WEBVTT

NOTE
This transcript was created on 2026-05-03 at 08:50:20

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Hello, dear listener and welcome back to 500 Year Diary.

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The only Doctor Who podcast with no children, except that Daft sod

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who keeps dropping his phone in the sea.

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I'm Nathan.

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I am Adam.

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I'm James.

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And I'm Peter.

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It's Monday, the 6th of July, 2009.

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It's been just over a year since Owen and Tosh died on BBC 2 and

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just over 2 years and 8 months since Gwen 1st met Jack over on BBC

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3.

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But tonight at 9 p.m. on BBC One, Torchwood will become a massive

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television event, as nearly 6000000 people tune in to watch, as

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Earth's children deliver a terrifying alien message, and as

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torchwood blows itself to smithereens.

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It's time to watch Torchwood, Children of Earth, day one.

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So, we've done one episode, I think, of Torchwood on 500 year

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diary, and I have no idea how we all feel about it.

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So what's your feeling about tortured, Adam?

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I enjoyed it up to a point.

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I felt like it was.

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Was that .2 minutes into episode one?

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Maybe about 15. more generous than you.

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No, I think it was, like, it kept being sold to me as Doctor Who

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for grownups.

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Yeah, because it was going to have, you know, violence and sex and

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they were going to swear maybe.

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And it ended up being Doctor Who for adolescents, who were had far

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too many hormones, way too obsessed with sex and no real idea of

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what to do with themselves as an adult.

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So a male Doctor Who fan then?

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I mean, it was also kind of like unpleasantly nasty in places.

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Yes. and I'm picking things like countryside. and what's that one

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with the screaming adult?

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adult who just screams all the time.

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Anyway, doesn't matter.

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Like, there were a couple of cute episodes, like the one where the

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people were out of time.

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That was really sweet.

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Isn't that called Out of Time?

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It kind of shows it shows you how much we can remember.

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I know.

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I liked the Sex Gas Alien episode.

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The sex gas alien episode.

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Was that was that the one that was literally an Eddie Murphy

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routine come to line?

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Which he used to do this thing during the AIDS crisis.

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It was 1983.

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He goes, what happens next?

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You just stick your dick in and explode?

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And then that became a whole plot in torture.

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I'm like, Jesus, that is thin.

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It is also called day one, like this episode.

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Isn't that the episode we did?

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It's always that's everything changed.

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Everything changes.

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My feelings on Torchwood are that like anything that pitches

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itself as more adult and more serious, it inevitably ends up as

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more camp. as like series D of Lake 7.

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We're going to be all gun as, no, it's impossibly camp.

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And I think, I do appreciate that aspect of torchwood, but it's

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also not interesting enough, I think, as a concept or in the bunch

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of characters that they assemble to really sustain that.

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And so I was pretty well astonished coming into children of Earth

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how little we miss Owen and Tosh, you are not terrible characters

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but you realise they didn't actually add anything apart from being

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part of the gang.

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Yeah, I missed Susie the most.

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She's gone in episode one.

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Yeah.

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Indira Varma.

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Yeah, I mean, Andy Pryor is a spectacular casting director.

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Like, I did not know half of the people who were in this 1st

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episode, but like, I didn't know Kush Jumbo was in it.

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And she's one of my favourite actors of all time now.

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Love her in the good fight.

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She's the best in the good fight.

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She's so good.

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She's wonderful in this. she's great in this.

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And also, you know, I didn't realise the series she does on Apple

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TV with Peter Capoldi was a reunion. used to be his secretary.

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But yeah, it's things like that.

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People like who turn up and you're like, 0 my god.

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Has this person always been around?

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And I have to say, like, the woman who plays Yanto's sister

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Rhiannon?

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I think is astonishingly great.

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And the woman who plays Jack's daughter, Alice.

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Oh my god.

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Both of them are so rustly.

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Yes.

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Yeah, yeah.

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They've written.

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I mean, you know, Russell Wright's good kitchen sink and his best

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scenes are around kitchen sinks in this episode.

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Like, frankly, they're just the ones that make you actually have

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hair standing up on your arm.

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You're like, oh, it's real.

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It's people.

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It's average, everyday people are being affected by this.

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Actually, can I just say, I think that's what Torchwood, up until

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this point, broadly has been missing, is kind of the actual

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intimate to hand the scenes of people talking about life as

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opposed to the science fiction threat of the week.

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And I think, really, you can only contrast that as being the

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different approaches of Chris Chipnell and Russell T. Yeah, yeah

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yeah.

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I mean, I think actually perhaps the most grown up thing about

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children of Earth, which is vastly more grown up than series one

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and 2 of Torchwood is that it has children in it.

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And having children in Doctor Who is controversial and we know

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people who absolutely hate it.

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Right here.

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That's why we hide them off and put them into their own show and

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try and kill them all.

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Yeah, yeah, that's right.

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But for me, you know, the worst thing I think about classic Doctor

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Who is at times it is just the story of men at work meeting

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aliens.

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And so children are excluded from that.

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But in fact, the experience of having children and being

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responsible for them, the experience of loving a child, of sitting

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awake at night, you know, remembering that your job is to keep

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this child alive until the next day, all of that stuff, which I

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don't know, none of us have experienced here.

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But is, you know, an important part of adulthood for most people.

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And it's interesting.

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I think that this show that children of earth lands very

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differently for people who have children.

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See also space babies, which does a similar thing.

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Well, you say lands.

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You know, I think part of what made this episode so terrifying is

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how children are used as the horror.

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Like, they're suddenly all joined up.

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They're suddenly screaming and chanting and for people like us and

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many Doctor Who fans.

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That is terrifying because children symbolise our friends being

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taken away from us.

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Isn't that just children?

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Yeah, exactly.

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They're all joined up and they're always screaming.

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It is true though, but like Russell's tapping into what it is to

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be a gay man and have all of your friends, all of your straight

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friends, especially.

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And now most of your gay friends as well be taken away by these

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screaming, needy creatures that want to be fed all the time.

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In fact, there's that shock of discovering that Jack has a child

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as well.

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And because Jackson Mortal, in a way, he sort of opts out of the

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children thing because one thing terrifying that children do is

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that they replace you and they end up getting all your staff.

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And that's not going to happen to Jack.

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So in a way, he's got one foot in either camp.

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But we discover that Jack as a child, we discover that Gwen is

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pregnant during the course of this episode.

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And you're right.

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That thing about children, like it's a little bit like the mid

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itch cuckoos, which obviously this is in some way kind of riffing

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on, that children are actually kind of terrifying.

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I mean, I'll stand in a year 7 Latin class with sort of, you know

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24, 12 year olds in front of me.

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And if they all decide to rush me.

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Do you know what I mean?

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I'm not sure there's much I could do about it Really?

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It's also visually the midage cuckoos, well, village of the dam.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Most of those kids are blonde.

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Yeah, and white.

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No, when you said about your kids rushing you, all I could think

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of was that scene in Blake 7's, the web, where the decimas were.

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I was seeing weapons.

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Which is riffing on suddenly last summer.

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I mean, the children are absolutely terrifying.

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And one of the things about this story, I think, which makes it

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very, very different from Torchwood series one and two, is how

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immediately cinematic it is.

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And because torch would generally is like small things happening

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in corners of Cardiff and stuff. to suddenly have a aliens of

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London style worldwide crisis involving children.

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Just opens it out.

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And one of the things that, you know, the 1st episode of Torchwood

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does.

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It has a couple of scenes.

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Television will tend to have a scene in a place and then move to

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another plane, right?

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But these intercuts between people.

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So we see Lois and Frobisher arrive at work in the morning and we

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intercart between them.

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When the children start talking in unison, we see shots of Stephen

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at school.

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We see shots of David and Misha at school.

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We see other schools that we don't know the children in because

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it's sort of happening all over England as well at the same time.

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And so the scale of it.

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Just the way it's shot and the way it's told is much, much more

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cinematic, I think, than torchwood has tended to be.

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Yeah, except it's still kind of stuck in that let's fill a 169

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frame with someone's entire head.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Because your television is a small thing.

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It's like, no, no, my television is the size of my room.

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Yeah, and I don't really need to look up Gwen's nostrils.

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In HD.

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That's the way that Russell does alien invasion.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So all throughout the 1st 4 series of New Doctor Who, which had

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preceded this.

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Anytime you get an alien invasion, then you have those kind of

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worldwide implications.

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Yeah, Trinity Wells.

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Yeah, Trinity Wells to pop up commenting on it.

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I think you can make it worldwide without leaning into the camp

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when there's an existential horror.

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Yes.

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And as you correctly pointed out, the loss of children is that.

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And it has, I mean, we can feel it, even though none of us have

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children that we know of.

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And it leans into that kind of every, everyday thing that happens

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where you learn about children being taken.

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So we've learnt in recent years about Russia abducting Ukrainian

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children and taking them to Russia.

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When I was in South Korea a couple of years ago, I went to the

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Museum of the War there.

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And it was astonishing how many people, like 100s of 1000s of

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people, including children, were abducted and taken to the north

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when the north invaded at the start of the 1950s.

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And I think there's something absolutely horrific about that.

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And when you get a big high concept like that, which people react

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viscerally to, it sets the stage for something that feels

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important and global.

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The other interesting thing is, of course, the 1st time the

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children stop, they just stop and they don't say anything.

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And none of the adults that we see interacting with the children

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actually notice it happening.

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Like, that's not quite right.

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When they 1st stop, obviously Gwen's getting money out of the ATM

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and she sees 2 children stopping and 2 parents kind of

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remonstrating with them.

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But when we go to the Frobisher's house and when we go to Alice's

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house and when we go to Rhiannon and Johnny's house, the Davies

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household, like no one actually notices them stop.

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And the fact that children are not expected to be the centre of

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this narrative and they aren't.

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Like there are no child characters in this.

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As such, there are children who are kind of backdrops or props or

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you know, set dressing.

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And then suddenly, they get foregrounded in a really horrific

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way.

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But they are still kind of weirdly incomprehensible to us.

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Like we don't understand how they behave or why.

251
00:13:18.840 --> 00:13:22.740
The parents are kind of like suspect that the children are joking

252
00:13:22.740 --> 00:13:23.460
or playing a game.

253
00:13:23.519 --> 00:13:28.259
I like all of those various reactions from parents, including the

254
00:13:28.259 --> 00:13:32.519
best one, I thought, was, Yanto's sister, who sort of looks a bit

255
00:13:32.519 --> 00:13:35.580
askance at the 2 kids who then break out of the spell and she just

256
00:13:35.580 --> 00:13:37.860
kind of slightly rolls her eyes and goes on with things like that

257
00:13:37.860 --> 00:13:38.580
playing a little game.

258
00:13:38.639 --> 00:13:39.659
Yeah.

259
00:13:39.720 --> 00:13:40.019
Yeah.

260
00:13:40.080 --> 00:13:42.059
They're often thought to be playing a game.

261
00:13:42.120 --> 00:13:46.379
And very frequently, when the 456 kind of drop the kids and and

262
00:13:46.379 --> 00:13:49.740
they stop being possessed, they go back and start playing.

263
00:13:49.799 --> 00:13:50.340
Yeah.

264
00:13:50.340 --> 00:13:50.580
Yeah.

265
00:13:50.639 --> 00:13:53.039
Like that's what they kind of... they've had no memory of it.

266
00:13:53.100 --> 00:13:54.179
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

267
00:13:54.240 --> 00:13:58.620
I feel like Russell's childhood is showing here and I think he was

268
00:13:58.620 --> 00:13:59.820
a fan of John Wyndham.

269
00:13:59.879 --> 00:14:03.299
Because as you said, the midwitch cuckoos.

270
00:14:03.360 --> 00:14:07.080
But also, I've just read The Kraken Wakes for the 1st time in like

271
00:14:07.080 --> 00:14:08.759
about 30 or 40 years.

272
00:14:08.820 --> 00:14:10.200
There you go.

273
00:14:10.259 --> 00:14:13.080
That's what you call the episode with Jack's butt crack.

274
00:14:13.139 --> 00:14:15.120
Kraken wings.

275
00:14:15.179 --> 00:14:19.139
But like this feels like that same thing where it's all over the

276
00:14:19.139 --> 00:14:19.440
world.

277
00:14:19.500 --> 00:14:21.779
Yeah, but we're just seeing the English side of it.

278
00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:24.360
Like it's happening everywhere, but we're just seeing the English

279
00:14:24.360 --> 00:14:25.019
side of it.

280
00:14:25.080 --> 00:14:28.379
And it made me realise that the war between the hoozy and the

281
00:14:28.379 --> 00:14:31.740
doozies is, in fact, the Krakenwakes, again.

282
00:14:31.799 --> 00:14:32.279
Yeah, yeah.

283
00:14:32.340 --> 00:14:33.659
Like they're coming from the sea.

284
00:14:33.720 --> 00:14:36.360
Like he has been trying to make. why doesn't he just adapt it?

285
00:14:36.480 --> 00:14:37.559
It would be great.

286
00:14:37.620 --> 00:14:42.419
I mean, the sea devils actually explicitly forbid travel like over

287
00:14:42.419 --> 00:14:45.299
the sea, which is a thing that becomes impossible in the Kraken

288
00:14:45.299 --> 00:14:48.360
Wakes because there's something that slices the bottom off boats

289
00:14:48.360 --> 00:14:49.379
as they sort of travel.

290
00:14:49.500 --> 00:14:51.000
It's a great book.

291
00:14:51.059 --> 00:14:53.100
And also it ends terribly.

292
00:14:53.159 --> 00:14:53.519
Yes.

293
00:14:53.519 --> 00:14:55.259
Like it ends in catastrophe.

294
00:14:55.320 --> 00:14:57.600
It is, you know, a full apocalypse.

295
00:14:57.659 --> 00:15:01.919
And that's kind of what I feel like Russell's going for, but then

296
00:15:01.919 --> 00:15:05.700
his TV head kicks in and goes, oh, I've got to reset the dial, so

297
00:15:05.700 --> 00:15:06.360
everyone's fine.

298
00:15:06.419 --> 00:15:08.639
Yeah.

299
00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:12.419
And we will we will talk about how it ends because, of course, it

300
00:15:12.419 --> 00:15:17.279
ends in a deeply terrifying and unsatisfying way with evil Denise

301
00:15:17.279 --> 00:15:19.139
in charge of Great Britain.

302
00:15:19.200 --> 00:15:21.059
Yeah.

303
00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:26.460
But yes, it is very, it is very kind of Wyndham.

304
00:15:26.519 --> 00:15:27.539
Yeah, it is.

305
00:15:27.600 --> 00:15:30.480
I feel like he's, you know, going, oh, these were all the things I

306
00:15:30.480 --> 00:15:32.460
loved when I was a kid as well as Doctor Who.

307
00:15:32.519 --> 00:15:33.240
Yeah, yeah.

308
00:15:33.240 --> 00:15:37.259
And so Torchwood is his John Wyndham Pastiche show.

309
00:15:37.320 --> 00:15:38.039
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

310
00:15:38.159 --> 00:15:39.419
Yeah, absolutely it is.

311
00:15:39.480 --> 00:15:40.860
And Chipnell didn't listen to him.

312
00:15:41.820 --> 00:15:43.799
Seasons one and two.

313
00:15:43.860 --> 00:15:47.100
That's kind of the overall impression I get with children of

314
00:15:47.100 --> 00:15:47.340
earth.

315
00:15:47.399 --> 00:15:49.500
I don't know which came first, the chicken on the egg.

316
00:15:49.559 --> 00:15:52.679
I don't know if they decided what they wanted to do, and then the

317
00:15:52.679 --> 00:15:56.639
BBC went, this would go well on BBC One in a primetime spot.

318
00:15:56.700 --> 00:15:59.940
Or if they knew they were being promoted to BBC One and Russell

319
00:15:59.940 --> 00:16:03.240
just sat there going, I know that this show can be better and

320
00:16:03.240 --> 00:16:04.740
deeper and more serious.

321
00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:06.000
And so let's pitch for that.

322
00:16:06.059 --> 00:16:06.840
Yeah.

323
00:16:06.840 --> 00:16:10.379
And the fact that it was 5 days worldwide.

324
00:16:10.500 --> 00:16:15.000
Like, we got to watch it every day as it happened was pretty

325
00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:15.659
spectacular.

326
00:16:15.720 --> 00:16:19.500
And the fact that it's 5 days, like in story terms.

327
00:16:19.559 --> 00:16:20.639
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

328
00:16:20.700 --> 00:16:24.539
Which I think is an advantage that sort of Aristotelian unity is

329
00:16:24.539 --> 00:16:27.779
an absolute advantage that it has over the war between the land

330
00:16:27.779 --> 00:16:30.120
and the sea, which happens over a period of months.

331
00:16:30.299 --> 00:16:34.139
And I also just think just the way it's structured is really quite

332
00:16:34.139 --> 00:16:37.679
incredible because the aliens don't arrive until day three.

333
00:16:37.740 --> 00:16:40.320
They're not here on Wednesday.

334
00:16:41.639 --> 00:16:45.299
They arrive on a Wednesday.

335
00:16:45.419 --> 00:16:46.200
It's hump day.

336
00:16:46.259 --> 00:16:50.039
It is literally Monday to Friday because people are going to work

337
00:16:50.039 --> 00:16:50.879
every day.

338
00:16:50.940 --> 00:16:53.820
So it does happen, you know, at the same time.

339
00:16:53.879 --> 00:16:56.100
But those 2 days.

340
00:16:56.159 --> 00:17:00.419
Like the 2 days leading up to that isn't just preparation.

341
00:17:00.480 --> 00:17:05.579
In fact, it's Frobisher trying to kill Jack, isn't it?

342
00:17:05.640 --> 00:17:08.220
Because he was involved in the thing in 1965.

343
00:17:08.400 --> 00:17:11.400
Oh yeah, the blank page thing where you're like, what does that

344
00:17:11.400 --> 00:17:11.519
mean?

345
00:17:11.579 --> 00:17:12.900
And then she's like, oh, I know.

346
00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:14.759
I'm going kill all these people.

347
00:17:16.319 --> 00:17:18.660
I mean, that's great too.

348
00:17:18.779 --> 00:17:20.759
The blank page thing is so good.

349
00:17:20.819 --> 00:17:23.640
Oh, it's so creepy because you're like, what is it?

350
00:17:23.700 --> 00:17:24.299
What does it mean?

351
00:17:24.359 --> 00:17:25.500
She's looking at a blank page.

352
00:17:25.559 --> 00:17:26.099
Yeah.

353
00:17:26.160 --> 00:17:29.279
And then we don't find out until Lois logs, yeah.

354
00:17:29.940 --> 00:17:33.539
Like, why is the password to a super top secret?

355
00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:34.500
I know.

356
00:17:34.500 --> 00:17:36.480
Organisation on a posted note?

357
00:17:36.539 --> 00:17:38.279
On the on the screen?

358
00:17:38.339 --> 00:17:39.359
Because she's a boomer.

359
00:17:39.480 --> 00:17:40.740
Bridget's a boomer.

360
00:17:40.799 --> 00:17:41.759
What's coyotes?

361
00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:45.900
Gwen is going to an ATM.

362
00:17:46.380 --> 00:17:48.960
I mean, we can't talk.

363
00:17:49.019 --> 00:17:51.960
The reason they were able to steal all that jewellery from the

364
00:17:51.960 --> 00:17:54.779
Louvre is because the password was the Louvre.

365
00:17:57.900 --> 00:18:00.599
I mean, Granton, most people can't spell it.

366
00:18:01.859 --> 00:18:03.779
Can we take a moment?

367
00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:06.539
I know they don't feature very much in this episode, but can we

368
00:18:06.539 --> 00:18:10.140
take a moment to appreciate the elegance of the naming of the

369
00:18:10.140 --> 00:18:10.980
456?

370
00:18:11.099 --> 00:18:11.400
Yeah.

371
00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:17.460
There is no other sequence of 3 single numbers that sounds in any

372
00:18:17.460 --> 00:18:18.299
way ominous?

373
00:18:18.359 --> 00:18:19.559
They can't be called the 234.

374
00:18:19.740 --> 00:18:21.420
They can't be called the 6, 7, 8.

375
00:18:21.480 --> 00:18:22.680
That sounds ridiculous.

376
00:18:22.740 --> 00:18:25.380
Or the 7, 8, 9.

377
00:18:25.380 --> 00:18:27.299
Which is a joke.

378
00:18:27.359 --> 00:18:29.460
They did that in Voyager.

379
00:18:30.359 --> 00:18:33.900
Whereas the 456 sounds ominous.

380
00:18:33.960 --> 00:18:35.220
For some reason.

381
00:18:35.279 --> 00:18:37.920
It's just the sound of those words following each other.

382
00:18:37.980 --> 00:18:41.339
I think too, that just the fact that each number goes up by one

383
00:18:41.339 --> 00:18:45.180
and we're counting down to their arrival all the way through.

384
00:18:45.240 --> 00:18:47.819
So I think, you know, there's that as well.

385
00:18:47.880 --> 00:18:50.579
And just the fact that they don't get a name.

386
00:18:50.640 --> 00:18:54.900
I mean, they are more than any other kind of Doctor Who villain, a

387
00:18:54.900 --> 00:18:58.980
kind of weird Lovecraftian, inexplicable thing.

388
00:18:59.039 --> 00:19:00.720
And we'll obviously get there.

389
00:19:00.779 --> 00:19:02.759
I think that they are incredibly brilliant.

390
00:19:02.819 --> 00:19:04.740
They could never appear in Doctor Who.

391
00:19:04.799 --> 00:19:06.779
Like, they're just not a Doctor Who Monster.

392
00:19:06.839 --> 00:19:10.140
I think also there's a subconscious thing going on in that we know

393
00:19:10.140 --> 00:19:12.119
at the beginning it's only 5 episodes.

394
00:19:12.180 --> 00:19:12.720
Yeah.

395
00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:18.539
And calling them the 456 implies there's more than we're not going

396
00:19:18.539 --> 00:19:19.079
to see it all.

397
00:19:19.140 --> 00:19:22.259
Like it's not explicit, but it just feels like the what is six?

398
00:19:22.319 --> 00:19:24.420
Like we're only getting 5 days.

399
00:19:24.480 --> 00:19:26.819
Like what, what if there's something awful on the sixth?

400
00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:28.200
It is good.

401
00:19:28.619 --> 00:19:31.259
It kind of sets up a thing in the back of your mind that you're

402
00:19:31.259 --> 00:19:33.420
like, no, it was something awful on the sixth.

403
00:19:33.480 --> 00:19:34.440
It was called Miracle Day.

404
00:19:35.700 --> 00:19:37.859
Oh, that was more than six.

405
00:19:47.819 --> 00:19:52.079
The other thing that having a five-part story enables, and

406
00:19:52.079 --> 00:19:55.200
something that we've missed in Doctor Who, Sandifer points out

407
00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:58.200
that this is the longest Doctor Who story.

408
00:19:58.259 --> 00:20:01.259
It's about 10 minutes longer than Dalek's Master Plan.

409
00:20:01.380 --> 00:20:05.220
It's, you know, an hour longer than the war games.

410
00:20:05.279 --> 00:20:09.059
It's not quite as long as Trial of a Time Lord, but that's...

411
00:20:09.059 --> 00:20:10.140
Is that one story or four?

412
00:20:10.259 --> 00:20:10.920
Of course it's not.

413
00:20:12.240 --> 00:20:16.619
And it enables us to have a much, much bigger regular cast, and

414
00:20:16.619 --> 00:20:19.079
that's another thing that's cinematic.

415
00:20:19.140 --> 00:20:22.619
I mean, we think, you know, we've lost Tosh and Owen, and then so

416
00:20:22.619 --> 00:20:26.460
we only have 3 people in Torchwood, but, you know, there's a five

417
00:20:26.099 --> 00:20:26.759
part story.

418
00:20:26.819 --> 00:20:28.140
People appear in every episode.

419
00:20:28.200 --> 00:20:32.700
It's the biggest cast of the Torchwood season and it also just

420
00:20:32.700 --> 00:20:34.440
enables us to open things out.

421
00:20:34.500 --> 00:20:38.460
You know, as you said before, Adam, they're incredibly well cast

422
00:20:38.460 --> 00:20:41.640
but I also think that they're really just terrifically well drawn

423
00:20:41.640 --> 00:20:42.599
as well.

424
00:20:42.660 --> 00:20:47.819
Also, the fact that we get the bait and switch of the new doctor

425
00:20:47.819 --> 00:20:50.099
like, oh, we need a new medical guy.

426
00:20:50.940 --> 00:20:54.240
He's obviously being groomed to go and work in torchwood and at

427
00:20:54.240 --> 00:20:57.660
the end of the episode where like, oh, he was a secret plant of

428
00:20:57.660 --> 00:20:58.200
the government.

429
00:20:58.259 --> 00:21:00.059
Oh, he's now not a thing at all.

430
00:21:00.299 --> 00:21:05.700
I've always loved faint in drama where they set up characters who

431
00:21:05.700 --> 00:21:08.579
are as well drawn as a new regular character would be.

432
00:21:08.640 --> 00:21:10.799
And then, as you said, beat and switched them out.

433
00:21:10.859 --> 00:21:13.440
See Susie in episode one.

434
00:21:13.500 --> 00:21:16.559
And, you know, people like, I mentioned Star Trek Voyager earlier

435
00:21:16.559 --> 00:21:21.180
Cesca. set up as a member of the regular crew, like, or at least

436
00:21:21.180 --> 00:21:24.900
in a semi-regular role and then becomes villain. you know, I think

437
00:21:24.900 --> 00:21:25.980
that really works well.

438
00:21:26.039 --> 00:21:31.500
And I think also what day one of Children of Earth brings home is

439
00:21:31.500 --> 00:21:35.579
just how essential Jack and Gwen are to the series and that's it.

440
00:21:35.640 --> 00:21:40.259
It's really a series about them and their contrasting characters.

441
00:21:40.319 --> 00:21:43.920
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to spoil episode four.

442
00:21:43.980 --> 00:21:46.920
Oh, you can tell that it's happening because there's a little too

443
00:21:46.920 --> 00:21:47.220
much.

444
00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:48.059
Are we a couple?

445
00:21:48.119 --> 00:21:50.160
say, oh, yeah, not for long, long.

446
00:21:50.339 --> 00:21:56.759
But also I think I remember feeling that Yanto was safe because we

447
00:21:56.759 --> 00:21:59.579
killed Owen and Tosh at the end of the previous year.

448
00:21:59.700 --> 00:22:02.339
And that just leaves us with 2 regulars.

449
00:22:02.400 --> 00:22:07.859
So we obviously have a massively expanded role for Kai Owen as

450
00:22:07.859 --> 00:22:08.880
Reese.

451
00:22:08.940 --> 00:22:13.559
We give a really unexpected family to Yanto.

452
00:22:13.619 --> 00:22:14.220
Yeah.

453
00:22:14.279 --> 00:22:17.579
And I think it's a brilliant choice, actually.

454
00:22:17.640 --> 00:22:19.619
It is a really good choice, isn't it?

455
00:22:19.680 --> 00:22:23.400
We need, we need there to be working class children or children on

456
00:22:23.400 --> 00:22:28.619
a council estate for episode 5 to work once we decide that we're

457
00:22:28.619 --> 00:22:32.099
just going to give all of the children of the poor people to the

458
00:22:32.099 --> 00:22:32.940
476.

459
00:22:32.940 --> 00:22:34.140
476.

460
00:22:34.500 --> 00:22:36.000
You see?

461
00:22:36.839 --> 00:22:40.500
It doesn't work. to the 456.

462
00:22:41.160 --> 00:22:47.279
Once we decide that, we need to see them and we absolutely need to

463
00:22:47.279 --> 00:22:51.480
see that, but also just giving that backstory to Yanto, you know

464
00:22:51.480 --> 00:22:56.759
who's super secretive and super private, in series one and two, and

465
00:22:56.759 --> 00:23:01.200
then we get that thing towards the end of this where Gwen tries to

466
00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:04.920
connect with Rhiannon by talking about the father only to discover

467
00:23:04.920 --> 00:23:10.619
that his backstory, that cheesy backstory, about his father, the

468
00:23:10.619 --> 00:23:15.359
master tailor as if that's a thing in like 2007 or whatever.

469
00:23:15.839 --> 00:23:20.099
I kind of love that the implication is that, you know, in this

470
00:23:20.099 --> 00:23:24.059
episode that Yanto has so tried to distance himself from his past

471
00:23:24.059 --> 00:23:29.519
that he absolutely forgets that you cannot leave a car in the

472
00:23:29.519 --> 00:23:29.880
street there.

473
00:23:29.940 --> 00:23:31.440
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

474
00:23:31.980 --> 00:23:34.319
Those kids have been given to the forefighters.

475
00:23:34.440 --> 00:23:38.880
Well, they were planning to do that. literally what was on the

476
00:23:38.880 --> 00:23:39.240
cards.

477
00:23:39.299 --> 00:23:40.259
I think.

478
00:23:40.319 --> 00:23:44.460
That's the best scene of the story between Yanto and his sister.

479
00:23:44.519 --> 00:23:46.680
The best scene in the episode, I should say.

480
00:23:46.740 --> 00:23:48.240
There's better scenes to come in the story.

481
00:23:48.299 --> 00:23:51.359
And it's because it has emotional truth to it.

482
00:23:51.420 --> 00:23:51.900
Oh good.

483
00:23:51.960 --> 00:23:57.779
When she says, dad died in you and you left, you know, you'd never

484
00:23:57.779 --> 00:23:59.039
tell me anything anymore.

485
00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:02.279
And she's like, she's not twisting the knife.

486
00:24:02.339 --> 00:24:04.859
She sort of is, but she doesn't seem whiny or anything.

487
00:24:04.920 --> 00:24:08.700
No, it feels very kind of like, you know, I'm just telling you

488
00:24:08.700 --> 00:24:09.779
that it hurt me.

489
00:24:09.839 --> 00:24:12.180
Also, I want to know what's going on.

490
00:24:12.240 --> 00:24:16.920
Like it's still a very fraternal, you know, moment.

491
00:24:16.980 --> 00:24:21.299
It's like we're brother and sister, like it also, I think, mirrored

492
00:24:21.299 --> 00:24:26.519
the stories of some gay men, especially going back.

493
00:24:26.579 --> 00:24:30.059
Yeah, yeah, yeah. where through choice or no choice.

494
00:24:30.119 --> 00:24:31.799
They had to turn their backs on their families.

495
00:24:31.859 --> 00:24:33.539
They had to walk away from that.

496
00:24:33.599 --> 00:24:36.779
And even the sympathetic members of families who were left, like

497
00:24:36.779 --> 00:24:39.839
maybe a sister didn't really have a window into their lives.

498
00:24:39.900 --> 00:24:42.660
And that's awkward and painful.

499
00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:45.420
And I think you can see that with Ianto and his sister.

500
00:24:45.480 --> 00:24:48.359
The one thing that I think they would change now, if they were

501
00:24:48.359 --> 00:24:52.440
making it 15 years later, was that his brother-in-law coming in

502
00:24:52.440 --> 00:24:55.380
and wisecracking about taking up the arse doesn't quite land.

503
00:24:55.440 --> 00:24:56.460
Oh, God, no.

504
00:24:56.460 --> 00:24:59.700
It's a little bit too much, but I do think it is kind of funny

505
00:24:59.700 --> 00:25:03.900
because, of course, Rhiannon has just told him that his secret

506
00:25:03.900 --> 00:25:05.339
is...

507
00:25:05.339 --> 00:25:09.299
And then Johnny comes in and calls him, oh, you've gone bender, you

508
00:25:09.299 --> 00:25:10.079
know, like that's awesome.

509
00:25:10.440 --> 00:25:12.059
It's fine.

510
00:25:12.119 --> 00:25:17.519
I also think that it's very rustly in that scene, how they're kind

511
00:25:17.519 --> 00:25:20.339
of like they're talking across purposes to each other a little

512
00:25:20.339 --> 00:25:20.700
bit.

513
00:25:20.759 --> 00:25:25.019
But then she just breaks slightly and says, but is he a good man?

514
00:25:25.079 --> 00:25:25.740
Is good to you?

515
00:25:25.799 --> 00:25:26.519
Yeah, yeah.

516
00:25:26.519 --> 00:25:28.799
And that's that's a very rustly thing to ask.

517
00:25:28.859 --> 00:25:32.039
And that reminded me of a scene, in the film, beautiful thing from

518
00:25:32.039 --> 00:25:36.299
the 90s, where the lead guy's mother who is played by the

519
00:25:36.299 --> 00:25:40.140
wonderful Linda Henry from EastEnders, is struggling to understand

520
00:25:40.140 --> 00:25:43.440
his relationship with his schoolmate and his next-door neighbour.

521
00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:45.599
And all she asks him is, is he good to you?

522
00:25:45.660 --> 00:25:49.140
And he says, yes, and she just breaks down tears and says, is he?

523
00:25:49.200 --> 00:25:52.500
And like, that's a very important beat, I think, for someone who's

524
00:25:52.500 --> 00:25:55.140
learning these things about someone close to them that they didn't

525
00:25:55.140 --> 00:25:55.559
know.

526
00:25:55.619 --> 00:25:59.160
All they really want to know is, is that person good to you?

527
00:25:59.220 --> 00:25:59.519
Are you happy?

528
00:25:59.640 --> 00:26:02.940
I think too, you know, like it's 2009.

529
00:26:03.119 --> 00:26:04.920
So it's not the Middle Ages or anything.

530
00:26:04.980 --> 00:26:08.759
But I mean, it's still a big TV event written by a gay man and

531
00:26:08.759 --> 00:26:13.259
centring the gay experience in that way and in that broader way

532
00:26:13.259 --> 00:26:16.380
that you were talking about, sort of alienation from family.

533
00:26:16.440 --> 00:26:20.279
And so I do think Johnny coming in and cracking wise works well to

534
00:26:20.279 --> 00:26:22.140
kind of diffuse that a little bit.

535
00:26:22.200 --> 00:26:24.660
I think you also get away with it because it's working-class

536
00:26:24.660 --> 00:26:25.140
Cardiff.

537
00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:26.220
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

538
00:26:26.279 --> 00:26:31.920
And Johnny will show himself to be a very good man, even as early

539
00:26:31.920 --> 00:26:33.900
as the very next episode, I think.

540
00:26:33.960 --> 00:26:38.640
I'm not quite sure why he throws a brick about 2 feet away.

541
00:26:38.819 --> 00:26:40.380
I know.

542
00:26:40.380 --> 00:26:41.519
It's Auros.

543
00:26:41.640 --> 00:26:45.119
I think that's what happens when you let a gay man director.

544
00:26:45.180 --> 00:26:46.079
I could just throw something.

545
00:26:46.559 --> 00:26:49.140
That's what butcher men do throw things.

546
00:26:49.799 --> 00:26:53.640
As with many gay men back in the day, you know, taking you back to

547
00:26:53.640 --> 00:26:56.519
the school baseball field and that, you try to throw that ball and

548
00:26:56.519 --> 00:26:58.980
you think it's going to go the entire length of the pitch, but it

549
00:26:58.980 --> 00:27:00.119
just lands.

550
00:27:00.180 --> 00:27:03.599
Yeah, when you, like, what you should do is get someone who is

551
00:27:03.599 --> 00:27:06.720
good at bowling with their right hand and then ask them to do it

552
00:27:06.720 --> 00:27:08.579
with their left hand and go, that's how we all throw.

553
00:27:10.380 --> 00:27:14.700
And let's also talk about Alice and Stephen.

554
00:27:14.759 --> 00:27:16.980
I think she is stunning as well.

555
00:27:17.039 --> 00:27:20.220
I think those 2 actresses are just amazingly great.

556
00:27:20.279 --> 00:27:20.880
Yeah.

557
00:27:20.880 --> 00:27:26.880
But the woman who plays, Alice is so beautiful and like a bit sad

558
00:27:26.880 --> 00:27:30.000
and stuff, those scenes in episode 2 where she keeps ringing

559
00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:30.779
Jack's phone.

560
00:27:30.839 --> 00:27:32.400
That's the next episode.

561
00:27:32.460 --> 00:27:33.299
You're going to talk about it.

562
00:27:33.359 --> 00:27:34.140
I know, I know.

563
00:27:34.200 --> 00:27:38.220
But here, there's a great moment, I think.

564
00:27:38.279 --> 00:27:40.259
Because it's established.

565
00:27:40.319 --> 00:27:45.539
We know by the end of his conversation with her that we kind of

566
00:27:45.539 --> 00:27:51.960
could predict how this is going to end because both Yanto and Jack

567
00:27:51.960 --> 00:27:54.299
go to find a child.

568
00:27:54.359 --> 00:27:58.200
They go to a relative that has a child and they both offer to take

569
00:27:58.200 --> 00:27:59.220
the child out.

570
00:27:59.220 --> 00:28:05.039
And the moment that Jack says, oh, I want to spend some time with

571
00:28:05.039 --> 00:28:08.880
Stephen today, she just says, you bastard, you're not

572
00:28:08.880 --> 00:28:11.759
experimenting with him, not ever.

573
00:28:11.819 --> 00:28:16.019
That's why I tell you to stay away because you're dangerous.

574
00:28:16.079 --> 00:28:20.279
Like all of that stuff, which is obviously paid off in episode 5

575
00:28:20.279 --> 00:28:25.019
is here and clearly established in episode one.

576
00:28:25.079 --> 00:28:28.259
I mean, also from the gay experience.

577
00:28:28.319 --> 00:28:29.460
This happens a lot.

578
00:28:29.519 --> 00:28:31.440
It's like, I want to go to Disneyland.

579
00:28:31.500 --> 00:28:33.599
Can I take your child, so I don't look like a weirdo.

580
00:28:34.619 --> 00:28:37.140
Don't they have gay days now?

581
00:28:37.140 --> 00:28:37.859
They do.

582
00:28:37.920 --> 00:28:38.640
They do now.

583
00:28:38.700 --> 00:28:39.839
You know.

584
00:28:39.900 --> 00:28:41.819
Like, it's like, oh, I really want to go and see this film.

585
00:28:41.880 --> 00:28:45.359
I need to see Zootopia too, but I can't go on my own.

586
00:28:45.960 --> 00:28:49.740
I think it's also a reflection of that experience where when

587
00:28:49.740 --> 00:28:52.740
you're a gay man and you do have a lot of kind of, you know, you

588
00:28:52.740 --> 00:28:54.420
have a favoured status in the family.

589
00:28:54.480 --> 00:28:57.180
The kids, I don't know, about your experience, but a lot of sort

590
00:28:57.180 --> 00:29:00.599
of my younger cousins, but children are with my cousins, um, and

591
00:29:00.599 --> 00:29:01.799
godchildren and that.

592
00:29:01.859 --> 00:29:06.180
You get to spend that incredible time with them in a focussed

593
00:29:06.180 --> 00:29:06.839
situation.

594
00:29:06.900 --> 00:29:10.319
So you're sort of the great gay uncle who flies in and takes them

595
00:29:10.319 --> 00:29:11.880
to the cinema.

596
00:29:11.880 --> 00:29:12.720
Yeah, the favourite uncle.

597
00:29:12.779 --> 00:29:14.160
Yeah, exactly.

598
00:29:14.220 --> 00:29:16.500
And I think that's a little bit of a twist on that.

599
00:29:16.619 --> 00:29:19.740
It's also the thing too, which we were talking about before

600
00:29:19.740 --> 00:29:23.220
because we don't have children we never kind of graduate into the

601
00:29:23.220 --> 00:29:24.000
next generation.

602
00:29:24.420 --> 00:29:27.180
And so there's that as well.

603
00:29:27.240 --> 00:29:30.900
I mean, there's a sense in which people with children see us as

604
00:29:30.900 --> 00:29:34.380
not completely adult because we've never had that.

605
00:29:34.380 --> 00:29:35.099
Also dangerous.

606
00:29:35.160 --> 00:29:38.279
Like, you know, it's like, I don't know if I can trust them not to

607
00:29:38.279 --> 00:29:42.119
take my kid to somewhere terrible and do, like, you know, the

608
00:29:42.119 --> 00:29:44.579
elocution of Benjamin Franklin that's currently playing the

609
00:29:44.579 --> 00:29:45.240
Stephen J.

610
00:29:45.240 --> 00:29:49.740
Spears play from the 70s and it's about this flamboyant teacher

611
00:29:49.740 --> 00:29:54.539
who kind of lets this kid smoke and drink and carry on and it's

612
00:29:54.539 --> 00:29:56.880
like, the whole gay people are always corrupting children.

613
00:29:56.940 --> 00:30:00.599
Well, it's because we don't have the lived experience of being

614
00:30:00.599 --> 00:30:01.200
parents.

615
00:30:01.259 --> 00:30:04.920
And so I can think of when I took my cousin's kids to see Charlie

616
00:30:04.920 --> 00:30:08.160
and the Chocolate Factory in London, and I let them have far too

617
00:30:08.160 --> 00:30:08.519
much sugar.

618
00:30:08.640 --> 00:30:11.579
And I didn't realise what I was doing.

619
00:30:11.640 --> 00:30:15.299
I didn't realise that we needed to stop, you know, one sugar and

620
00:30:15.299 --> 00:30:17.099
then maybe one more sugar and that was it.

621
00:30:17.160 --> 00:30:21.119
And all of a sudden these great kids, who I loved being around and

622
00:30:21.119 --> 00:30:24.599
we had a great time together, turned into monsters and wouldn't

623
00:30:24.599 --> 00:30:26.220
listen to a word that I said.

624
00:30:26.279 --> 00:30:30.059
And I realised with this sudden sinking feeling that I had done

625
00:30:30.059 --> 00:30:30.299
that.

626
00:30:30.359 --> 00:30:33.180
I'd given them too much sugar and that was the problem.

627
00:30:33.240 --> 00:30:38.579
So, so, I mean, there's that, and there's several times, I've just

628
00:30:38.579 --> 00:30:41.700
rewatched episodes one and 2, and there's several times where

629
00:30:41.700 --> 00:30:46.500
people get, like, Yanto when he goes to speak to a child who's

630
00:30:46.500 --> 00:30:50.940
just kind of zoned down in episode 2 in the playground, and the

631
00:30:50.940 --> 00:30:52.980
parent calls him a perv and tells him to get away.

632
00:30:53.039 --> 00:30:56.940
Because that's the other thing about children too, is that parents

633
00:30:56.940 --> 00:31:00.420
own them or regard themselves as owning them in some way.

634
00:31:00.480 --> 00:31:02.039
They're protecting them.

635
00:31:02.099 --> 00:31:02.880
Yeah, that's right.

636
00:31:02.940 --> 00:31:03.359
That's right.

637
00:31:03.420 --> 00:31:07.380
But the whole idea around it because, I mean, the four, five, 6

638
00:31:07.380 --> 00:31:08.339
are literally that.

639
00:31:08.400 --> 00:31:12.000
You know, people say the show kind of characterises them as if

640
00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:15.299
they're drug addicts, but there's a sense in which they're also

641
00:31:15.299 --> 00:31:18.059
kind of paedophiles. you know what I mean?

642
00:31:18.119 --> 00:31:22.079
Like they violate children's bodily autonomy in order to get some

643
00:31:22.079 --> 00:31:25.319
kind of satisfaction for themselves, some kind of physical

644
00:31:25.319 --> 00:31:25.980
satisfaction.

645
00:31:26.039 --> 00:31:29.640
And so there's all that concern around pedos and perverts and

646
00:31:29.640 --> 00:31:32.460
stuff all the way through and people defending their children

647
00:31:32.460 --> 00:31:35.759
against interference from people outside.

648
00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:41.039
And there's that moment where Alice is talking about Steven's

649
00:31:41.039 --> 00:31:46.859
father and and like it's another rustly thing where, you know, he

650
00:31:46.859 --> 00:31:47.579
married her.

651
00:31:47.579 --> 00:31:49.079
Do you know what I mean?

652
00:31:49.140 --> 00:31:52.079
We don't need to be told who her is, you know, it's a Russell

653
00:31:52.079 --> 00:31:52.500
thing.

654
00:31:52.559 --> 00:31:54.779
But, you know, he sends postcards.

655
00:31:54.839 --> 00:31:58.559
He remembers his birthday and then she concludes with there are

656
00:31:58.559 --> 00:32:03.299
worse fathers as well, which I think is also pretty gray.

657
00:32:03.359 --> 00:32:04.799
It is pretty good.

658
00:32:04.859 --> 00:32:06.539
Well, she's looking at one, really.

659
00:32:06.599 --> 00:32:08.160
She is, exactly right.

660
00:32:08.220 --> 00:32:08.640
Exactly.

661
00:32:15.119 --> 00:32:18.119
Let's talk about Lois as well.

662
00:32:18.180 --> 00:32:20.160
She was so gray.

663
00:32:20.220 --> 00:32:21.240
Sorry.

664
00:32:21.240 --> 00:32:24.059
So great.

665
00:32:24.119 --> 00:32:26.940
I think, again, you know, we saw that thing where her and

666
00:32:26.940 --> 00:32:28.619
Frobisher arrive at work the same time.

667
00:32:28.680 --> 00:32:30.779
She's running late in a bus.

668
00:32:30.839 --> 00:32:34.019
He's, you know, being driven there, driven to the front door.

669
00:32:34.079 --> 00:32:39.299
I just think she is unbelievably charming and likeable and just

670
00:32:39.299 --> 00:32:40.680
terrifically smart.

671
00:32:40.740 --> 00:32:45.720
So was she, she wasn't going to be Martha, was she?

672
00:32:45.779 --> 00:32:49.259
I think in an iteration of the story, that was the Martha kind of

673
00:32:49.259 --> 00:32:50.759
void.

674
00:32:50.819 --> 00:32:52.259
Yeah, it wasn't exactly the same character.

675
00:32:52.319 --> 00:32:54.480
But, you know, having said what you just said then about

676
00:32:54.480 --> 00:32:57.960
unbelievably likeable and smart, that basically is Martha.

677
00:32:58.019 --> 00:32:58.440
Yeah.

678
00:32:58.440 --> 00:33:02.339
So she occupies that kind of questioning insider role.

679
00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:03.180
Yeah.

680
00:33:03.240 --> 00:33:07.140
And she's so good at that, like, having 13 things going on in her

681
00:33:07.140 --> 00:33:12.119
mind about what is going on right here, right now that I am a

682
00:33:12.119 --> 00:33:14.519
complete, you know, outsider too.

683
00:33:14.579 --> 00:33:19.140
And also our viewpoint of the machinations that are going on in

684
00:33:19.140 --> 00:33:22.259
this office because it's like, we don't know anything unless she

685
00:33:22.259 --> 00:33:22.680
knows it.

686
00:33:22.740 --> 00:33:23.519
Yeah, yeah.

687
00:33:23.579 --> 00:33:24.539
Like, you know.

688
00:33:24.599 --> 00:33:25.740
And we watch her discover it.

689
00:33:25.799 --> 00:33:28.440
She works it out and it's all done just by looking at computer

690
00:33:28.440 --> 00:33:32.700
screens and just sort of being careful and clever. almost no

691
00:33:32.700 --> 00:33:34.559
dialogue in this 1st episode.

692
00:33:34.619 --> 00:33:36.299
Like it's a lot of eye acting.

693
00:33:36.539 --> 00:33:41.819
Sandra suggests that her role in a way has an advantage over

694
00:33:41.819 --> 00:33:45.420
bringing Martha back because Martha is someone who fights aliens

695
00:33:45.420 --> 00:33:46.380
and that kind of thing.

696
00:33:46.440 --> 00:33:51.839
And she is perhaps the one good, normal person.

697
00:33:51.900 --> 00:33:55.380
I think Rhiannon as well, an Alice, but, you know, the one person

698
00:33:55.380 --> 00:33:58.619
in government at least who is doing the right thing and standing

699
00:33:58.619 --> 00:33:59.220
up.

700
00:33:59.279 --> 00:34:03.000
And so by episode two, she's already committing treason because at

701
00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:06.299
the end of episode one, she learns that a boss is having people

702
00:34:06.299 --> 00:34:06.900
killed.

703
00:34:06.960 --> 00:34:09.900
I also think if that had been Martha.

704
00:34:09.960 --> 00:34:12.420
Obviously, that would have been great, but it also would have

705
00:34:12.420 --> 00:34:15.780
waited the story badly, I think, because it would have turned all

706
00:34:15.780 --> 00:34:19.320
of those scenes in the office into an A plot strand with one of

707
00:34:19.320 --> 00:34:20.219
your A characters.

708
00:34:20.340 --> 00:34:24.000
Whereas what you really want to do is follow the regular torchwood

709
00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:27.840
characters and having a character who is not returning, as you

710
00:34:27.840 --> 00:34:31.139
said, is just like us, a member of the public in there, means that

711
00:34:31.139 --> 00:34:32.519
you're not distracting from that.

712
00:34:32.579 --> 00:34:36.420
Also, it doesn't work structurally if you have Martha in there

713
00:34:36.420 --> 00:34:40.019
unless you work out a way of her not being able to contact torch.

714
00:34:40.079 --> 00:34:40.800
Yeah, yeah.

715
00:34:40.860 --> 00:34:41.699
Yeah, exactly.

716
00:34:41.820 --> 00:34:43.980
Yeah, I just would end it in 2 episodes.

717
00:34:44.039 --> 00:34:46.980
I don't think it was as simple as swapping out masters kind of

718
00:34:46.980 --> 00:34:47.460
different.

719
00:34:47.519 --> 00:34:49.860
I think there's a certain amount of restructuring and retelling of

720
00:34:49.860 --> 00:34:50.760
the story that went on there.

721
00:34:50.820 --> 00:34:51.059
Yeah.

722
00:34:51.119 --> 00:34:53.820
And of course, Peter Capaldi.

723
00:34:53.940 --> 00:34:56.880
Can I just say that you have to be very careful with Doctor Who

724
00:34:56.880 --> 00:34:59.340
fans of a certain age when you call a character Frobisher?

725
00:34:59.880 --> 00:35:01.920
I had the same feeling.

726
00:35:01.980 --> 00:35:05.039
I was like, if they opened the door on as a penguin, this is

727
00:35:05.039 --> 00:35:05.699
amazing.

728
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:09.059
See, Stephen Moffatt always said that he runs like a penguin with

729
00:35:09.059 --> 00:35:09.719
a task.

730
00:35:09.780 --> 00:35:10.920
Oh my God.

731
00:35:10.980 --> 00:35:13.860
In my head, Canon, he is Frobish.

732
00:35:13.920 --> 00:35:15.239
Oh, yeah, a really bad week.

733
00:35:15.300 --> 00:35:18.360
Your head cannon's very weird.

734
00:35:18.360 --> 00:35:20.940
Literally a cannon.

735
00:35:21.059 --> 00:35:25.679
He's incredible And you know, it just shows what kind of range he

736
00:35:25.679 --> 00:35:28.800
has because that performance is so different from either his

737
00:35:28.800 --> 00:35:32.820
performance as the doctor or in the thick of it as Malcolm

738
00:35:32.820 --> 00:35:33.179
Tucker.

739
00:35:33.239 --> 00:35:34.380
Or Kycillius.

740
00:35:35.219 --> 00:35:36.900
That's lovely.

741
00:35:38.280 --> 00:35:41.460
And I think he really grounds the story.

742
00:35:41.519 --> 00:35:44.340
All the scenes with him don't feel like fantastical.

743
00:35:44.400 --> 00:35:45.719
I'm talking about episode one here.

744
00:35:45.780 --> 00:35:47.820
Don't feel like fantastical science fiction.

745
00:35:47.880 --> 00:35:49.320
They feel like workplace drama.

746
00:35:49.380 --> 00:35:50.460
Yeah, yeah.

747
00:35:50.519 --> 00:35:53.159
And he's got, he like, he's such a great actor.

748
00:35:53.219 --> 00:35:58.139
You feel the secret that's weighing on him the entire time.

749
00:35:58.139 --> 00:36:00.000
Yeah. because it's not really mentioned.

750
00:36:00.059 --> 00:36:01.980
No one really says anything about it.

751
00:36:02.039 --> 00:36:04.800
Like, we don't really find out properly until much later.

752
00:36:04.860 --> 00:36:07.559
Like there's all the alien stuff where like, is it the same?

753
00:36:07.619 --> 00:36:11.579
Are they the same thing as this old guy that's screaming on the

754
00:36:11.579 --> 00:36:11.820
lawn?

755
00:36:11.940 --> 00:36:15.360
Well, the fact that he falls to his knees and starts screaming and

756
00:36:15.360 --> 00:36:19.739
crying when the girls start talking because he knows what it

757
00:36:19.739 --> 00:36:20.280
means.

758
00:36:20.280 --> 00:36:22.739
Like he actually knows what it means.

759
00:36:22.800 --> 00:36:23.760
And that's what's great.

760
00:36:23.820 --> 00:36:28.199
It's that mystery of, you know, those 3 names that no one that we

761
00:36:28.199 --> 00:36:31.559
know have nothing to do with Torchwood at all, and then Jack

762
00:36:31.559 --> 00:36:32.280
Harkness.

763
00:36:32.340 --> 00:36:32.940
What is that?

764
00:36:33.000 --> 00:36:39.000
The fact that, and the genius of having that opening scene where

765
00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:41.760
we're cutting around the adults.

766
00:36:41.820 --> 00:36:45.239
We don't see a single adult in that opening scene.

767
00:36:45.300 --> 00:36:48.239
And later on when we revisit it, Jack will be there.

768
00:36:48.300 --> 00:36:51.719
There'll be men with guns in it. there will be adults around there

769
00:36:51.719 --> 00:36:55.920
engineering it, but Clem's memory of it doesn't, for some reason

770
00:36:55.920 --> 00:36:58.440
doesn't include any of the adults.

771
00:36:58.559 --> 00:37:00.719
And that will only come later.

772
00:37:00.780 --> 00:37:05.880
Again, speaking of actors that have storied careers, like the guy

773
00:37:05.880 --> 00:37:07.619
playing clam is spectacular.

774
00:37:07.679 --> 00:37:08.579
Yeah, yeah.

775
00:37:08.639 --> 00:37:11.940
Like he's in Lost Tango and Halifax, he's, I think he's on the

776
00:37:11.940 --> 00:37:12.420
archers now.

777
00:37:12.780 --> 00:37:14.699
Who's into everyone?

778
00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:17.940
All great British actors end up in soap.

779
00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:18.539
Yeah they do.

780
00:37:18.599 --> 00:37:20.099
And he's incredible.

781
00:37:20.159 --> 00:37:22.440
Like, and he has like 2 or 3 scenes.

782
00:37:22.500 --> 00:37:23.460
Yeah, yeah.

783
00:37:23.460 --> 00:37:27.480
Oh my god, everyone is kind of hitting it to the back wall in this

784
00:37:27.480 --> 00:37:27.599
show.

785
00:37:27.659 --> 00:37:30.960
Also that that scene where Gwen is interviewing.

786
00:37:31.019 --> 00:37:31.920
Oh, yeah.

787
00:37:31.920 --> 00:37:35.519
And she's like, like she keeps touching his hand.

788
00:37:35.579 --> 00:37:36.300
Yeah.

789
00:37:36.300 --> 00:37:38.280
Like, like she's trying to connect with him.

790
00:37:38.340 --> 00:37:39.420
Yeah, it's so moving.

791
00:37:39.480 --> 00:37:43.139
I loved her reaction when he grabs her wrist and sniffs it

792
00:37:43.380 --> 00:37:47.579
affronted and weirded out, but knows that there's something which

793
00:37:47.579 --> 00:37:48.840
she needs to address here.

794
00:37:48.900 --> 00:37:49.679
Yeah.

795
00:37:49.679 --> 00:37:53.340
I just think the fact that he can smell them coming.

796
00:37:53.400 --> 00:37:53.639
Yeah.

797
00:37:53.639 --> 00:37:56.940
Like, he can tell if she's lying and he can tell that the 456 are

798
00:37:56.940 --> 00:37:58.559
on their way back and has he been...

799
00:37:58.559 --> 00:38:00.059
I love that he can smell that she's pregnant.

800
00:38:00.119 --> 00:38:02.219
I mean, he is amazingly great.

801
00:38:02.340 --> 00:38:06.000
And later on when he gets to be homophobic in a later episode, I

802
00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:09.960
think it actually kind of manages to work really kind of terribly

803
00:38:09.960 --> 00:38:10.260
well.

804
00:38:10.320 --> 00:38:13.199
But just the kind of the sequence of events as well.

805
00:38:13.260 --> 00:38:15.360
Like there's enough going on, you know, the fact now there's an

806
00:38:15.360 --> 00:38:18.900
adult who is talking at the same time as the children and saying

807
00:38:18.900 --> 00:38:20.219
the same things.

808
00:38:20.280 --> 00:38:20.699
Why is that?

809
00:38:20.760 --> 00:38:25.800
That's super interesting, of, you know, Gwen calling Reese and

810
00:38:25.800 --> 00:38:30.960
Reese working out. that, you know, this is a message being sent to

811
00:38:30.960 --> 00:38:33.780
England because it's happening during the school run and at

812
00:38:33.780 --> 00:38:34.559
morning break.

813
00:38:34.619 --> 00:38:38.159
So we get vision of all of them on television and stuff.

814
00:38:38.219 --> 00:38:40.800
All of that stuff is so good and so clever.

815
00:38:40.920 --> 00:38:45.780
Yeah, that kind of stuff happens a lot because people in these

816
00:38:45.780 --> 00:38:48.780
situations like a torchwood don't have normal lives.

817
00:38:48.840 --> 00:38:51.000
So they don't think of the normal things.

818
00:38:51.059 --> 00:38:52.199
No, the everyday.

819
00:38:52.260 --> 00:38:55.380
And it takes someone like Reese to go, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was

820
00:38:55.380 --> 00:38:56.159
school and lunch.

821
00:38:56.219 --> 00:38:57.179
It's like, oh, yeah.

822
00:38:57.239 --> 00:39:03.480
Well, remember that moment where Jack and Yantua up top and

823
00:39:03.480 --> 00:39:05.820
they're kind of going, where on earth could I get you a child?

824
00:39:05.880 --> 00:39:06.960
I can get you a laser.

825
00:39:07.019 --> 00:39:10.139
I can get you a weevil, you know, but I can't get you a child.

826
00:39:10.199 --> 00:39:11.219
Where did children come from?

827
00:39:11.280 --> 00:39:12.599
How do people even get them?

828
00:39:12.659 --> 00:39:13.559
You know?

829
00:39:13.619 --> 00:39:15.480
And so it is that.

830
00:39:15.539 --> 00:39:17.219
It is absolutely that.

831
00:39:17.760 --> 00:39:21.780
But it's that it's that thing because they're science fiction

832
00:39:21.780 --> 00:39:24.599
people and because their families are not.

833
00:39:24.659 --> 00:39:25.920
Yeah.

834
00:39:25.980 --> 00:39:29.699
And I love, oh, that's one of my other favourite moments is when

835
00:39:29.699 --> 00:39:32.639
Gwen says to the prospective new tortured member.

836
00:39:32.699 --> 00:39:33.659
He's like, what's down there?

837
00:39:33.719 --> 00:39:35.219
She goes, oh, big science fiction based.

838
00:39:35.760 --> 00:39:39.000
Well, and of course, that's the other thing that happens as well

839
00:39:39.000 --> 00:39:44.460
is that the things about torture that are a bit naft actually just

840
00:39:44.460 --> 00:39:47.159
all get exploded here at this point.

841
00:39:47.219 --> 00:39:49.139
And so that including Captain Jack.

842
00:39:49.199 --> 00:39:53.940
Including Captain Jack, the car, that wretched car with the LEDs

843
00:39:53.940 --> 00:39:57.840
on it that just makes them look like absolute bell ends when they

844
00:39:57.840 --> 00:39:58.440
drive up.

845
00:39:58.500 --> 00:40:02.099
You know, that gets stolen and trashed.

846
00:40:02.280 --> 00:40:04.559
But we blow up the base.

847
00:40:04.619 --> 00:40:07.980
And like, I think the base, like, in a sense, obviously the base

848
00:40:07.980 --> 00:40:09.300
is just the TARDIS, isn't it?

849
00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:13.619
And you've got a sort of time travelling immortal as the lead

850
00:40:13.619 --> 00:40:14.880
someone who can't die.

851
00:40:14.940 --> 00:40:15.900
All of that sort of thing.

852
00:40:16.019 --> 00:40:18.119
It is just redoing Doctor Who.

853
00:40:18.179 --> 00:40:22.380
I think that that said deserves praise, I think.

854
00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:28.500
Yeah, and I think it also sells the idea that torture is a

855
00:40:28.500 --> 00:40:32.940
Victorian era invention by giving it the aesthetics of the

856
00:40:32.940 --> 00:40:36.840
underground as well, which is from a similar era.

857
00:40:37.199 --> 00:40:39.360
Where does that underground go?

858
00:40:40.260 --> 00:40:42.119
In Cardiff.

859
00:40:42.119 --> 00:40:44.280
Next to a bay.

860
00:40:44.400 --> 00:40:48.780
Yeah, it's one way of raising mistakes, isn't it?

861
00:40:48.840 --> 00:40:52.559
Because as far back as I can remember, and I was probably the

862
00:40:52.559 --> 00:40:55.320
influence of the Empire strikes back when I was boy.

863
00:40:55.380 --> 00:40:59.760
I have loved stories where the heroes are targeted in their home

864
00:40:59.760 --> 00:41:02.820
or their base and have to flee in different directions.

865
00:41:02.880 --> 00:41:06.119
And so the best X-Men film, X-Men 2 does that.

866
00:41:06.179 --> 00:41:10.079
Empire Strikesback is obviously the ultimate example of it.

867
00:41:10.139 --> 00:41:13.860
But I think destroying their base and scattering them is just one

868
00:41:13.860 --> 00:41:15.719
way of saying the stakes are high now.

869
00:41:15.780 --> 00:41:17.519
We're doing unprecedented things.

870
00:41:17.579 --> 00:41:21.900
But it is also saying we're not doing just torchwood anymore.

871
00:41:21.960 --> 00:41:24.599
Yeah, it's it's a whole big story.

872
00:41:24.659 --> 00:41:28.199
And you know, one of the most NAF things about the 1st 2 series of

873
00:41:28.199 --> 00:41:32.280
Torchwood is Jack just going up to the top of that skyscraper

874
00:41:32.280 --> 00:41:35.760
overlooking Cardiff Bay to sort of, you know, to talk about what

875
00:41:35.760 --> 00:41:37.860
just happened in the episode and what they all learnt from it.

876
00:41:37.920 --> 00:41:41.579
I think those scenes are ridiculous and camp and Russell's got no

877
00:41:41.579 --> 00:41:42.539
one going to do any more of that.

878
00:41:44.519 --> 00:41:45.900
No more standing on that.

879
00:41:46.320 --> 00:41:48.659
Have you ever seen the Dead Ringers?

880
00:41:48.659 --> 00:41:49.739
No.

881
00:41:49.739 --> 00:41:54.179
Parody of Torture when it's very, very funny and references that.

882
00:42:00.780 --> 00:42:04.739
Captain Jack, no disrespect to John Barrowman has always been the

883
00:42:04.739 --> 00:42:06.420
weakest part of the show.

884
00:42:06.480 --> 00:42:09.480
The emotional core has always been Gwen.

885
00:42:09.539 --> 00:42:13.920
I would say the acting talent has always been Eve Miles as well.

886
00:42:13.980 --> 00:42:15.059
Oh, she's incredible.

887
00:42:15.059 --> 00:42:16.380
She's absolutely great.

888
00:42:16.739 --> 00:42:22.559
I like the way that Children of Earth addresses Jack and Yanto's

889
00:42:22.559 --> 00:42:23.940
relationship properly.

890
00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:27.420
It doesn't turn into kind of like the titillation that tortured

891
00:42:27.420 --> 00:42:28.860
was always going for.

892
00:42:28.920 --> 00:42:31.440
You know, it starts to become an actual relationship where they

893
00:42:31.440 --> 00:42:35.099
mean something to each other rather than sex gas monster antics.

894
00:42:35.159 --> 00:42:40.260
And I think it brings out depth in Gareth David Lloyd's

895
00:42:40.260 --> 00:42:42.480
performance I haven't seen previously.

896
00:42:42.539 --> 00:42:46.860
And it also made me think of the fact that Yanto and Jack look

897
00:42:46.860 --> 00:42:48.840
like they're a good pair.

898
00:42:48.900 --> 00:42:49.860
They work well on screen.

899
00:42:49.920 --> 00:42:54.360
Whereas if you had the original casting idea for Yanto's character

900
00:42:54.360 --> 00:42:57.179
which was the little twink who was Margaret's secretary in

901
00:42:57.179 --> 00:42:57.840
Boomtown.

902
00:42:57.900 --> 00:43:00.659
You would never have been able to do that story because he just

903
00:43:00.659 --> 00:43:03.900
looked like, you know, aptly for children of earth, a schoolboy.

904
00:43:03.960 --> 00:43:05.159
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

905
00:43:05.219 --> 00:43:10.019
And so it look, it's a proper adult gay relationship, which, you

906
00:43:10.019 --> 00:43:14.159
know, torchwood is never going to be high character drama, but in

907
00:43:14.159 --> 00:43:18.119
terms of what it seeks to achieve, is actually developed and

908
00:43:18.119 --> 00:43:19.980
showcased pretty well on screen.

909
00:43:20.039 --> 00:43:23.760
And I think the fact that they are now together lends the story

910
00:43:23.760 --> 00:43:24.840
import.

911
00:43:24.960 --> 00:43:28.199
It means that the regulars who we've got left are tied together

912
00:43:28.199 --> 00:43:29.340
more closely.

913
00:43:29.400 --> 00:43:34.199
I also love that it's kind of, without putting a name to it at one

914
00:43:34.199 --> 00:43:37.440
of our earliest introductions to fluid sexuality.

915
00:43:37.500 --> 00:43:39.960
You know, he doesn't say he's bisexual.

916
00:43:40.019 --> 00:43:40.860
He doesn't label it.

917
00:43:40.920 --> 00:43:42.780
He doesn't say, I've become gay.

918
00:43:42.840 --> 00:43:43.920
He doesn't label that.

919
00:43:43.980 --> 00:43:47.579
He's like, yeah, he goes, I'm just having a relationship with this

920
00:43:47.579 --> 00:43:48.300
particular man.

921
00:43:48.360 --> 00:43:51.000
And, you know, that could turn into anything in the future.

922
00:43:51.059 --> 00:43:52.139
You could become pansexual.

923
00:43:52.199 --> 00:43:52.440
Who knows?

924
00:43:52.500 --> 00:43:57.360
But at this moment, it's one person that he has who has a

925
00:43:57.360 --> 00:44:00.059
different gender than the last bunch of people he was in a

926
00:44:00.059 --> 00:44:00.719
relationship with.

927
00:44:00.780 --> 00:44:02.760
It's a very modern way of looking at.

928
00:44:02.820 --> 00:44:07.559
Yeah, but it's without that fluid sexuality that, you know, became

929
00:44:07.559 --> 00:44:10.380
a big talking point 5 or 6 years later.

930
00:44:10.559 --> 00:44:15.659
I mean, we even have Alice talking to Jack about attending her

931
00:44:15.659 --> 00:44:16.739
mother's funeral.

932
00:44:16.800 --> 00:44:21.840
You know, and how her mother felt about him not ageing and stuff.

933
00:44:21.900 --> 00:44:25.739
So that was a relationship that continued over decades that we've

934
00:44:25.739 --> 00:44:27.300
never heard about.

935
00:44:27.360 --> 00:44:30.780
And again, there's that sort of fluidity and that came with Jack

936
00:44:30.780 --> 00:44:31.380
didn't you?

937
00:44:31.440 --> 00:44:33.119
Like he was always bisexual.

938
00:44:33.900 --> 00:44:37.019
Yeah, just like, you know, any goals whole.

939
00:44:37.079 --> 00:44:38.039
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

940
00:44:38.099 --> 00:44:38.519
That's right.

941
00:44:38.579 --> 00:44:40.139
Omnisexual.

942
00:44:40.199 --> 00:44:41.159
And he holds a goal.

943
00:44:41.219 --> 00:44:42.480
I can't speak English to her.

944
00:44:42.539 --> 00:44:43.860
Thanks, Melania.

945
00:44:45.659 --> 00:44:49.800
It also reflects something that they that they tackle in Doctor

946
00:44:49.800 --> 00:44:53.340
Who, the main show, if you cast Captain Jack in the role of the

947
00:44:53.340 --> 00:44:56.699
doctor and Yanto in the role of the companion, the doctor

948
00:44:56.699 --> 00:45:00.780
explicitly says at some points, I go on, I stay the same

949
00:45:00.840 --> 00:45:02.579
companions die.

950
00:45:02.639 --> 00:45:05.219
In fact, there's that kind of joke.

951
00:45:05.280 --> 00:45:09.780
Remember where the 2 of them come into the hub while she's doing

952
00:45:09.780 --> 00:45:12.960
some research and he says something about how you die like a dog.

953
00:45:13.019 --> 00:45:17.760
You know, I go on, you die like a dog, uh, as a kind of joke, which

954
00:45:17.760 --> 00:45:20.579
of course, will come sort of horribly true kind of by the end of

955
00:45:20.579 --> 00:45:20.760
her.

956
00:45:20.820 --> 00:45:26.820
I also think that Eve Miles, you're right, is obviously kind of

957
00:45:26.820 --> 00:45:30.300
just the best person in the show.

958
00:45:30.360 --> 00:45:33.239
And I do like how this episode goes back to everything changes

959
00:45:33.239 --> 00:45:39.719
where you have the character hanging around above the hub and them

960
00:45:39.719 --> 00:45:40.320
watching.

961
00:45:40.320 --> 00:45:43.199
And she goes, you bastards, that's what you did to me.

962
00:45:43.260 --> 00:45:44.159
Yeah.

963
00:45:44.159 --> 00:45:45.360
Yeah.

964
00:45:45.420 --> 00:45:49.800
And again, just it's incredibly interesting, I think, how that 1st

965
00:45:49.800 --> 00:45:53.760
episode of Torch would kind of is the anti-Doctor Who in the sense

966
00:45:53.760 --> 00:45:58.679
that you've got Indira Varma's character kind of has been driven

967
00:45:58.679 --> 00:46:02.099
mad by how dreadful and awful the universe is.

968
00:46:02.219 --> 00:46:07.380
And we do touch on that in that conversation with, um, it's the

969
00:46:07.380 --> 00:46:09.119
opposite of Doctor Who, where do you know what I mean?

970
00:46:09.179 --> 00:46:11.880
The universe is full of wonders and we go outside and experience

971
00:46:11.880 --> 00:46:13.679
the wonder of the universe.

972
00:46:13.739 --> 00:46:17.400
But Torchwood is the filth and the dregs of the universe come

973
00:46:17.400 --> 00:46:17.820
here.

974
00:46:17.880 --> 00:46:21.179
And so you've got her saying how kind of disgusting everything

975
00:46:21.179 --> 00:46:21.900
is.

976
00:46:22.019 --> 00:46:25.559
And then you have that scene between Gwen and Rupesh.

977
00:46:25.619 --> 00:46:26.340
Hot repair.

978
00:46:26.400 --> 00:46:26.820
Absolutely.

979
00:46:26.880 --> 00:46:30.599
He will go on to be in 600 and something episodes of Emmerdale

980
00:46:30.599 --> 00:46:31.199
after this.

981
00:46:32.159 --> 00:46:35.340
That conversation where he says that people are killing themselves

982
00:46:35.340 --> 00:46:39.960
at twice the previous raid, you know, that there is something

983
00:46:39.960 --> 00:46:44.159
terrible about the universe that's revealed by the existence of

984
00:46:44.159 --> 00:46:48.900
aliens, and not just us losing our place, our central place in the

985
00:46:48.900 --> 00:46:49.320
universe.

986
00:46:49.380 --> 00:46:52.980
See, this is why I still think torchwood is, you know, Doctor Who

987
00:46:52.980 --> 00:46:53.940
is childlike wonder.

988
00:46:54.000 --> 00:46:54.539
Yeah.

989
00:46:54.539 --> 00:46:58.500
And torture is that crushing angst you go through when you're

990
00:46:58.500 --> 00:47:01.320
going through puberty, when you are like, I don't know where I

991
00:47:01.320 --> 00:47:01.679
fit.

992
00:47:01.739 --> 00:47:02.760
I mean, high school.

993
00:47:02.820 --> 00:47:05.400
Like I've got all these feelings downstairs.

994
00:47:05.460 --> 00:47:07.019
I'm making a mess in my bed.

995
00:47:07.079 --> 00:47:08.639
Yeah, yeah.

996
00:47:08.699 --> 00:47:12.239
It's everything's dirty and disgusting and I feel like crap and

997
00:47:12.239 --> 00:47:14.159
that is very much a high school experience.

998
00:47:14.219 --> 00:47:18.059
But I mean, I think here it goes beyond that to some kind of real

999
00:47:18.059 --> 00:47:19.619
adult terrors as well.

1000
00:47:19.679 --> 00:47:21.539
We're in we're in uni now.

1001
00:47:21.599 --> 00:47:22.679
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1002
00:47:22.739 --> 00:47:24.179
We having trouble making all of our tunes.

1003
00:47:24.239 --> 00:47:28.920
Oh, but I think it's like my child is sick and it's my job to keep

1004
00:47:28.920 --> 00:47:32.099
them alive until dawn and I don't know whether I'm going to be

1005
00:47:32.099 --> 00:47:32.940
able to do it.

1006
00:47:32.940 --> 00:47:37.860
Like there's real proper scary, horrible adult fears at the base

1007
00:47:37.860 --> 00:47:42.480
of this, which is why we're watching this on easy mode and some of

1008
00:47:42.480 --> 00:47:45.300
the people who will be joining us later in the season. actually

1009
00:47:45.300 --> 00:47:48.840
find this a lot more challenging and a lot more harrowing to watch

1010
00:47:48.840 --> 00:47:49.199
I think.

1011
00:47:49.260 --> 00:47:50.579
It's certainly interesting.

1012
00:47:50.639 --> 00:47:52.800
That's the same series that brought a cyberwoman.

1013
00:47:52.860 --> 00:47:53.940
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1014
00:47:54.000 --> 00:47:54.659
Yeah.

1015
00:47:54.659 --> 00:47:56.760
Who had to be sprayed with goop?

1016
00:47:57.000 --> 00:47:59.519
Did the pterodactyl get blown up?

1017
00:47:59.579 --> 00:48:00.179
Yes.

1018
00:48:00.239 --> 00:48:01.500
The fanway got blown up.

1019
00:48:01.559 --> 00:48:02.820
Oh, yeah.

1020
00:48:02.820 --> 00:48:04.920
Poor pterotactyl.

1021
00:48:05.039 --> 00:48:06.480
I mean, I think that's the point, though.

1022
00:48:06.539 --> 00:48:07.860
That was the point.

1023
00:48:07.920 --> 00:48:08.400
No, no.

1024
00:48:08.460 --> 00:48:10.800
The point was to blow up the terror.

1025
00:48:11.760 --> 00:48:16.320
In a way, yes, because that 1st episode of Torture, doesn't it end

1026
00:48:16.320 --> 00:48:19.980
with the pterodactyl, like flying into camera or flying towards

1027
00:48:19.980 --> 00:48:20.219
us?

1028
00:48:20.280 --> 00:48:22.199
Yeah, yeah, yeah. tortured.

1029
00:48:22.260 --> 00:48:25.679
But what my point I was actually coming back to, it's not the same

1030
00:48:25.679 --> 00:48:26.039
series.

1031
00:48:26.099 --> 00:48:26.820
Yeah.

1032
00:48:26.820 --> 00:48:28.860
It's a different show with the same name.

1033
00:48:28.920 --> 00:48:29.940
Yeah.

1034
00:48:29.940 --> 00:48:34.019
In many ways, the evolution of Torchwood mirrors the evolution of

1035
00:48:34.019 --> 00:48:35.880
Gwen's makeover.

1036
00:48:35.940 --> 00:48:40.440
When she starts in this series, she's much more looking like the

1037
00:48:40.440 --> 00:48:44.039
character she played in the unquired dead by children of earth.

1038
00:48:44.099 --> 00:48:46.019
She's looking smoking hot.

1039
00:48:46.199 --> 00:48:47.579
Yeah.

1040
00:49:10.019 --> 00:49:13.139
Well, that's all the time we have for these a week.

1041
00:49:13.199 --> 00:49:16.980
We'll be back next week to prepare for the return of the 456 in

1042
00:49:16.980 --> 00:49:18.960
Torchwood, Children of Earth, day two.

1043
00:49:19.500 --> 00:49:23.039
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts

1044
00:49:23.039 --> 00:49:26.820
and you can keep up with us on our website, 500yearDiary.com, where

1045
00:49:26.820 --> 00:49:30.059
you'll find our social media links as well as links to all of our

1046
00:49:30.059 --> 00:49:34.380
other podcasts, including the entirety of flight through entirety

1047
00:49:34.380 --> 00:49:38.519
which comprises every episode of our 4 Doctor Who podcasts.

1048
00:49:38.699 --> 00:49:42.480
Until next time, remember to lock your car door when you park it

1049
00:49:42.480 --> 00:49:45.780
and stop leaving that artificial arse on the passenger seat.

1050
00:49:45.840 --> 00:49:48.719
That's no way to talk about Owen.

1051
00:49:51.780 --> 00:49:54.480
Thank you very much for listening and good night.

1052
00:49:54.539 --> 00:49:55.500
Bye.

1053
00:49:55.500 --> 00:49:56.340
Ta-ta.

1054
00:49:56.400 --> 00:49:56.820
Good night.

1055
00:50:07.079 --> 00:50:11.159
That was 500 year diary, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter

1056
00:50:11.159 --> 00:50:13.380
Griffiths, Adam Richard, and James Selwood.

1057
00:50:13.440 --> 00:50:15.840
The theme was composed by Cameron Larm.

1058
00:50:15.900 --> 00:50:19.380
This episode, they're not here until Wednesday, was recorded on

1059
00:50:19.380 --> 00:50:23.280
the 1st of March 2026 and released on the 15th of March.

1060
00:50:23.340 --> 00:50:27.239
As you've just heard, we have a new podcast out, The Entirety of

1061
00:50:27.239 --> 00:50:30.659
Flight to Entirety, which is a combined feed containing every

1062
00:50:30.659 --> 00:50:34.079
episode of our 4 Doctor Who podcasts, including this one.

1063
00:50:34.139 --> 00:50:37.199
So if you're sick of cluttering up your podcast with all our

1064
00:50:37.199 --> 00:50:41.760
nonsense, head over to the entirety of.flights or entirety.com and

1065
00:50:41.760 --> 00:50:42.420
subscribe.

1066
00:50:52.860 --> 00:50:55.619
I love that he can smell that she's pregnant.

1067
00:50:55.679 --> 00:50:57.000
That's free.

1068
00:50:57.000 --> 00:50:57.900
Silence of the lab.

1069
00:50:58.199 --> 00:51:02.400
But Gwen's wearing Les du temps, not today.

1070
00:51:03.900 --> 00:51:06.360
What did multiple migs say?

1071
00:51:09.599 --> 00:51:13.320
I'll do my whole silence that I'm music, but not careful.

1072
00:51:13.380 --> 00:51:16.619
If only they transferred him into those little cells in the base

1073
00:51:16.679 --> 00:51:17.940
amazing.

1074
00:51:18.000 --> 00:51:20.099
What do the crankies say to you?

1075
00:51:22.619 --> 00:51:24.719
Hello, Gwen.

1076
00:51:27.780 --> 00:51:29.039
Van dabby jersey.

1077
00:51:29.219 --> 00:51:31.019
That's great.

1078
00:51:32.159 --> 00:51:35.400
Just that line, I myself cannot.

1079
00:51:38.099 --> 00:51:40.079
It's so good.

1080
00:51:41.099 --> 00:51:45.119
Like, I think he, I mean, he is amazingly great.