Fragments (TV story)

Synopsis
A booby-trapped building explodes and knocks the Torchwood team unconscious. As each team member's life flashes before their eyes, there are a series of flashbacks for all of the main characters (except Gwen); Captain Jack was initiated into a shocked Victorian Torchwood in 1899; Toshiko went on a daring mission to trade alien technology for her mother's life; Ianto wooed Jack with coffee and a flair for alien-catching; and Owen lost his normal life to an alien inside his fiancée's brain.

Plot
The Torchwood team, minus Gwen, investigate a derelict building and are caught up in a trap as it explodes. The quartet experience flashbacks about their origins with the alien-fighting organisation.

Captain Jack is picked up by the all-female Torchwood in Victorian times once they become aware of his immortality. They torture him in order to extract information about The Doctor, to no avail, but soon decide to enlist him as an agent. After many decades pass, Jack discovers that one of his colleagues has murdered everyone else in the Hub because of his fear of the new Millennium and the horrors it may hold.

Toshiko joins Torchwood after Jack finds her in a top secret prison because she leaked information from her Ministry Of Defence job to a vicious gang holding her mother captive. Jack is impressed by her ability to assemble a Sonic Modulator despite flawed instructions and ensures she is released and given a pardon once she accepts the Torchwood job.

Ianto harasses Jack for a job following the demise of Torchwood One, where he initially worked. Helping Jack fight off a Weevil and repeatedly praising his coat doesn't work at first, but the pair successfully capture a pterodactyl together - with the help of some chocolate - and Ianto is enlisted.

Owen encounters Jack when he bursts into a hospital room during brain surgery on Owen's ailing fiancée Katie. He removes an alien from her brain and knocks out all the witnesses, including Owen. Katie immediately dies and Owen wakes up to discover a massive cover up. He encounters Jack when visiting his wife's grave and, after a fight, agrees to join Torchwood as a medic.

Back in the present, Gwen and Rhys help to pull everyone from the debris in the building. However, Jack receives a hologram message from Captain John in which he claims responsibility for the bombs and claims to have his brother Gray captive.

Cast

 * Captain Jack Harkness - John Barrowman
 * Gwen Williams - Eve Myles
 * Toshiko Sato - Naoko Mori
 * Ianto Jones - Gareth David-Lloyd
 * Owen Harper - Burn Gorman
 * Rhys Williams - Kai Owen
 * Captain John Hart - James Marsters (uncredited)
 * Weevil-Paul Kasey
 * Blowfish — Paul Kasey
 * Toshiko's Mother — Noriko Aida
 * Alice Guppy — Amy Manson
 * Emily Holroyd — Heather Craney
 * Little Girl - Skye Bennett
 * Alex Hopkins — Julian Lewis Jones
 * Bob — Simon Shackleton
 * Security Guard — Gareth Jones
 * Milton — Clare Clifford
 * Katie Russell — Andrea Lowe
 * Doctor — Richard Lloyd-King
 * Nurse — Catherine Morris
 * Psychiatrist — Selva Rasalingham

Production crew
to be added

Story Notes

 * Jack died 1,392 times between meeting Torchwood and the explosion at the beginning of the episode, and at least 14 more times prior to the first Torchwood encounter.
 * Jack took control of Torchwood 3 at the end of 1999 (or the beginning of 2000), after spending a century with the organization.
 * It was Ianto who found the Torchwood Pteranodon with a rift monitor.

Ratings
to be added

Myths
to be added

Filming Locations
to be added

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

 * It seems a little convenient that the only torchwood member to be killed by the explosions is Jack (when they were all only a few yards from the bombs) and that Owen who cannot heal himself is not greatly injured in the blast. The booby-trapped building is used as a plot device, no more, no less.

Continuity

 * A Blowfish appears in a flashback, one last appeared in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.
 * Captain John Hart is behind the bomb attack, he last appeared in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.
 * Gray is seen in a hologram, he was last seen (in a flashback) in  Adam.
 * The tarot card reading girl appears in a flashback, she was last seen in Dead Man Walking, except in the modern day. Here she predicts that "two turns of the century" will pass before Jack finally meets up with the Doctor again, an event that occurs in DW: Utopia.
 * When Jack begins to work with Torchwood, they know of the Doctor based on events in DW: Tooth and Claw.
 * Torchwood reverts to its cold, manipulative ways as seen in DW: Army of Ghosts, et al. Jack mentions on several occasions how he wants to turn it into an organization that helps people; it is suggested that the cold-blooded killing of the blowfish by an early Torchwood operative might have been one of the inspirations for this.
 * UNIT is referenced, although it is depicted as a somewhat malevolent organization, in contrast to previous depictions in Doctor Who. Jack suggests it may be due to the current political climate of the day; a reference to the internment camp at Guantanimo Bay in DW: The Sontaran Strategem and a reference to a war in Iraq in TW: To the Last Man suggest an event or events similar to 9/11 and War on Terror occur in the Doctor Who/Torchwood universe.

DVD releases

 * This story along with the rest of Torchwood Series 2 is due to be released in a complete series boxset.