Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to 500 Year Diary, the only
Doctor Who podcast that spent the 1990s mostly smelling of
eternity by Calvin Klein.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Adam.
I'm James.
I'm Kevin.
It's Wednesday the 8th of July, 2009.
It's been just 23 hours since the big tank was unveiled on floor
13 of Thames House, and tonight, nearly 6 million.
People have tuned in to watch the 456 appear inside it.
Let's see if they have any surprising requests to make, as we
discuss Torchwood, Children of Earth, day three.
So, Kevin, I have actually never heard you talk about Torchwood
and I have no idea what you think of it.
So how did you feel about children of earth going in?
Oh, I love children of earth.
It was actually the 1st torch what I was allowed to watch given my
rather young age. at the time.
I mean, I've got to be honest, it's a lot less outrageous than
stuff in the previous 2 seasons.
I think if you're going to start a child on it, existential
despair is probably a better place to start than sex gas.
Like, I'll be honest, as a kid, I really wanted to know what was
up with his ex-gas.
I kind of love the sex guest episode.
Oh, I'm very...
Is the 6th guess episode the root and pop one?
Yeah, mission pop.
And then did you go back and enjoy earlier seasons?
Eventually I did.
Yeah.
It took a little while to get around to being able to sneak my way
back, but eventually I made it through all of Torchwood.
Obviously, the 1st 2 seasons are a roller coaster of wild quality
swings, but I kind of love that in my Doctor Who.
I always prefer a run of Doctor Who that's very ambitious and has
some all-time classics as well as some other shit to something
that's just sort of even keel, but never really sticks with me.
So I've got a big soft spot for Torchwood.
Plus, like, so many people in my generation.
Kind of the 1st queer representation on TV.
I ever really saw.
I mean, sure Doctor Who had some, but Tort sure had a lot more.
I have to say that, you know, rewatching this, I was super fond
about the setup and, you know, particularly the remaining regulars
and Reese.
I think I really like them a lot.
And it is kind of fun to spend time with them.
And we did have a week of John Barriman last week, which was kind
of nice as well.
He was mostly on fire or in concrete.
We're not sure he enjoyed.
He was a cinder.
Oh my god.
I didn't realise how naked. until I watched it on my ridiculously
large television with far too much definition on it.
And I was like, oh, that bit of text is not doing any covering
there.
There's sort of a fascinating mystery to me that Russell T. Davies
during his 1st run of Doctor Who and Torchwood seems to be willing
to treat John Barrowman as being as attractive as John Barrowman
thinks he is.
It's very strange.
Yes, it's very weird. the world's oldest twink.
So at this point in the show, we have 2 plots going and episode
three, which at its very, very middle point is Frobisher talking
to the 456.
So that plot properly, properly kicks in here.
But what also kicks in and perhaps reaches a climax is the why is
the government trying to kill Captain Jack Harkness plot?
And I think what we get here is those 2 sort of coinciding really
interestingly.
So, um, this episode starts with a giant hero moment for the
Torchwood crew as they overcome what happened to them, you know, at
the end of part one.
I had a couple of weird things within this episode where, and I
had this same problem a couple of times in the war between the
Hoozy and the Doozy.
Um, which was the characters who we had seen in the last episode
doing something in this episode was like, oh, it's almost like
that never happened because it was a different writer last week
and we didn't read the whole script.
Like when Kush Jumbo is like, I don't know if I should do this, I
could be done for Teresa.
It's like, you already helped them in the previous episode in the
cafe.
Why aren't you now pretending like you haven't even had a
conversation?
It was a very strange moment for me when she's like, oh no, I
can't possibly help you.
It's like you already did.
There is kind of a kind of passover that.
Isn't there like where someone does say, I mean, she does say
something about, I helped you once, blah, blah, blah.
So someone someone has sort of papered over that a little bit.
Yeah, not enough.
Yeah, so like, I actually really think that episode 2 has been a
bit relentless because it is this sort of giant chase and we're on
the run and Jack is, as you said, Adam kind of encased in
concrete.
And here we kind of get like a proper hero moment and we even get
the music kicking in and stuff, you know, he gets his jacket back
barely in pausibly.
His entire, his entire outfit get comfort backs on my out.
I like how the script doesn't even really care on that one. like
um, Yanto later when he's trying to seduce Jack says, I missed
that coat, as though it's the same one.
I went to a military surplus store. and just happened to pick up
exactly the same outfit because they bought all of them.
Yeah, maybe is the coat like, do they do it in the coat?
is what I want to know.
Does he take all the clothes off and then put the coat back on and
then they have like their little 20 to 30 minute adventure?
That or nothing comes off.
It's just men at play.com.
I have literally another very urgent sex question, which is what
on earth do you do with the torchwood contact lenses?
Because apparently Reese and Gwen have been doing it and I can't
imagine what it would be.
Like looking themselves having sex with.
Yeah, no, it's either extreme narcissism or like distance play.
I don't...
Is it a different movie to try to see what each other are doing to
themselves and like send instructions back and forth. don't know.
It's not super obvious, is it?
I mean, he's he's a long haul truck driver.
So perhaps he has the laptop when he's on the road and she's just
looking down and jiggling a bit.
But before that, I think, you know, as well as getting the relief
of a hero moment, we actually have that really kind of fun montage
of them all committing crimes.
So much fun.
Oh, it's crazy.
Oh, that is hilarious.
Like, it's so stupid.
And did this not give children ideas throughout England?
I had no ideas whatsoever watching it as a kid.
It is actually the sort of thing that you can only do on torture
it.
I mean, you know, because Doctor Who is for children or is for
families and, you know, to some degree has to be a bit of a role
model, having all of our heroes commit crimes is really only
something that we can do on torture.
And it is hilarious.
It's really adorable, I think.
It really hit home for me just how efficient the scripting is
here.
Like, we go into a montage for it.
That's something that I feel like, um, the more recent spinoff war
between really could have used more of where we could just blitz
through different beats and comedy and juggle characters a bit
more.
It's, it's fun to see everybody doing a little different thing
that builds.
Yeah.
And, you know, with the with the culmination of Jack stealing the
sports car, which is just hilarious.
Just adorable.
And like, it is a really fun moment.
This is a fairly relentless 5 hours, and there isn't a lot of
humour, and it's still torchwood.
It's still a Doctor Who spinoff.
It still should be funny.
And so giving them that light moment.
And also, you know, there is some other stuff in that the new hub
in hub too.
You know, the stuff about the beans, the stuff that we mentioned
before about, you know, Yanto trying to seduce Jack and, and, you
know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
Like all of that stuff is actually really kind of fun and
adorable.
I mean, we had, it was the fun.
There was some fun stuff in episode 2 with Yanto's sister.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like driving off while they're all arresting the guys taking out
the house.
Yeah, or stealing the torchwood car as well in episode one, that
dreadful car that makes them walk so stupid.
So all of that stuff is kind of fun, but this in particular
because it ends in such a dark place for Jack.
It ends in that admission.
So it starts with some triumph for Jack, you know, who's overcome
being buried in concrete.
Um, and wearing tracks of pants, which seems to be pants.
That was brought to his very lowest in tracksuit fans.
You know, it kind of has to have that trajectory, I think.
But certainly that's a hugely fun sequence.
Well, I mean, given what Captain Jack's famous for, it's weird
that he's not okay with being in tracksuit pants, you'd think that
would be his go-to outfit so everyone could see what he's famous
for.
And so this particular plot, this particular thread, which starts
with Jack's hero moment and then ends and ends the episode with
his admission that he gave the children to the 456 the 1st time.
And it even ends with him saying, as a gift, the very word that
the 456 have just used themselves to describe what they want.
And I guess that thread basically is Gwen's subplot, isn't it?
Like Gwen gets Clem out of lockup and slowly, you know, very
slowly through traffic.
There's a big traffic jam so that she arrives at the crucial
moment.
And he can smell Jack.
He can smell, Jack.
We all can.
Thank you, Nathan.
You said what we're all thinking.
That's just that's one of those things watching this that really
reminded me.
I am watching a Russell T Davies show.
He just has this deep love of weird sensory details and the
puerile that no other writer would even think to do, and I'm not
sure how I feel about it, to be honest.
He also really enjoys decimating populations.
Yes, definitely.
When was...
Like Series 3 is what, 2007?
This is 2009.
Like, oh, wait a minute, he doesn't decimate the sea devils.
He wipes out 90% of them.
Yeah, yeah.
It's the trade-off.
The other 10%.
Yeah, the other...
I will say in comparison to the sea devil's business.
This takes ages to build the little case.
Whereas in the sea devil's like, yeah, we probably took a bit long
with that.
Would you do that really quickly in the 1st episode?
I mean, I think that I actually think that this works really well
that the, that there is the mystery of what the children do, which
is just this sort of massive, incredible hawk.
Like it's super memorable.
Very high concept, very, very easy to understand and super
visual.
But then we don't get the aliens until halfway through the show.
And what we do get instead is the mystery of why Jack is being
targeted, who those 3 other people are.
And so we get that mystery solved here.
And then that clears the decks to let us do the 456, but we don't
have to do them for too long.
Like they don't wear out their welcome.
Whereas obviously in war between the land and the sea, the tank is
sort of set up, isn't it?
In episode one.
And then they replay all the same footage in episode two, like
we're watching the Thunderbirds and the palm trees going down.
Yeah, yeah.
Which, yeah.
So I think that that works incredibly well.
And because there's enough going on, because we're introducing all
of these other characters and characters who are reacting to the
children and characters who have the children are in sort of
various, you know, in Jack's family and Yanto's family and
Frobisher.
We've got enough happening to kind of keep us going.
So we never feel like we're marking time, even though the show
sets up.
This is not going to happen till tomorrow.
This is not going to happen until, you know, the end of the day
and so on.
So it, you know, like it creates some future deadlines, but we
never feel like we're just spinning our wheels waiting for them.
Yeah, I've got to say the 1st conversation with the 456 is one of
those moments where Uris Lynn has taken us on a big wide shot and
it's just tiny little Peter Capaldi walking slowly forwards in the
room and he's so softly spoken, you're like, I can't believe this
is the same guy that plays Malcolm Tucker, that when he says the
word shit, it's like, ooh, that's the biggest thing you've said.
That's the worst swear that's come out of your mouth. yeah It's
such a weird impact.
And it's the same guy that plays the doctor and is so incendiary
and active and it's this quiet, terrifying little man.
It's such a great performance from him.
I've said this multiple times.
He is the best actor to regularly play the doctor.
He is.
Oh, no contest.
So he's just so brilliant and so well timed and you don't notice
that these 4 different characters we know him for.
Three, three, which in the Doctor Who universe and one in the
Doctor Who adjacent universe.
They're all so different Yeah, I forget that it is actually the
same actor.
Yeah.
Like this is Frobisher. like you don't say, oh, it's Peter
Capaldi.
You think it's Frobisher as the character?
Not the penguin.
No, no, no, but head cannon wise, he is the penguin, remember?
Let's kind of talk about that.
We do have the 456 here now, finally.
We're wise not to give them a name.
They don't have a space name, and they refuse to give one.
So...
Yep, we have that.
Well, maybe because it's pronounced by spitting all over the
window.
What do we think of that puke anyway?
Is it puke?
Is it some other bodily fluid?
Is it because of the child drugs?
I actually think I actually think it's brilliant.
And I think I think the reason is that you have a contrast between
the incredibly crisp and cultured voice that it speaks with, how
incredibly measured it is, how it's prepared to just sit and let
its interlocutors just sort of twist on the weird waiting for a
ply.
It just leaves people there.
These huge gaps in the conversation.
Oh, yes.
It's clearly, really very intelligent.
But the screaming and the growling, and the fact, like it, it's
spraying bodily fluids all over the walls, in a, in a way, there's
that incredible moment, isn't there, where, um, where Frobisher, in
not in the 1st conversation, but in the 1st big recorded
conversation that, that lower season that the prime minister sees
that it does that screaming, shrieking thing and smashing against
the walls and and spraying the walls with the excrement.
Um, And Capaldi says, is everything okay?
I'm concerned or, you know, forgive me, I'm concerned.
And then it just kind of parrots that back at him in this really
aggressive, dismissive way.
And so the mere fact that we don't know what that is, but that
there's something disgusting and animalistic about it, that it's
dripping with mucus all the time, that we don't get to see it
properly ever.
It reminds me a little bit of Anthony Hopkins's, as Hannibal
Lecter, where he's very, very cultured and urbane.
And the contrast between that and the disgusting things that he's
prepared to touch and and it's like that, I think.
I can smell your penguin from here.
I think it's also, I wonder if, so the behaviour of the 456 when
you pull out and look at it, like they're drug addicts, for one
thing, they're demanding gifts for another.
They parrot you back to you in some sort of mocking way and
they're spitting all over the glass.
Are they annoying teenagers at the shops?
Can you buy me a 6 pack, sir?
I mean, it is kind of, you know, love crafty and in the sense that
it's just this weird, unknowable thing that doesn't even have a
name that we can't understand in any way, but that it is really
kind of viscerally disgusting and sort of slimy and frightening
and incomprehensible.
And I think as well, one of the things that we've talked about
over the last couple of weeks is the show lands on calling them
drug addicts, you know, that the, they bolt themselves to the
children, because the children producer chemical that makes them
high, that gives them a hit, as they say.
But they're also conceived of as paedophiles, aren't they?
They're people who violate the bodily autonomy of children in
order to get off.
Yeah, in order to get off.
And we have characters in dialogue talk to people like last week.
You know, Yanto went to a little girl at the playground and tried
to see what was going on with her when she'd stopped and her
mother calls him a pervert and tells him to kind of get away.
Yeah, and the same thing with the car when they're shaking the car
in that thing.
Like, oh, you paedophile. staying.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So all of that anxiety, because there is a real anxiety and we
talked about this as well, that as gay men, there's something
about this as slightly inaccessible probably to us, or as
childless gay men anyway.
The way that people own their children or see themselves as owning
their children on top of the way that they're anxious about their
children and the way they love their children and stuff and all of
those things are kind of being played with all the way through
here, I think.
Yeah, I mean, that's a good point with the children and not us, you
know, having that experience, but also we can, that is our in
because I'm sure we've all at times experienced being accused of
being pervs.
But, you know, homophobic people. in our lives.
Maybe not Kevin, because he's not as grown up as us.
But in our day, the 2 things were inextricable.
Like, and even when you look at someone like Kevin Spacey, when
you know, he was accused of molesting Anthony Rapp, and instead of
saying, oh, I absolutely did that, and I'm really sorry about it
he came out of the closet as if it's like, no, no, no, we're not
talking about you being gay.
We're talking about you interfering with a 14 year old boy.
And he just had those 2 in his head as, oh, that's the same
thing.
And a lot of people back in the day were completely completed the
two.
And, you know, you would.
I remember once when I was in radio and this is in the 2000s and
it was like, oh, maybe we shouldn't have Adam come to this thing
because it's a kid's party and everyone's like, why not?
And I had a step monster at the time that I was living with on the
weekend. like, yeah, he's fine.
But that was just kind of an attitude.
And I guess that's part of what, you know, Russell's trying to
expose here on some level is that everyone was a paedophile at
that time in England, like everyone that was, you know, that was a
word thrown around like crazy about everybody, little, did we
realise that all the people in charge, throwing that word around
were in fact the paedophiles.
That's why they were sort of familiar with the use of the word.
I mean, that's sort of a thing with this too, with Torchwood is
fundamentally playing with conspiracy thrillers and classic
conspiracy theory, and 2 of the big ones that Children of Earth
touches on are, of course, the elites are coming to take your
children, and also later on, they have a sort of vaccine panic
story beat.
It's the sort of thing that ages quite strangely in good ways and
bad, but it is very much in conversation with what people are
going to be screaming about secret government organisations like
Torchwood doing in the 1st place.
Yeah, yeah.
Let's talk about some of the secondary characters for a second.
I thought that Alice and Stephen had a pretty great week this
week.
She's amazing.
She is.
I love her.
Yeah, I really like her.
I think she's incredible.
I would love to know what she was going to do with that knife.
Yeah, yeah.
It's awesome, isn't it?
It's so great Like she actually leaves the kitchen.
And it's really kind of well done.
Like, you know, she hears a dog, like the sound of a dog.
I was watching it this morning and Alfie reacted really badly to
the sound of the dog.
He was running around looking for it.
But she reacts to the sound of the dog.
She kind of looks in and out.
She grabs 2 things from the kitchen, like the chopping board and
the knife and then runs just as like the armed goons come into her
house.
And then within a 2nd she's used the chopping board to like smash
this guy in the head and steal his gun.
And now she's running around the streets with a gun.
It's awesome.
She's so great.
And even the bit at the beginning too, which kind of intercunts
between the crime bit because the crime bit kind of spills over a
bit because, you know, she does the sneaky thing where she goes to
the woman across the road and says, can I borrow your phone and
then she kind of realises she's being traced, I think.
Yeah.
And then you get Jack, of course, and we'll talk about this later
going into Frobisher's house and stealing Anna's phone and we'll
talk about that too.
But I mean, here, I just think she's fantastically strong.
And I was saying last week, I think that I really, really like the
woman who plays Johnson.
Oh yeah.
But she's looking at down in the hole and pouring in the
concrete.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's great.
She does overpluck her eyebrows a little bit, but I'm, like, I'm
I'm repanticated for you.
It was the style of the time.
But she's really great, and I have sort of suggested, because I
think next week, her and Alice actually bond slightly, like, and
gradually, like, they end up having quite an interesting
relationship, I think.
But here she's just incredibly strong.
And I think the one moment that I think we see the beginning of
that relationship is where Alice says to her, if you hurt Stephen
I will kill you and her reply is just understood, you know
understood.
I love that standoff.
It's beautiful. a beautiful moment.
I think the really smart twist is them defusing the situation by
her saying, if I wanted either of you dead, you already would be.
It's the sort of just bringing logic into a standard beat where
the characters really get the measure of each other.
I thought that was really well played.
I just love how that character, and she's, she, like, she's so
chilling.
But you don't get the impression that she's necessarily evil.
She's just doing her job.
Her job is evil and it has hurting people.
But there's that line where Alice says, take me, but leave him.
He's only a kid and she says, so?
And it's like, oh.
But I mean, later her concern for children.
Do you know what I mean?
It actually becomes apparent, like, when she knows what her
government is actually doing?
She comes over to our side.
And that's more effective because she's someone whom we've seen
you know, attempting to kill our leads and stuff.
In many ways, she is, she becomes one of the heroes of the story
towards the end.
Like she...
She certainly one of our gang.
Yeah.
And of course, there is just a brilliant economy as well in ending
that scene with Stephen pointing and us not knowing why.
And so we go straight into the pointing when we're in the middle
of something else.
And that is something I think that happens a couple of times where
during the course of the thing, we're actually in the middle of
another scene and the children interrupt the action by suddenly
behaving oddly at the behest of the 456.
And here it's Stephen pointing, it's something that we've never
seen before.
And it's really just another very clever thing because it is the
456 trying to implicate England, which it's been trying to do all
the way through.
Like it's, you know, it's been trying to make it clear that
England is responsible for all of this.
Yeah.
And it's Rhiannon, who realises that London's over there, Reese, I
think, realises as well, and then it's Yanto, who realises that
they're all pointing at Thames house, but we get that montage of
all of the newsreaders, you know, saying that everyone in France
is pointing west and everyone in the US is pointing east and all
of that.
So, and then we kind of narrow it down to Thames house. everyone
in London is pointing at the centre of London.
Everyone's pointing at Tim's house, which again, is just really
well told through those, you know, very rustly kind of
newsreaders.
And I really want to shout out to that blonde news reader who is
so convincing, just as absolutely the intonation of a BBC news
reader.
She's so perfect.
Absolutely, absolutely 100% credible.
I think also the efficiency of the storytelling means you don't
have to dwell on some of the oddities of a concept like that.
Like, what direction were people on the exact opposite of the
globe from England pointing?
Were they pointing down?
They're going like, oh, corrections?
What happens?
It's very much like the Christmas invasion where, you know, like a
3rd of the population walk up to the roof and you kind of go, well
is there always a roof?
Like what's happening?
Some of them were standing on the garden wall.
I'm standing on the gutter.
I mean, it is great to see Trinity back.
It feels weird, though, because, you know, she doesn't really fit
in Torchwood, in a way, you know?
Like, she, she fits in conspiracy is always in Doctor Who, and
she's kind of reassuring until you get to the 2nd RTT era, and
she's just got full mental.
She's sort of Alex Jones. you know, she works for she works too.
I think this is the start of her Candace Owens art.
But yeah, like I think all of those things are great and that's
obviously the great innovation that Russell brings to Doctor Who
in Aliens of London and brings it straight from the 2nd coming
which is, you know, where it's a huge way that he goes about
telling, you know, giving that story scale.
But here, just the fact that they act as a kind of Greek chorus or
or, you know, like a narrator and enables some very quick
worldwide things to happen, like constantly reminding us that this
isn't England, even though we only ever see England.
Oh, speaking of 2nd coming, how great is that biblical image of
the pillar of fire?
Yeah, it's so good, isn't it?
It's really good.
It's so good. because I watched it on my stupidly large television
with my ridiculous 7 speakers.
It's crazy loud.
Like, I know this has always been a complaint about the BBC Blu
rays is that they pump up the, um, the surround sound is stupid.
Like everything is miles away.
Like they make this enormous sound field and the subwoofer was
getting quite a workout and I'm like, yeah, sometimes it's
ridiculous.
And then sometimes it's just fun.
It just looks incredible.
And there's a reason, I think, that they've used it.
They use it as the kind of hero image on TARDIS IKEA for this
episode of, you know, and they use it very prominently in next
week's previously on reprise montage thing.
It looks so incredibly striking.
And the fact that it is a pillar of fire rather than some sort of
space beam is actually the right thing to do.
Like, even it looked like a transporter effect or something like
that.
And we don't even, we don't even talk in those terms.
Like last week when Bridget was wondering how they were going to
get into the tank.
You know, we don't say, oh, they'll beam in using a teleport
because that's a Doctor Who thing.
They just don't say.
The point you made about the appropriateness of the pillar of fire
the biblical nature of it.
They are kind of like gods.
And they are visiting some sort of biblical, not judgement because
you know, they're doing it for their own purposes.
Yeah, it's not an act of God, but it is, it's a biblical kind of
thing.
You know, like taking 10% like destroying 10% of a population
eating 10% of a population, not whatever they're paying to do with
them.
I mean, God kills a lot of children.
Yeah, it's mad for it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It is like literally a thing.
It's what the Passover is about.
All of the firstborn children of the Egyptians are killed by God.
And again, that has to be a thing that is being referenced or
thought about here by the writers, surely.
And also diagetically, like the 456 are drama queens, they want to
implicate you in the loudest way possible and they want the world
scared.
I also think they've gone crazy on this one big special effect
because everything else is being done practically in the show.
They're not really using many visual effects.
So it's like, oh, we've got heaps left over in the budget.
Let's really go to town on the fire pillar.
Because, I mean, it's just a giant puppet, isn't it?
The fore 456 is just a really, really impressive puppet.
That doesn't have to be...
And it's mostly in smoke.
Because you're mostly in smoke. that's right Just think what we
would think of the Scarasan if it had been mostly in smoke.
Imagine if it was a foggy day.
Just think how much better legend of the sea devils would be if we
couldn't see it.
Imagine.
It's a great audio plan.
When you can't see it's Super Marioing into the boat.
We haven't talked about Kush Jumbo enough because I love her so
much.
When are we doing the Kush Jumbo podcast?
Wow, are we doing it now?
doing for the last 2.5 weeks?
She's great in this, isn't she?
I mean, she's so good.
She is really, really good.
And like a lot of it, like a lot of it is just done.
There's something about her facial expression.
There's the moment, isn't there where she's watching the Prime
Minister on television, talking about looking after the children
and things.
And everyone's watching it at her work and the camera goes across
and we see her watching it as well, but she makes it very clear
that she's thinking about what she's learned about how this
government works.
Like she already knows that the government has killed people in
order to try and hush this stuff up.
And so she's already disillusioned, but it's everywhere on her
face.
And the other thing too, is that bit where she has to try and get
herself allowed into Thames house.
And she does that by telling Bridget that she's having an affair
with Frobisher.
And she's super embarrassed about having to do that.
Like, she's really awkward about that.
And the implication from Bridget that she has also had an affair
with him and it ended badly, but they still work together and
she's kind of the harbouring...
Yeah, the first.
Don't think you're the first.
I also just love all the little glances between them throughout
the episode.
Like, when Lois is manoeuvring herself to see Peter Capaldi's
mouth, she is the only person who notices Lois doing that.
Yeah, yeah, Bridget Bridget's all over it.
And of course, that pays off in episode five.
Like, I think that what happens in episode five.
There's that interesting visit where she visits Lois in prison
where Bridget visits Lois in prison, and there's that whole
speech.
And I don't think the story really hugely emphasises the prior
relationship between Bridget and Frobisher, but it's strongly
hinted at here.
But I don't think episode 5 works.
And the eventual kind of resolution that Bridget is involved in.
I don't think any of that works without the knowledge of that
relationship, I think.
Can you imagine how much poorer that would have been if they had
got Prima to be, Martha?
You can't do that with her.
God.
No.
The other reason we talked about this before and Sandra brings
this up.
It's because Martha comes from a world where there are aliens.
Yeah.
And Lois does it. like Lois just comes from the world where you
catch the buster work for your 1st day on Monday.
You know, like, and so her heroism comes out of just being a kind
of good person who doesn't have any special powers or any kind of
plot magic or anything like that, hasn't survived alien attacks.
You know, this is her seeing an alien for the 1st time.
Martha's role would have had to be significantly different.
And I do think that Lois is better.
At this point, Martha has also worked with Torchwood.
So how would she infiltrate the government if there were those
connections between...
Yeah, everyone would have known who she was.
Yeah, she would have been one of the people they were trying to
kill.
I mean, there would have had to have been a significant rewrite.
Like, but I think that I think that Martha, and like possibly
Mickey was going to be in it as well at one point.
I just think that that's too many space people. you know, the fact
that that most of our, that all of our series 3 regulars, apart
from the main Tortured crew, are just normal people doing their
jobs.
Can I just say when she's looking up the torchwood thing, it might
have been an episode one, but I noticed a factual error, which I
very rarely noticed because I'm too excited by the story.
On the screen, it said HRH Queen Victoria, and the monarch is
never HRH.
That's all the other royals.
Ah yes.
Monarch is HM.
It's always Her Majesty, not Her Royal Highness.
Thank you very much.
There you go.
HRH is everyone else.
The end of the monarchy.
Things that I know.
I've ruined it for everyone now.
So it's also, I noticed another sort of error in the dialogue
which is the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, from Frobisher
halfway through the episode.
Instead of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
United Kingdom.
Oh, of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Whoops.
I mean, he's nervous and Scottish.
That's obviously the script editor needed to do a bit further
work.
That is actually something that I'm thinking about, and I actually
was very impressed about war between, is it emphasised slightly
more of the degree to which any representative will be given, you
know, scripts to read as opposed to actually being able to have an
agency.
There's not as much of a sense of that here, which I suppose makes
Probisher feel more isolated, but he would be reading a script
wouldn't he?
You'd think so.
But he's a he's a public servant.
He'd be writing this group, so we might as well deliver it.
It's like sending Sir Humphrey to meet some evil alien, isn't it?
except so Humphrey probably would have actually come out of it
better.
There is that thing.
We've had this in the previous episode as well where Frobisher is
expendable.
And all of that stuff where, you know, it's kind of like the
Americans are mad at the English for having this sort of prior
contact with the 456 and and even before, I think, anything comes
out about the 456 having visited England before.
It's the same sort of beat as the end of series 3 where the
president of America has words with the master. for unilaterally
like, you know, forming some sort of alliance with with an alien
race.
Yeah.
It's sort of that ongoing struggle.
Doctor Who and related media have of, they are fundamentally sort
of British nationalist television, but they're written by people
who are also fundamentally sceptical of that.
And usually the way they settle that tension is just by punching
Americans, which is kind of the easiest move to diffuse that.
Although the American guy seems to be in the riety. doesn't he?
Yeah, he certainly does seem to be.
He seems to win.
Yeah, he has righteous anger.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But Green does actually use him, doesn't he, to kind of say, oh
all right, I won't go in the room and negotiate and we'll just let
the very expendable John Frobisher do that instead?
So it does end up being what Green wanted anyway. what he
basically said he was going to do to Frobisher yesterday.
And there's that great line, you don't become prime minister by
accident.
Yeah, yeah. around that point.
It's, yeah, it's he is really a villain.
Yeah, 0 yeah, no.
All the prime ministers are realistically.
Or dead in a cupboard.
Yeah, both.
Usually 1st one, then the other in RTDs, Doctor Who.
I think that's the thing.
I miss about RTD.
The 1st go around is he let his cynicism lead him a bit more.
He talked a lot in interviews prior to the newer era where he felt
the world was so dark he wanted Doctor Who to be a more comforting
force.
And I get that impulse, but he's just a better writer when he's a
miserable bastard.
Yeah, yeah.
And also in some ways, that citizen helps you feel less alone.
That's one of the things I enjoy about Russell's version, Doctor
Who the 1st time around, is the, oh, I have that same sort of
cynicism about the world.
I'm not alone in feeling that.
Yeah.
So in some ways, that is the comfort.
The comfort is the shared cynicism.
I feel like he stopped writing subtext after the 1st season.
Like the 1st season with Christopher Eccleston has so much subtext
baked into it.
Like each episode has like this deep other story behind it.
Like even to the point of the long game being very much a critique
on news media and hoarding power and all that kind of thing.
Like everything has like a 2nd layer to it.
But from season 2 one was just like, no, no, I've just got to tell
the story and get home.
I mean, I think we've sort of said this before on flight to
entirety, at least, that like season one is being done in the dark
they have no idea what it's going to be like, and then suddenly
they're this giant hit, and they decide we don't need to be
tentative anymore.
And then, of course, this thing, tortured children of earth, where
they're able to commandeer, like at 5 consecutive nights on BBC
one at 9 PM, and where this stupid show, which had sort of 4000000
viewers were sort of bumbling along at 4000000 viewers, suddenly
getting kind of 6000000 viewers and becoming a big thing.
Um, you know, like this is, like I love that 1st era as well of
RTD and I'm also kind of a big fan of RTD too.
But this, I think, you know, in a way is kind of their crowning
achievement in the sense that it's the longest Doctor Who story
basically ever.
It's got a massive cast.
It's really hugely ambitious.
Uh, it strives to get the kind of a level of realism and a level
of kind of everyday life in there that Doctor Who sometimes
doesn't get.
The stuff with Rihanna.
Oh my god.
This week.
That bit.
So, so we go to her house and she's she's cleaning some kid who's
got food or something.
She's got the children.
And it's Johnny's idea to charge 10 quid ahead and she doesn't
like it, but the moment a kid throws up on himself or something.
And she's washing the clothes.
She said, tell your mum it's another 2 quid.
And that's when, like, that's the point at which the children are
all pointing.
And I have to say, and I will say this again later because it
continues to be the case, Misha is the single best child when it
comes to doing scary possessed by aliens acting.
She's so great.
She's like this little kid with pigtails who absolutely throws
herself into it.
She does the best scream in episode one.
She's fiercely pointing at her mother with her beetled brown. and
stuff.
She's so great.
Like, in episode 2 or episode three, by a sapone.
Bias Sapono. was very funny.
That was, yeah.
That's not mission.
Okay, I have to say an anecdote about that.
Shortly after children of earth aired.
I was at San Diego Comic-Con, which was one of the years Russell T
Davis was at that event.
And I'm running around there as an actual child and I meet Russell
T. Davies.
And I tell him, Torchwood was amazing.
And he looks at me like, a horrible crime has just happened.
He's like, oh, you watch Torchwood.
I was like, no, my parents said it was okay.
I loved it.
And then I quoted, we want a pony.
We want a pony, which I did put him at ease that that's what a
child took away from that.
I mean, it does work, you know, like it's that Doctor Who thing
working on multiple levels as well.
You know, like the incredible spectacle, but the comedy, the hero
moments, all of that sort of stuff.
Yanto yesterday with the with the big forklift thing.
Like all of that really fun, silly stuff, the criming, like that's
absolutely the sort of thing that you could appreciate.
And then all of the cynicism and all of the darkness in his Doctor
Who and here is much more conceptual.
Despite how it sort of gross the 456 are.
But just the fact that what not just what the aliens are going to
do to us, but what our own government would do to us and does do
to us all the time.
All the time.
It's also, I love how they're foregrounding for the most part, the
children that are going to be affected, the children of working
class and poor people.
Yeah.
Yeah?
Like the, the, the children that are, that um, and her sister and
her husband are looking after are the children that they decide in
later episodes that they're going to give.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, it's just, I've got to say, like, I love that they're using
Katie Wicks, who plays Yanto sister in this, like, she's so
gloriously, uh, working class and amazingly horrific and, you know
but then really maternal looking after all those kids.
And it's, I'm so, like it took me, like, I've watched, so this is
the 3rd one now.
I've watched it.
It took me 3 episodes to go, oh, she's the officious woman from
Ted Lesson.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It didn't register for ages because again, so many great
performers in this show playing characters that we haven't seen
them play anywhere else before.
It's just, yeah, the cast is really phenomenal.
Like every single person is kind of batting a 100.
Even the guy that's doing, you know, building the cage that is
just sort of like sneakily looking off everywhere all the time.
So we said last week that we actually have 3 classes, don't we?
We have like a permanent undersecretary, Frobisher and his wife
Anna, who live in a big house.
We see the exterior of the house.
We get the more middle class, Alice and Stephen, uh, in that other
house.
And then we get the working class, you know, Rhiannon and Johnny
and their kids.
And in fact, they're the kids who go on the run from the army who
are snatching children off the street in episode five.
Yeah, I actually just watched this episode in isolation without
the rest of Children of Earth, which felt very wrong. very
fundamentally unnatural.
It is very strange to do that as a Doctor Who fan.
But also just the fact that, you know, the episodes don't get
individual titles, really, the fact that they air on consecutive
nights, that each one of them covers a day's action.
It is completely serialised.
It's like Planet of the Spiders.
It's not like Tortured Series 4 or Doctor Who series 3 or anything
like that that tells an overarching story.
It is just a single story, you know, really sort of strong way.
And although this does have that individual that sort of
trajectory that Jack goes on as well as the arrival of the 456.
There is a particular thing that happens here.
It does really kind of merge into the whole thing, I think.
Yeah, genuinely, if you had put a gun to my head or asked me, where
does this episode specifically start and end?
I would have given you the complete wrong answer?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I wonder if this is Russell trying to recapture that, um, feeling
that kids of the 80s had watching Doctor Who when in the UK it was
was it like Monday, Tuesday or Tuesday, Wednesday?
And so like that would get a cliffhanger and then the very next
day was the next episode.
Like we had it in Australia all the time.
That was our experience of watching Doctor Who.
So watching Children of Earth for me was just like, oh, it's the
old days.
You get the cliffhanger, then the next day, the story, then you
cliffhanger, and the next day, the story, and you got 5 days of
fun.
And then the goodies.
And then the goodies. was before.
But it was also, it's also, I think, the experience of just
spending a long time with people.
Like, I think that when the show came back in 2005, it was
inevitably going to be 45 minute episodes that were whole story
tune in every week for part of a story, still less a quarter of a
story.
That's madness.
Like who wants that?
But what you lose is having a big guest cast in a story, which we
get to have here and having a story told over a period of time.
And, you know, this has a lot of the same kind of vibe as, I think
season 7 of classic Peru, where, you know, you spend 3 hours with
a group of people who all have their own relationships with each
other, who interact, who have their own arcs and things.
And then there's a big problem on earth that has some kind of
scale to it.
Like it does seem like the Silurians or ambassadors of death or
something.
There's even a big capture escape with Jack in the 2nd episode.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
It is actually like that, isn't it?
It's like the, you know, episode 5 of Invasion of the Dinosaurs
where we're just running away for an episode.
But there is enough other stuff going on because we have all of
our other characters and their stories developing as well.
It doesn't just seem like we're marking time the way we are.
Oh, no, it feels...
It's more like Liz running over the wheel.
Ambassadors of death.
But again, it's the efficiency here that really makes it shine.
You can get the thrills of the capture escape to keep the pace off
while juggling 17 other plates with the large cast.
So it never really feels like you're marking time.
It always feels like there's another plot advancing, more
attention being built.
I want to talk about one other thing that he's part of Jack's arc
and it is the phone call that he has with Frobisher just before
Frobisher goes in and speaks to the 456 that 2nd time.
And it's the one that lands with Frobisher saying that Jack is a
good person.
This show will sure prove that wrong.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it's, like, I think it's really properly good because, you
know, like Jack is a sort of stupid ludicrous space person.
I mean, he even calls himself a space-time event or something, you
know, like a fixed point in time. know, just absolutely absurd.
And Frobisher is a civil servant, you know, like he's just kind of
like a sort of fairly normal person who has a family and a car and
wife and 2 daughters and stuff.
But Frobis is evil and acknowledges that he's evil in a way that
he sees that Jack isn't.
And I think that that's really properly good and properly
interesting.
But then he just says, hold my beer.
I think the show is very interesting in setting that up to prove
it wrong, actually, because by the end, we have Jack murdering a
child, whereas we get a speech about how John Probisher is a good
man.
But even at the end of this episode, we go from Jack being told
he's a good man to the discovery that Jack gave the kids to the
forefighters.
He's the man that fights the monsters.
This is what he does. then it's like, no, no, no, I like, you know
he was there.
He gave the kids like it's just, 0 my god.
It takes a monster to fight a monster.
You know that.
And it's really properly good too, because that scene at the
beginning of day one.
We see no adults at all.
There's a hint, I think, if you look back at it, you might be able
to see like Jack's coat or something.
But basically that's a thing that just children do rather than
something that's done to them by adults.
The adults are effaced from that version of it.
And so all the way through, we keep going back to that in Clem's
flashbacks.
Like he keeps remembering more and more of it.
Until the point just before Jack comes along, I think, that he
actually sees that Jack was there.
And there's the moment that even Jack realises he was there.
Like, I thought he was being super shifty when Yanter was
mentioning the names of those people who were killed at the same
time, but he's not.
I was misreading that or maybe it was just a...
It's just John Perriman trying to act.
Oh my god.
Maybe that was it.
I think that's cool.
You can't act through that.
Botox.
It's real hard.
But he realises like that's when he remembers, isn't it?
Like he gets Yanto to bring up the pictures of the names and then
you know, gets like the internet was so wild. back then in 2009.
Get, you know, there.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Now, age them down.
Enhance that quarter.
Make them back in one.
Put them in lodge for uniforms.
That's them.
Yeah, and that's when he realises and that's when he heads off
isn't it?
Yeah.
But that's the points at which he's being told that he's a good
man by Frobisher after he almost his way of to make sure to sort
of persuade him not to go back and do anything with Anna.
But the thing is, the thing that Frobis is threatening to do to
Stephen in that phone call is what actually Jack will end up doing
to Stephen in the final episode.
It's interesting that Clem can only smell queer people
apparently.
That's not clear our setup there, because he smells yepto. like
he's queer.
Nazi's like, I can smell him.
He's coming about Jack.
He never mentions how Gwen smells.
No, he could smell the pregnancy.
He did smell that she was pregnant. in part one.
So he could smell her.
I really like Yanto's reply, though.
It's just, hey, it's not 1965 now, which I thought was pretty
good.
Here's queer.
Like, it's almost a childlike response. like, he's not saying
queer as that person is a queer as an insult.
That's the word he knows.
And he silly as a child as this man is still a child.
He's emotionally stunted at that age.
So like, I didn't read it as him being homophobic.
I just read it as him using a word he knows to describe someone
who is queer.
Also, Yanto's having trouble in this moment of like not knowing if
he's gay, if he's bisexual, if he's jack sexual or what's
happening.
So I think it's also a lot of internalised homophobia suddenly
coming out of him, like going, it's, you can't say that kind of
thing.
It's like, but...
Yeah, like I had actually thought it was worse than that.
And I still think probably it's worse than you. think it is
James.
I do think that he is meant to be, like he's a sympathetic
character and someone that we have, you know, like we have a fair
amount of pity for.
We see him crying when Gwen turns up to bust him out of the lockup
and she has to hug him, even though he smells, I can just tell.
Um, uh, and she, she, yeah.
Yeah.
But he is a sympathetic character and then he comes out with a
slur.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I'm happy to reclaim queer.
I think it's a great word.
I use it to refer to myself all the time.
But it's even saying LGBTQIA.
Exactly.
And so he is using it as a slur.
And I just thought it was kind of interesting for Russell to make
us sympathetic with a character who is like a bit awful in it. in
at least some way.
Yeah.
It's a very Russell thing to do, though.
I mean, of course it is.
You know, Rose uses gay in a pejorative term.
Yeah, yeah, yeah Like the 2nd episode.
I think I think that's what I love about Russell's characters.
They're never completely sympathetic.
They never completely unflawed.
No, they're never good in the evil shades.
Yeah.
Shades of gray. well-meaning and not well-meaning.
Yeah, yeah.
Shades of gay.
So our 2 plants really come into focus like right at the very end
don't they?
And so we have Jack kind of reaching his low point in that arc and
he was blown up at the end of episode one.
So he's... blow point.
Yeah. blowpoint.
And the thing that the thing that's really good, I think the thing
that ties the 2 plot threads together is just the use of the word
gift.
So this is Jack admitting, even though he wasn't in the room, he
uses the same word that the 456 used to describe what they want
from humanity, which is the children they want, a gift.
And then when Jack comes in, he says, I gave the 12 children to
the 456 in 1965 as a gift.
Just to understand how he's not put that together until now, even
in the 1st episode when the kids have started doing stuff.
Yeah, but this is a guy who's lived 100s and 100s of years.
Like, I, I, like, whenever it comes up in my stupid solo podcast
where it's like, oh, how can the doctor not know this?
Like, I think I was talking about the, um, the story in the engine
and how does the doctor remember being the fugitive doctor?
And it's like, those memories might be in there, but he's had
1000s of years of memory.
Who knows when they're going to pop up?
Like, the doctor doesn't have the memory of a fan.
Well, also, the 456 didn't have this modus operandi before, you
know, last time they showed up, they just wanted kids and they're
like, here, we're going to cure the flu for you.
Which, honestly, if we're going to nitpick, it's very writerly to
have the tab Jack say gift, when really, in no way was a gift, it
was a trade.
Yeah, but it is deliberately that, isn't it?
is trying to tie them together.
And it's sort of rather wonderful, I think, to have the 456 use
that word.
And then have him come in, not having heard that, and use the same
word.
But also the way he talks to Frobisher.
He goes, if this is who it's meant to be, you know that they don't
stick to their word.
Because obviously it implies that the gift was given to just rack
off and don't come back.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah, and so, of course, you know, like the 10%.
Do they come back again in 40 years and ask for another 50%?
We just have to kill them at this point.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, that's all the time we have this week.
We'll be back next week to work out just whose children are going
to fill the home office's giant gift pan bar in Torchwood, Children
of Earth, day four.
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 includes every episode of our 4 Doctor Who podcasts.
Until next time, remember that when you turn up to a friend's
place for dinner, a bottle of wine is a gift likely to go down
much better than 10% of a child.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Ta-ta.
Good night.
That was 500 year diary, starring Nathan Bottomley, Kevin Bernard
Adam Richard, and James Selwood.
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, nervous and Scottish, was recorded on the 7th of
March, 2026 and released on the 29th of March.
This week, we'd like to thank our newest sponsor, GastroStop.
If you're invading an alien planet to demand the surrender of
35000000 of their children, do it with the confidence only gastro
stop can provide, now available in chewable mint flavour that you
can take without water or hydrochloric acid.
Incidentally, I just have to ask, have you guys seen the news
about what's happened in Cardiff recently evolving Torchwood?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. and Melvin actually just posted
because he was on, uh, he was on, uh, well, episode two.
I think he was on last week.
And he was talking about the shrine coming down.
And of course, um, Gareth, was he on, um, he like posted something
on Instagram or something, like talking about it, which was kind
of sweet.
Yeah, like it is kind of sweet.
It was insane.
It was always insane.
And we will talk about it because obviously he dies in in a couple
a couple of episodes time.
Yeah, he's not going to be fine.
Don't spoil this rewatch podcast.
But, but it's, I, for one, I'm very mad, Russell, at Barry
Argaze.
Yeah, and that was it.
There was a huge bury our gaze thing.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like Russell's, you know, like Russell's killing the gay
character and this is an outrage.
And for me, like I just thought, oh, you know, like this elevates
that relationship and becomes like a giant operatic thing, do you
know what it means?
like a giant loss.
It's, you know, they freed Janto.
But, but he, um, but, you know, like Jack's feelings about that
are hugely important for the rest of the thing, that's a hugely
important consequential relationship, it's not just a fling.
It, you know, it, it, it, it, some, it's a big deal.
And why can't the gay characters have that in the thing?
And why can't Yanto die heroically, you know, trying to do
something.
Also, quite frankly, is the 1st time their relationship's ever
been taken seriously.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, it becomes a proper thing.
And in fact, that episode, you know, we'll talk about it in a few
weeks time, but the, the, you know, Gwen's reaction, the, the, all
the bodies in that room in Thames house and and Yanto's there.
Like it's it's really good.
Like, I think it's properly good.
And, and, like, you know, it's a TV show and whatever.
But like being affected by a TV show is one of the reasons that
you watch it.
I mean, one of the reasons that this is good, is that it does
manage to do that. over and over again as well, in all sorts of
different ways and different contexts, all the stuff about
children.
Like, you know, the people who have joined or are going to be
joining us on these podcasts who have children.
Like talking to them about what the experience of watching these
is like when, you know, you've looked after children or cared for
them or whatever.
We do offer counselling.
Yeah, yeah, we do.
I'm very sympathetic.
Yeah, if you've been affected by issues raised in this podcast.
Yeah.
Anyway, that's all.
Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, maybe that's a tag. to be funny about, like, and not feel
guilty about something so dark.
Yeah, but the show doesn't care about being funny about it. you
know what I mean?
It's Russell.
Russell's funny about things that are funny and anything that's
you know, that is going to be blackly funny is just black.
It doesn't.
He doesn't go there.
He's just like, no, no, I'm just going to let you sit in your
discomfort.
Because more footwheel.
Wait, like he'll always crack wise, I think.
Yes.
But Russell, yeah, he sort of drops it a bit.
Like the, like, I mean, it is satire, isn't it?
Like these these satire and particularly that just sort of
exaggerated stuff like with Denise at the end and stuff, but it's
only barely satire.
I mean, yeah, I, no, I, I'm just thinking about how in 2009, when
this came out, it was, everything was, it was paedophile
everything.
Like, and there was that huge scandal with brass eye, you know
making jokes about paedophilia and you couldn't really talk about
it and it was, but it was on every, the front of every newspaper
and people had to go and knock on doors because when they were 19
they had sex with a 17 year old.
And so now that's their job, every time they move is that they're
a sexual predator.
So it was like a huge big thing that was going on.
So it was, on some level, it does feel like, you know, look, this
is what you think of a paedophile.
Like it's a monster that's spewed.
Goop into a room.
But I'm also thinking just about how England does have...
I mean, like all of our countries who, but England, in particular
has these sort of underclass that is just kind of that sales
beneath, you know, like that doesn't get assistance of people who
live on the estate, you know, the people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that's historical.
Like that's ever since they were plans ever since they were
working the land.
There have always been, England has always had a class of people
that were disposable.
And, but now we feel like we're morally superior and we wouldn't
do that, but this show is basically going... you know what I
mean?
It's not just that we would do it if aliens come along, but we're
doing it already.
All the time.
Yeah, and the fact that you have that mention of the league tables
which is so brutal, might be the best line of the thing. you know
what are the school league tables for law then, you know, so
good.
So great.
It's so good.
Just, um...