00:27:14.700 And let's also talk about Alice and Stephen. 371 00:27:14.759 --> 00:27:16.980 I think she is stunning as well. 372 00:27:17.039 --> 00:27:20.220 I think those 2 actresses are just amazingly great. 373 00:27:20.279 --> 00:27:20.880 Yeah. 374 00:27:20.880 --> 00:27:30.779 But the woman who plays, Alice is so beautiful and like a bit sad and stuff, those scenes in episode 2 where she keeps ringing Jack's phone. 375 00:27:30.839 --> 00:27:32.400 That's the next episode. 376 00:27:32.460 --> 00:27:33.299 You're going to talk about it. 377 00:27:33.359 --> 00:27:34.140 I know, I know. 378 00:27:34.200 --> 00:27:38.220 But here, there's a great moment, I think. 379 00:27:38.279 --> 00:27:40.259 Because it's established. 380 00:27:40.319 --> 00:27:54.299 We know by the end of his conversation with her that we kind of could predict how this is going to end because both Yanto and Jack go to find a child. 381 00:27:54.359 --> 00:27:59.220 They go to a relative that has a child and they both offer to take the child out. 382 00:27:59.220 --> 00:28:11.759 And the moment that Jack says, oh, I want to spend some time with Stephen today, she just says, you bastard, you're not experimenting with him, not ever. 383 00:28:11.819 --> 00:28:16.019 That's why I tell you to stay away because you're dangerous. 384 00:28:16.079 --> 00:28:25.019 Like all of that stuff, which is obviously paid off in episode 5 is here and clearly established in episode one. 385 00:28:25.079 --> 00:28:28.259 I mean, also from the gay experience. 386 00:28:28.319 --> 00:28:29.460 This happens a lot. 387 00:28:29.519 --> 00:28:31.440 It's like, I want to go to Disneyland. 388 00:28:31.500 --> 00:28:33.599 Can I take your child, so I don't look like a weirdo. 389 00:28:34.619 --> 00:28:37.140 Don't they have gay days now? 390 00:28:37.140 --> 00:28:37.859 They do. 391 00:28:37.920 --> 00:28:38.640 They do now. 392 00:28:38.700 --> 00:28:39.839 You know. 393 00:28:39.900 --> 00:28:41.819 Like, it's like, oh, I really want to go and see this film. 394 00:28:41.880 --> 00:28:45.359 I need to see Zootopia too, but I can't go on my own. 395 00:28:45.960 --> 00:28:54.420 I think it's also a reflection of that experience where when you're a gay man and you do have a lot of kind of, you know, you have a favoured status in the family. 396 00:28:54.480 --> 00:29:01.799 The kids, I don't know, about your experience, but a lot of sort of my younger cousins, but children are with my cousins, um, and godchildren and that. 397 00:29:01.859 --> 00:29:06.839 You get to spend that incredible time with them in a focussed situation. 398 00:29:06.900 --> 00:29:11.880 So you're sort of the great gay uncle who flies in and takes them to the cinema. 399 00:29:11.880 --> 00:29:12.720 Yeah, the favourite uncle. 400 00:29:12.779 --> 00:29:14.160 Yeah, exactly. 401 00:29:14.220 --> 00:29:16.500 And I think that's a little bit of a twist on that. 402 00:29:16.619 --> 00:29:24.000 It's also the thing too, which we were talking about before because we don't have children we never kind of graduate into the next generation. 403 00:29:24.420 --> 00:29:27.180 And so there's that as well. 404 00:29:27.240 --> 00:29:34.380 I mean, there's a sense in which people with children see us as not completely adult because we've never had that. 405 00:29:34.380 --> 00:29:35.099 Also dangerous. 406 00:29:35.160 --> 00:29:45.240 Like, you know, it's like, I don't know if I can trust them not to take my kid to somewhere terrible and do, like, you know, the elocution of Benjamin Franklin that's currently playing the Stephen J. 407 00:29:45.240 --> 00:29:56.880 Spears play from the 70s and it's about this flamboyant teacher who kind of lets this kid smoke and drink and carry on and it's like, the whole gay people are always corrupting children. 408 00:29:56.940 --> 00:30:01.200 Well, it's because we don't have the lived experience of being parents. 409 00:30:01.259 --> 00:30:08.519 And so I can think of when I took my cousin's kids to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in London, and I let them have far too much sugar. 410 00:30:08.640 --> 00:30:11.579 And I didn't realise what I was doing. 411 00:30:11.640 --> 00:30:17.099 I didn't realise that we needed to stop, you know, one sugar and then maybe one more sugar and that was it. 412 00:30:17.160 --> 00:30:26.220 And all of a sudden these great kids, who I loved being around and we had a great time together, turned into monsters and wouldn't listen to a word that I said. 413 00:30:26.279 --> 00:30:30.299 And I realised with this sudden sinking feeling that I had done that. 414 00:30:30.359 --> 00:30:33.180 I'd given them too much sugar and that was the problem. 415 00:30:33.240 --> 00:30:52.980 So, so, I mean, there's that, and there's several times, I've just rewatched episodes one and 2, and there's several times where people get, like, Yanto when he goes to speak to a child who's just kind of zoned down in episode 2 in the playground, and the parent calls him a perv and tells him to get away. 416 00:30:53.039 --> 00:31:00.420 Because that's the other thing about children too, is that parents own them or regard themselves as owning them in some way. 417 00:31:00.480 --> 00:31:02.039 They're protecting them. 418 00:31:02.099 --> 00:31:02.880 Yeah, that's right. 419 00:31:02.940 --> 00:31:03.359 That's right. 420 00:31:03.420 --> 00:31:08.339 But the whole idea around it because, I mean, the four, five, 6 are literally that. 421 00:31:08.400 --> 00:31:18.059 You know, people say the show kind of characterises them as if they're drug addicts, but there's a sense in which they're also kind of paedophiles. you know what I mean? 422 00:31:18.119 --> 00:31:25.980 Like they violate children's bodily autonomy in order to get some kind of satisfaction for themselves, some kind of physical satisfaction. 423 00:31:26.039 --> 00:31:35.759 And so there's all that concern around pedos and perverts and stuff all the way through and people defending their children against interference from people outside. 424 00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:47.579 And there's that moment where Alice is talking about Steven's father and and like it's another rustly thing where, you know, he married her. 425 00:31:47.579 --> 00:31:49.079 Do you know what I mean? 426 00:31:49.140 --> 00:31:52.500 We don't need to be told who her is, you know, it's a Russell thing. 427 00:31:52.559 --> 00:31:54.779 But, you know, he sends postcards. 428 00:31:54.839 --> 00:32:03.299 He remembers his birthday and then she concludes with there are worse fathers as well, which I think is also pretty gray. 429 00:32:03.359 --> 00:32:04.799 It is pretty good. 430 00:32:04.859 --> 00:32:06.539 Well, she's looking at one, really. 431 00:32:06.599 --> 00:32:08.160 She is, exactly right. 432 00:32:08.220 --> 00:32:08.640 Exactly. 433 00:32:15.119 --> 00:32:18.119 Let's talk about Lois as well. 434 00:32:18.180 --> 00:32:20.160 She was so gray. 435 00:32:20.220 --> 00:32:21.240 Sorry. 436 00:32:21.240 --> 00:32:24.059 So great. 437 00:32:24.119 --> 00:32:28.619 I think, again, you know, we saw that thing where her and Frobisher arrive at work the same time. 438 00:32:28.680 --> 00:32:30.779 She's running late in a bus. 439 00:32:30.839 --> 00:32:34.019 He's, you know, being driven there, driven to the front door. 440 00:32:34.079 --> 00:32:40.680 I just think she is unbelievably charming and likeable and just terrifically smart. 441 00:32:40.740 --> 00:32:45.720 So was she, she wasn't going to be Martha, was she? 442 00:32:45.779 --> 00:32:50.759 I think in an iteration of the story, that was the Martha kind of void. 443 00:32:50.819 --> 00:32:52.259 Yeah, it wasn't exactly the same character. 444 00:32:52.319 --> 00:32:57.960 But, you know, having said what you just said then about unbelievably likeable and smart, that basically is Martha. 445 00:32:58.019 --> 00:32:58.440 Yeah. 446 00:32:58.440 --> 00:33:02.339 So she occupies that kind of questioning insider role. 447 00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:03.180 Yeah. 448 00:33:03.240 --> 00:33:14.519 And she's so good at that, like, having 13 things going on in her mind about what is going on right here, right now that I am a complete, you know, outsider too. 449 00:33:14.579 --> 00:33:22.680 And also our viewpoint of the machinations that are going on in this office because it's like, we don't know anything unless she knows it. 450 00:33:22.740 --> 00:33:23.519 Yeah, yeah. 451 00:33:23.579 --> 00:33:24.539 Like, you know. 452 00:33:24.599 --> 00:33:25.740 And we watch her discover it. 453 00:33:25.799 --> 00:33:34.559 She works it out and it's all done just by looking at computer screens and just sort of being careful and clever. almost no dialogue in this 1st episode. 454 00:33:34.619 --> 00:33:36.299 Like it's a lot of eye acting. 455 00:33:36.539 --> 00:33:46.380 Sandra suggests that her role in a way has an advantage over bringing Martha back because Martha is someone who fights aliens and that kind of thing. 456 00:33:46.440 --> 00:33:51.839 And she is perhaps the one good, normal person. 457 00:33:51.900 --> 00:33:59.220 I think Rhiannon as well, an Alice, but, you know, the one person in government at least who is doing the right thing and standing up. 458 00:33:59.279 --> 00:34:06.900 And so by episode two, she's already committing treason because at the end of episode one, she learns that a boss is having people killed. 459 00:34:06.960 --> 00:34:09.900 I also think if that had been Martha. 460 00:34:09.960 --> 00:34:20.219 Obviously, that would have been great, but it also would have waited the story badly, I think, because it would have turned all of those scenes in the office into an A plot strand with one of your A characters. 461 00:34:20.340 --> 00:34:32.519 Whereas what you really want to do is follow the regular torchwood characters and having a character who is not returning, as you said, is just like us, a member of the public in there, means that you're not distracting from that. 462 00:34:32.579 --> 00:34:40.019 Also, it doesn't work structurally if you have Martha in there, unless you work out a way of her not being able to contact torch. 463 00:34:40.079 --> 00:34:40.800 Yeah, yeah. 464 00:34:40.860 --> 00:34:41.699 Yeah, exactly. 465 00:34:41.820 --> 00:34:43.980 Yeah, I just would end it in 2 episodes. 466 00:34:44.039 --> 00:34:47.460 I don't think it was as simple as swapping out masters kind of different. 467 00:34:47.519 --> 00:34:50.760 I think there's a certain amount of restructuring and retelling of the story that went on there. 468 00:34:50.820 --> 00:34:51.059 Yeah. 469 00:34:51.119 --> 00:34:53.820 And of course, Peter Capaldi. 470 00:34:53.940 --> 00:34:59.340 Can I just say that you have to be very careful with Doctor Who fans of a certain age when you call a character Frobisher? 471 00:34:59.880 --> 00:35:01.920 I had the same feeling. 472 00:35:01.980 --> 00:35:05.699 I was like, if they opened the door on as a penguin, this is amazing. 473 00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:09.719 See, Stephen Moffatt always said that he runs like a penguin with a task. 474 00:35:09.780 --> 00:35:10.920 Oh my God. 475 00:35:10.980 --> 00:35:13.860 In my head, Canon, he is Frobish. 476 00:35:13.920 --> 00:35:15.239 Oh, yeah, a really bad week. 477 00:35:15.300 --> 00:35:18.360 Your head cannon's very weird. 478 00:35:18.360 --> 00:35:20.940 Literally a cannon. 479 00:35:21.059 --> 00:35:33.179 He's incredible And you know, it just shows what kind of range he has because that performance is so different from either his performance as the doctor or in the thick of it as Malcolm Tucker. 480 00:35:33.239 --> 00:35:34.380 Or Kycillius. 481 00:35:35.219 --> 00:35:36.900 That's lovely. 482 00:35:38.280 --> 00:35:41.460 And I think he really grounds the story. 483 00:35:41.519 --> 00:35:44.340 All the scenes with him don't feel like fantastical. 484 00:35:44.400 --> 00:35:45.719 I'm talking about episode one here. 485 00:35:45.780 --> 00:35:47.820 Don't feel like fantastical science fiction. 486 00:35:47.880 --> 00:35:49.320 They feel like workplace drama. 487 00:35:49.380 --> 00:35:50.460 Yeah, yeah. 488 00:35:50.519 --> 00:35:53.159 And he's got, he like, he's such a great actor. 489 00:35:53.219 --> 00:35:58.139 You feel the secret that's weighing on him the entire time. 490 00:35:58.139 --> 00:36:00.000 Yeah. because it's not really mentioned. 491 00:36:00.059 --> 00:36:01.980 No one really says anything about it. 492 00:36:02.039 --> 00:36:04.800 Like, we don't really find out properly until much later. 493 00:36:04.860 --> 00:36:07.559 Like there's all the alien stuff where like, is it the same? 494 00:36:07.619 --> 00:36:11.820 Are they the same thing as this old guy that's screaming on the lawn? 495 00:36:11.940 --> 00:36:20.280 Well, the fact that he falls to his knees and starts screaming and crying when the girls start talking because he knows what it means. 496 00:36:20.280 --> 00:36:22.739 Like he actually knows what it means. 497 00:36:22.800 --> 00:36:23.760 And that's what's great. 498 00:36:23.820 --> 00:36:32.280 It's that mystery of, you know, those 3 names that no one that we know have nothing to do with Torchwood at all, and then Jack Harkness. 499 00:36:32.340 --> 00:36:32.940 What is that? 500 00:36:33.000 --> 00:36:41.760 The fact that, and the genius of having that opening scene where we're cutting around the adults. 501 00:36:41.820 --> 00:36:45.239 We don't see a single adult in that opening scene. 502 00:36:45.300 --> 00:36:48.239 And later on when we revisit it, Jack will be there. 503 00:36:48.300 --> 00:36:58.440 There'll be men with guns in it. there will be adults around there engineering it, but Clem's memory of it doesn't, for some reason, doesn't include any of the adults. 504 00:36:58.559 --> 00:37:00.719 And that will only come later. 505 00:37:00.780 --> 00:37:07.619 Again, speaking of actors that have storied careers, like the guy playing clam is spectacular. 506 00:37:07.679 --> 00:37:08.579 Yeah, yeah. 507 00:37:08.639 --> 00:37:12.420 Like he's in Lost Tango and Halifax, he's, I think he's on the archers now. 508 00:37:12.780 --> 00:37:14.699 Who's into everyone? 509 00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:17.940 All great British actors end up in soap. 510 00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:18.539 Yeah they do. 511 00:37:18.599 --> 00:37:20.099 And he's incredible. 512 00:37:20.159 --> 00:37:22.440 Like, and he has like 2 or 3 scenes. 513 00:37:22.500 --> 00:37:23.460 Yeah, yeah. 514 00:37:23.460 --> 00:37:27.599 Oh my god, everyone is kind of hitting it to the back wall in this show. 515 00:37:27.659 --> 00:37:30.960 Also that that scene where Gwen is interviewing. 516 00:37:31.019 --> 00:37:31.920 Oh, yeah. 517 00:37:31.920 --> 00:37:35.519 And she's like, like she keeps touching his hand. 518 00:37:35.579 --> 00:37:36.300 Yeah. 519 00:37:36.300 --> 00:37:38.280 Like, like she's trying to connect with him. 520 00:37:38.340 --> 00:37:39.420 Yeah, it's so moving. 521 00:37:39.480 --> 00:37:48.840 I loved her reaction when he grabs her wrist and sniffs it. affronted and weirded out, but knows that there's something which she needs to address here. 522 00:37:48.900 --> 00:37:49.679 Yeah. 523 00:37:49.679 --> 00:37:53.340 I just think the fact that he can smell them coming. 524 00:37:53.400 --> 00:37:53.639 Yeah. 525 00:37:53.639 --> 00:37:58.559 Like, he can tell if she's lying and he can tell that the 456 are on their way back and has he been... 526 00:37:58.559 --> 00:38:00.059 I love that he can smell that she's pregnant. 527 00:38:00.119 --> 00:38:02.219 I mean, he is amazingly great. 528 00:38:02.340 --> 00:38:10.260 And later on when he gets to be homophobic in a later episode, I think it actually kind of manages to work really kind of terribly well. 529 00:38:10.320 --> 00:38:13.199 But just the kind of the sequence of events as well. 530 00:38:13.260 --> 00:38:20.219 Like there's enough going on, you know, the fact now there's an adult who is talking at the same time as the children and saying the same things. 531 00:38:20.280 --> 00:38:20.699 Why is that? 532 00:38:20.760 --> 00:38:34.559 That's super interesting, of, you know, Gwen calling Reese and Reese working out. that, you know, this is a message being sent to England because it's happening during the school run and at morning break. 533 00:38:34.619 --> 00:38:38.159 So we get vision of all of them on television and stuff. 534 00:38:38.219 --> 00:38:40.800 All of that stuff is so good and so clever. 535 00:38:40.920 --> 00:38:48.780 Yeah, that kind of stuff happens a lot because people in these situations like a torchwood don't have normal lives. 536 00:38:48.840 --> 00:38:51.000 So they don't think of the normal things. 537 00:38:51.059 --> 00:38:52.199 No, the everyday. 538 00:38:52.260 --> 00:38:56.159 And it takes someone like Reese to go, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was school and lunch. 539 00:38:56.219 --> 00:38:57.179 It's like, oh, yeah. 540 00:38:57.239 --> 00:39:05.820 Well, remember that moment where Jack and Yantua up top and they're kind of going, where on earth could I get you a child? 541 00:39:05.880 --> 00:39:06.960 I can get you a laser. 542 00:39:07.019 --> 00:39:10.139 I can get you a weevil, you know, but I can't get you a child. 543 00:39:10.199 --> 00:39:11.219 Where did children come from? 544 00:39:11.280 --> 00:39:12.599 How do people even get them? 545 00:39:12.659 --> 00:39:13.559 You know? 546 00:39:13.619 --> 00:39:15.480 And so it is that. 547 00:39:15.539 --> 00:39:17.219 It is absolutely that. 548 00:39:17.760 --> 00:39:24.599 But it's that it's that thing because they're science fiction people and because their families are not. 549 00:39:24.659 --> 00:39:25.920 Yeah. 550 00:39:25.980 --> 00:39:32.639 And I love, oh, that's one of my other favourite moments is when Gwen says to the prospective new tortured member. 551 00:39:32.699 --> 00:39:33.659 He's like, what's down there? 552 00:39:33.719 --> 00:39:35.219 She goes, oh, big science fiction based. 553 00:39:35.760 --> 00:39:47.159 Well, and of course, that's the other thing that happens as well is that the things about torture that are a bit naft actually just all get exploded here at this point. 554 00:39:47.219 --> 00:39:49.139 And so that including Captain Jack. 555 00:39:49.199 --> 00:39:58.440 Including Captain Jack, the car, that wretched car with the LEDs on it that just makes them look like absolute bell ends when they drive up. 556 00:39:58.500 --> 00:40:02.099 You know, that gets stolen and trashed. 557 00:40:02.280 --> 00:40:04.559 But we blow up the base. 558 00:40:04.619 --> 00:40:09.300 And like, I think the base, like, in a sense, obviously the base is just the TARDIS, isn't it? 559 00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:14.880 And you've got a sort of time travelling immortal as the lead, someone who can't die. 560 00:40:14.940 --> 00:40:15.900 All of that sort of thing. 561 00:40:16.019 --> 00:40:18.119 It is just redoing Doctor Who. 562 00:40:18.179 --> 00:40:22.380 I think that that said deserves praise, I think. 563 00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:36.840 Yeah, and I think it also sells the idea that torture is a Victorian era invention by giving it the aesthetics of the underground as well, which is from a similar era. 564 00:40:37.199 --> 00:40:39.360 Where does that underground go? 565 00:40:40.260 --> 00:40:42.119 In Cardiff. 566 00:40:42.119 --> 00:40:44.280 Next to a bay. 567 00:40:44.400 --> 00:40:48.780 Yeah, it's one way of raising mistakes, isn't it? 568 00:40:48.840 --> 00:40:55.320 Because as far back as I can remember, and I was probably the influence of the Empire strikes back when I was boy. 569 00:40:55.380 --> 00:41:02.820 I have loved stories where the heroes are targeted in their home or their base and have to flee in different directions. 570 00:41:02.880 --> 00:41:06.119 And so the best X-Men film, X-Men 2 does that. 571 00:41:06.179 --> 00:41:10.079 Empire Strikesback is obviously the ultimate example of it. 572 00:41:10.139 --> 00:41:15.719 But I think destroying their base and scattering them is just one way of saying the stakes are high now. 573 00:41:15.780 --> 00:41:17.519 We're doing unprecedented things. 574 00:41:17.579 --> 00:41:21.900 But it is also saying we're not doing just torchwood anymore. 575 00:41:21.960 --> 00:41:24.599 Yeah, it's it's a whole big story. 576 00:41:24.659 --> 00:41:37.860 And you know, one of the most NAF things about the 1st 2 series of Torchwood is Jack just going up to the top of that skyscraper overlooking Cardiff Bay to sort of, you know, to talk about what just happened in the episode and what they all learnt from it. 577 00:41:37.920 --> 00:41:42.539 I think those scenes are ridiculous and camp and Russell's got no one going to do any more of that. 578 00:41:44.519 --> 00:41:45.900 No more standing on that. 579 00:41:46.320 --> 00:41:48.659 Have you ever seen the Dead Ringers? 580 00:41:48.659 --> 00:41:49.739 No. 581 00:41:49.739 --> 00:41:54.179 Parody of Torture when it's very, very funny and references that. 582 00:42:00.780 --> 00:42:06.420 Captain Jack, no disrespect to John Barrowman has always been the weakest part of the show. 583 00:42:06.480 --> 00:42:09.480 The emotional core has always been Gwen. 584 00:42:09.539 --> 00:42:13.920 I would say the acting talent has always been Eve Miles as well. 585 00:42:13.980 --> 00:42:15.059 Oh, she's incredible. 586 00:42:15.059 --> 00:42:16.380 She's absolutely great. 587 00:42:16.739 --> 00:42:23.940 I like the way that Children of Earth addresses Jack and Yanto's relationship properly. 588 00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:28.860 It doesn't turn into kind of like the titillation that tortured was always going for. 589 00:42:28.920 --> 00:42:35.099 You know, it starts to become an actual relationship where they mean something to each other rather than sex gas monster antics. 590 00:42:35.159 --> 00:42:42.480 And I think it brings out depth in Gareth David Lloyd's performance I haven't seen previously. 591 00:42:42.539 --> 00:42:48.840 And it also made me think of the fact that Yanto and Jack look like they're a good pair. 592 00:42:48.900 --> 00:42:49.860 They work well on screen. 593 00:42:49.920 --> 00:42:57.840 Whereas if you had the original casting idea for Yanto's character, which was the little twink who was Margaret's secretary in Boomtown. 594 00:42:57.900 --> 00:43:03.900 You would never have been able to do that story because he just looked like, you know, aptly for children of earth, a schoolboy. 595 00:43:03.960 --> 00:43:05.159 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 596 00:43:05.219 --> 00:43:19.980 And so it look, it's a proper adult gay relationship, which, you know, torchwood is never going to be high character drama, but in terms of what it seeks to achieve, is actually developed and showcased pretty well on screen. 597 00:43:20.039 --> 00:43:24.840 And I think the fact that they are now together lends the story import. 598 00:43:24.960 --> 00:43:29.340 It means that the regulars who we've got left are tied together more closely. 599 00:43:29.400 --> 00:43:37.440 I also love that it's kind of, without putting a name to it at one of our earliest introductions to fluid sexuality. 600 00:43:37.500 --> 00:43:39.960 You know, he doesn't say he's bisexual. 601 00:43:40.019 --> 00:43:40.860 He doesn't label it. 602 00:43:40.920 --> 00:43:42.780 He doesn't say, I've become gay. 603 00:43:42.840 --> 00:43:43.920 He doesn't label that. 604 00:43:43.980 --> 00:43:48.300 He's like, yeah, he goes, I'm just having a relationship with this particular man. 605 00:43:48.360 --> 00:43:51.000 And, you know, that could turn into anything in the future. 606 00:43:51.059 --> 00:43:52.139 You could become pansexual. 607 00:43:52.199 --> 00:43:52.440 Who knows? 608 00:43:52.500 --> 00:44:00.719 But at this moment, it's one person that he has who has a different gender than the last bunch of people he was in a relationship with. 609 00:44:00.780 --> 00:44:02.760 It's a very modern way of looking at. 610 00:44:02.820 --> 00:44:10.380 Yeah, but it's without that fluid sexuality that, you know, became a big talking point 5 or 6 years later. 611 00:44:10.559 --> 00:44:16.739 I mean, we even have Alice talking to Jack about attending her mother's funeral. 612 00:44:16.800 --> 00:44:21.840 You know, and how her mother felt about him not ageing and stuff. 613 00:44:21.900 --> 00:44:27.300 So that was a relationship that continued over decades that we've never heard about. 614 00:44:27.360 --> 00:44:31.380 And again, there's that sort of fluidity and that came with Jack, didn't you? 615 00:44:31.440 --> 00:44:33.119 Like he was always bisexual. 616 00:44:33.900 --> 00:44:37.019 Yeah, just like, you know, any goals whole. 617 00:44:37.079 --> 00:44:38.039 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 618 00:44:38.099 --> 00:44:38.519 That's right. 619 00:44:38.579 --> 00:44:40.139 Omnisexual. 620 00:44:40.199 --> 00:44:41.159 And he holds a goal. 621 00:44:41.219 --> 00:44:42.480 I can't speak English to her. 622 00:44:42.539 --> 00:44:43.860 Thanks, Melania. 623 00:44:45.659 --> 00:45:02.579 It also reflects something that they that they tackle in Doctor Who, the main show, if you cast Captain Jack in the role of the doctor and Yanto in the role of the companion, the doctor explicitly says at some points, I go on, I stay the same. companions die. 624 00:45:02.639 --> 00:45:05.219 In fact, there's that kind of joke. 625 00:45:05.280 --> 00:45:12.960 Remember where the 2 of them come into the hub while she's doing some research and he says something about how you die like a dog. 626 00:45:13.019 --> 00:45:20.760 You know, I go on, you die like a dog, uh, as a kind of joke, which, of course, will come sort of horribly true kind of by the end of her. 627 00:45:20.820 --> 00:45:30.300 I also think that Eve Miles, you're right, is obviously kind of just the best person in the show. 628 00:45:30.360 --> 00:45:40.320 And I do like how this episode goes back to everything changes where you have the character hanging around above the hub and them watching. 629 00:45:40.320 --> 00:45:43.199 And she goes, you bastards, that's what you did to me. 630 00:45:43.260 --> 00:45:44.159 Yeah. 631 00:45:44.159 --> 00:45:45.360 Yeah. 632 00:45:45.420 --> 00:46:02.099 And again, just it's incredibly interesting, I think, how that 1st episode of Torch would kind of is the anti-Doctor Who in the sense that you've got Indira Varma's character kind of has been driven mad by how dreadful and awful the universe is. 633 00:46:02.219 --> 00:46:09.119 And we do touch on that in that conversation with, um, it's the opposite of Doctor Who, where do you know what I mean? 634 00:46:09.179 --> 00:46:13.679 The universe is full of wonders and we go outside and experience the wonder of the universe. 635 00:46:13.739 --> 00:46:17.820 But Torchwood is the filth and the dregs of the universe come here. 636 00:46:17.880 --> 00:46:21.900 And so you've got her saying how kind of disgusting everything is. 637 00:46:22.019 --> 00:46:25.559 And then you have that scene between Gwen and Rupesh. 638 00:46:25.619 --> 00:46:26.340 Hot repair. 639 00:46:26.400 --> 00:46:26.820 Absolutely. 640 00:46:26.880 --> 00:46:31.199 He will go on to be in 600 and something episodes of Emmerdale after this. 641 00:46:32.159 --> 00:46:49.320 That conversation where he says that people are killing themselves at twice the previous raid, you know, that there is something terrible about the universe that's revealed by the existence of aliens, and not just us losing our place, our central place in the universe. 642 00:46:49.380 --> 00:46:53.940 See, this is why I still think torchwood is, you know, Doctor Who is childlike wonder. 643 00:46:54.000 --> 00:46:54.539 Yeah. 644 00:46:54.539 --> 00:47:01.679 And torture is that crushing angst you go through when you're going through puberty, when you are like, I don't know where I fit. 645 00:47:01.739 --> 00:47:02.760 I mean, high school. 646 00:47:02.820 --> 00:47:05.400 Like I've got all these feelings downstairs. 647 00:47:05.460 --> 00:47:07.019 I'm making a mess in my bed. 648 00:47:07.079 --> 00:47:08.639 Yeah, yeah. 649 00:47:08.699 --> 00:47:14.159 It's everything's dirty and disgusting and I feel like crap and that is very much a high school experience. 650 00:47:14.219 --> 00:47:19.619 But I mean, I think here it goes beyond that to some kind of real adult terrors as well. 651 00:47:19.679 --> 00:47:21.539 We're in we're in uni now. 652 00:47:21.599 --> 00:47:22.679 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 653 00:47:22.739 --> 00:47:24.179 We having trouble making all of our tunes. 654 00:47:24.239 --> 00:47:32.940 Oh, but I think it's like my child is sick and it's my job to keep them alive until dawn and I don't know whether I'm going to be able to do it. 655 00:47:32.940 --> 00:47:49.199 Like there's real proper scary, horrible adult fears at the base of this, which is why we're watching this on easy mode and some of the people who will be joining us later in the season. actually find this a lot more challenging and a lot more harrowing to watch, I think. 656 00:47:49.260 --> 00:47:50.579 It's certainly interesting. 657 00:47:50.639 --> 00:47:52.800 That's the same series that brought a cyberwoman. 658 00:47:52.860 --> 00:47:53.940 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 659 00:47:54.000 --> 00:47:54.659 Yeah. 660 00:47:54.659 --> 00:47:56.760 Who had to be sprayed with goop? 661 00:47:57.000 --> 00:47:59.519 Did the pterodactyl get blown up? 662 00:47:59.579 --> 00:48:00.179 Yes. 663 00:48:00.239 --> 00:48:01.500 The fanway got blown up. 664 00:48:01.559 --> 00:48:02.820 Oh, yeah. 665 00:48:02.820 --> 00:48:04.920 Poor pterotactyl. 666 00:48:05.039 --> 00:48:06.480 I mean, I think that's the point, though. 667 00:48:06.539 --> 00:48:07.860 That was the point. 668 00:48:07.920 --> 00:48:08.400 No, no. 669 00:48:08.460 --> 00:48:10.800 The point was to blow up the terror. 670 00:48:11.760 --> 00:48:20.219 In a way, yes, because that 1st episode of Torture, doesn't it end with the pterodactyl, like flying into camera or flying towards us? 671 00:48:20.280 --> 00:48:22.199 Yeah, yeah, yeah. tortured. 672 00:48:22.260 --> 00:48:26.039 But what my point I was actually coming back to, it's not the same series. 673 00:48:26.099 --> 00:48:26.820 Yeah. 674 00:48:26.820 --> 00:48:28.860 It's a different show with the same name. 675 00:48:28.920 --> 00:48:29.940 Yeah. 676 00:48:29.940 --> 00:48:35.880 In many ways, the evolution of Torchwood mirrors the evolution of Gwen's makeover. 677 00:48:35.940 --> 00:48:44.039 When she starts in this series, she's much more looking like the character she played in the unquired dead by children of earth. 678 00:48:44.099 --> 00:48:46.019 She's looking smoking hot. 679 00:48:46.199 --> 00:48:47.579 Yeah. 680 00:49:10.019 --> 00:49:13.139 Well, that's all the time we have for these a week. 681 00:49:13.199 --> 00:49:18.960 We'll be back next week to prepare for the return of the 456 in Torchwood, Children of Earth, day two. 682 00:49:19.500 --> 00:49:38.519 In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts, and you can keep up with us on our website, 500yearDiary.com, where you'll find our social media links as well as links to all of our other podcasts, including the entirety of flight through entirety, which comprises every episode of our 4 Doctor Who podcasts. 683 00:49:38.699 --> 00:49:45.780 Until next time, remember to lock your car door when you park it and stop leaving that artificial arse on the passenger seat. 684 00:49:45.840 --> 00:49:48.719 That's no way to talk about Owen. 685 00:49:51.780 --> 00:49:54.480 Thank you very much for listening and good night. 686 00:49:54.539 --> 00:49:55.500 Bye. 687 00:49:55.500 --> 00:49:56.340 Ta-ta. 688 00:49:56.400 --> 00:49:56.820 Good night. 689 00:50:07.079 --> 00:50:13.380 That was 500 year diary, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter Griffiths, Adam Richard, and James Selwood. 690 00:50:13.440 --> 00:50:15.840 The theme was composed by Cameron Larm. 691 00:50:15.900 --> 00:50:23.280 This episode, they're not here until Wednesday, was recorded on the 1st of March 2026 and released on the 15th of March. 692 00:50:23.340 --> 00:50:34.079 As you've just heard, we have a new podcast out, The Entirety of Flight to Entirety, which is a combined feed containing every episode of our 4 Doctor Who podcasts, including this one. 693 00:50:34.139 --> 00:50:42.420 So if you're sick of cluttering up your podcast with all our nonsense, head over to the entirety of.flights or entirety.com and subscribe. 694 00:50:52.860 --> 00:50:55.619 I love that he can smell that she's pregnant. 695 00:50:55.679 --> 00:50:57.000 That's free. 696 00:50:57.000 --> 00:50:57.900 Silence of the lab. 697 00:50:58.199 --> 00:51:02.400 But Gwen's wearing Les du temps, not today. 698 00:51:03.900 --> 00:51:06.360 What did multiple migs say? 699 00:51:09.599 --> 00:51:13.320 I'll do my whole silence that I'm music, but not careful. 700 00:51:13.380 --> 00:51:17.940 If only they transferred him into those little cells in the base. amazing. 701 00:51:18.000 --> 00:51:20.099 What do the crankies say to you? 702 00:51:22.619 --> 00:51:24.719 Hello, Gwen. 703 00:51:27.780 --> 00:51:29.039 Van dabby jersey. 704 00:51:29.219 --> 00:51:31.019 That's great. 705 00:51:32.159 --> 00:51:35.400 Just that line, I myself cannot. 706 00:51:38.099 --> 00:51:40.079 It's so good. 707 00:51:41.099 --> 00:51:45.119 Like, I think he, I mean, he is amazingly great.