Wednesday 8 July 2009

Torchwood: Children of Earth: Day Three

Nervous and Scottish

Unearthly Children, Episode 3
Sunday 29 March 2026

Tonight, Jack finally works out why everyone wants to kill him (and it’s not the reason you might expect), while mere miles away the 456 arrive in Thames House and immediately run up an upsettingly large cleaning bill. Adam Richard and Kevin Burnard join us to discuss Day Three.

Notes and links

In 2017, Anthony Rapp accused Kevin Spacey of making a sexual advance towards him at a party when he was 14. Spacey apologised, but also came out in the process, as if his sexual orientation had been some kind of mitigating factor.

The Second Coming (2003) was a TV miniseries written by Russell T Davies, in which a man who works at a video rental store in Manchester turns out to be the Son of God. It will seem familiar to anyone who has watched Aliens of London, not least because the man is played by Christopher Eccleston.

El Sandifer talks about what Martha’s role might have looked like in Children of Earth in her essay on Day Two.

Adam’s daily Doctor Who podcast is called Adam Richard Has a Theory, and it consists of no less than 1315 episodes of Adam’s insightful, implausible and hilarious theories about the show throughout its entire history.

Adam mentions an episode of the British satirical show Brass Eye called Paedogeddon, which aired on Channel 4 in 2001. It was a ridiculous parody current affairs show containing absurd stories about paedophiles, satirising the hysteria and hypocrisy that attended the topic in the British media of the time. You can watch it here.

Follow us

Nathan is on Bluesky at @nathanbottomley.com, Adam is @adamrichard.com.au, James is @ohjamessellwood, and Kevin is @scribblesscript. The 500 Year Diary theme was composed by Cameron Lam.

500 Year Diary shares a social media presence with Flight Through Entirety, which means you can follow us on Bluesky and Mastodon, as well as on X and Facebook. Our website is at 500yeardiary.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on Apple Podcasts, or we’ll attend that formal reception you’re planning and behave in a completely unacceptable way.

And more

You can find links to all of the podcasts we’re involved in on our podcasts page. But here’s where we’re up to right now.

Last week, the lads at The Three-Handed Game released their latest episode — the first part of an interview with prolific Australian actor Annette Andre, who plays Judy in an episode of The Avengers called Mandrake and Suzy Miller in an episode of The New Avengers called House of Cards. She had a massive career in British TV throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s. You might know her from her role as Jeannie Hopkirk in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), but she appears in all of our favourites — The Saint, The Prisoner, The Persuaders! and The Return of the Saint. (And, for us Australians, Taurus Rising, Cop Shop and Prisoner.)

And finally, on Untitled Star Trek Project, Nathan and friend-of-the-podcast Joe Ford sat through an unbearably dull and silly episode of Star Trek: The Original Series — The Savage Curtain, an episode enlivened only by the guest appearance of a heavily made-up Abraham Lincoln.