Day One (TV story)

Day One was the second episode in the first series of Torchwood. It saw Gwen Cooper take on her first mission for Torchwood, following her induction in Everything Changes.

Synopsis
Gwen's first day on the job sees Cardiff's nightlife at the mercy of an alien who consumes its victims during orgasm, leaving behind only dust. Torchwood tracks the alien to a sperm bank, but too late for the patrons within. Gwen tricks it into leaving its host and captures it within a portable cell, where it peters out, turning itself to dust.

Plot
Gwen is having dinner with Rhys, after bowling and a movie. He asks her about her new job at Torchwood. Gwen lies, saying she will mostly be handling filing. A meteor falls through the sky and Gwen notices it crash on the town's outskirts. They run to get a better view, then Gwen gets a message and tells Rhys that she has to go to work.

Gwen is picked up by the team in the Torchwood S.U.V., commenting on the dual computer stations and the illegal link to the police computer system. They arrive at the crash site. The "amateurs" (the Army) have beaten them there. Jack informs the team that "usual formation" will be used and Owen tells Gwen that the usual formation varies. While the rest of the team head to the meteor to examine it, Gwen remembers her equipment and returns to the car to get it.

Army security stops Gwen until Jack comes back to collect her and tells them to back off. The others move into action, taking samples and readings, and Gwen feels inexperienced and out of place. When Owen starts trying out nicknames, the least of which is "New Girl", and asks for a bigger chisel to help get a part of the meteor, Gwen cracks a joke about Owen needing a bigger tool for the job and tosses the chisel at him, but misses. It punctures the skin of the meteor, and Jack tosses around gas masks as it begins to release a purplish gas that coalesces and rising into the air.

At an alley near a night club in Cardiff, a young woman, Carys, is leaving a distraught voice mail for Eddie, who she suspects has stood her up for another woman, when she is confronted by the gaseous creature. It backs her against a wall, then flows into her body. She suddenly goes from upset to sexually aggressive, and gains reentry into the club by kissing the bouncer. She picks out a man, Matt, and nearly drags him into the women's toilet. They have sex, and at the moment of climax Matt dissolves into a glowing cloud of dust, the energy portion of which Carys absorbs.

Gwen keeps apologising, Owen keeps taunting her, Tosh wants him to lay off, and Jack just wants her to get past it and back to work. Ianto thinks he can help, as he's heard an unusual 999 call for the nightclub. The team investigates, and PC Andy is surprised to see Gwen. They find the dust and the CCTV tapes that show Carys and Matt having their deadly sex and the alien taking her over in the alley. Jack arranges for a body to be taken out of storage to fake a suicide for Matt, which shocks and dismays Gwen. Jack confiscates the tapes.

The team analyses the meteorite and scene data, and Tosh tries to track Carys by cross-checking video from the surveillance cameras with a database of the faces of the UK population. Gwen tells Tosh, Owen, and Jack about Rhys and finds the other three don't have time to date. Carys is feeling the effects of the previous night. She spends most of her Dad's breakfast monologue staring into the distance, claiming a hangover from the previous night, but later breaks down crying in the shower. As she brushes her hair, she is racked with pain several times as she stares into the mirror. The postman arrives and Carys pulls him into her house, throwing him down on the couch and pulling at his clothing, but the team arrives before she can do the deed.

She breaks away but Owen catches her with an alien device that he didn't have permission to carry. After dressing Carys and bringing her to the Hub, Jack puts Gwen in charge of interrogating her. In a holding cell, a consciousness takes over Carys momentarily. It tells Gwen it is not here for conquest, but to feed off human orgasmic energy. Carys pleads for help and doubles over in pain, causing Gwen to open the door and help her up. However, the alien presence takes over and Carys kisses Gwen. After pulling herself away, Gwen suddenly begins passionately kissing Carys. In the main Hub room, Owen notices this on a monitor and is amused. He informs Jack and Toshiko, calling it a "treat". Tosh says, "Wow," Owen says she said she had a boyfriend, and Jack laughs "you people and your quaint little categories". Toshiko suggests they get Gwen away from Carys. Distracted by the sight on the monitor, Jack agrees and stares, then snaps out of his daze and runs after her to the cells. Owen prepares to follow, but decides to record what he's watching.

Back in the cell, the presence in Carys realises it needs a man for its energy. Carys breaks through and pleads for Gwen to help her. Gwen regains her senses, walking out of the cell and locking it. Gwen receives a call from Rhys just as Jack and Tosh arrive. She signals them that she is all right and vaguely tells Rhys how her job is going so far.

Returning to the main Hub area, Gwen is confronted by Owen, who jokingly congratulates her on her "methodical investigation" before telling another dirty joke. Angered at Owen's lack of care for Carys' plight, Gwen pins Owen to a wall and yells at him; they should be helping her instead of studying her like a lab rat. Jack makes a joke that throttling Torchwood staff is his job.

While Jack is absent during a meal break, Ianto, Owen, and Tosh ask Gwen if she has learned anything about Jack yet. They start talking about Jack's sexuality. Owen believes Jack is gay. Tosh thinks Jack will go for anything if it's beautiful enough. Ianto doesn't care. Jack returns. Gwen hears a faint crying and notices Carys on the monitor. She tells Jack that they should be doing something to help her. Jack explains they are doing everything they know to analyse the problem, telling her that this is the boring part of the job. Gwen decides to do this herself and Jack encourages her.

Gwen tracks down the vital statistics of Carys' life and Jack is amused that she went to so much trouble. She insists Carys is not a threat, but someone in trouble who needs their help. Tosh shows the results of the tests to the rest of the team - the alien in Carys is producing a cloud of pheromones around her, turning her into a walking aphrodisiac. They can't let Carys near any man and realise Owen has gone down to her to get medical scans. They arrive to find him naked and cuffed in the cell; Carys took Owen's swipe card after the pheromones overpowered him. Toshiko tells Owen that he's very lucky that his card is all she wanted and frees him. Gwen asks if Owen is okay then cracks a joke at his expense.

Carys, meanwhile, makes her way to the Hub's exit and is confronted by Jack. The alien presence possesses her and takes the mysterious hand hostage to keep Jack from following her to the exit. However, Jack soon catches up through a secondary exit and lets her go in exchange for the hand, much to the team's anger.

After Owen dresses himself, he demonstrates the results of his bio-scan of Carys on a rat showing that the physiological effects of the gaseous creature will make the body literally explode if it inhabits a person too long, dubbing the end result "Rat Jam". They then wonder where Carys could be as the alien in her wants orgasmic energy. Owen then jokes if he was possessed by the alien he'd come after Gwen, much to everyone's annoyance. Tosh then comes up with an idea.

Carys is visiting her ex-boyfriend and attempts to hold back the alien. After she learns her ex was only using her, she lets the alien kill him. The team arrive later. Jack makes a joke about his past exes.

While driving through town, they wonder how to stop Carys. Gwen double checks Carys' records. She worked as a receptionist at Conway Clinic, an ideal source of orgasmic energy. They also determine that the alien takes hosts because Earth's atmosphere is poisonous to it. Carys is already at the clinic, dragging the sperm donors into rooms. When the team arrives, there are piles of dust everywhere. When they surround her, Carys collapses, too weak to fight the alien any more. Jack kisses her, giving up some of his life force to revitalise her without dying due to his immortality. Gwen offers herself as a host for the alien, asking the alien to spare Carys. When the alien flows out of Carys' body, Jack drops a portable prison cell and traps it inside. Separated from its host, the alien dies, falling into a pile of dust. Gwen and Jack take Carys back to her father.

Cast

 * Captain Jack Harkness —John Barrowman
 * Gwen Cooper — Eve Myles
 * Owen Harper — Burn Gorman
 * Toshiko Sato — Naoko Mori
 * Ianto Jones — Gareth David-Lloyd
 * Rhys Williams — Kai Owen
 * Private Moriarty — Adrian Christopher
 * Sgt. Johnson — Ross O'Hennessey
 * Carys Fletcher — Sara Lloyd Gregory
 * Banksy — Ceri Mears
 * Matt — Justin McDonald
 * PC Andy Davidson — Tom Price
 * Ivan Fletcher — Brendan Charleson
 * Gavin — Rob Störr
 * Mikey - Lloyd Everitt
 * Eddie Gwynne — Alex Parry
 * Bethan — Felicity Rhys
 * Receptionist — Naomi Martell
 * Mr Weston — David Longden

Story notes

 * This story had a working title of New Girl.
 * The alien is never given a name in the episode, although in Torchwood Declassified, Russell T Davies refers to it as the "sex monster" or the "sex gas orgasm eating monster".
 * This episode has the distinction of featuring the first explicit sex scene in the Doctor Who franchise, as well as a same sex kiss between two women.
 * The bathroom scene involved sex without condoms.
 * Russell T Davies states in Torchwood Declassified that this episode "reflects how sexualized our community is" and considered the scene when Carys is in the city surrounded in sexual images to be his favourite scene because it best defines it.
 * After Carys smashes the glass container of the Doctor's hand, as Jack picks it up The Doctor's Theme begins to play.
 * The alley where the "gas monster" takes its first victim is the same location used at the end of Smith and Jones to introduce Martha Jones to the TARDIS.
 * As is routine for Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures, and the revived Doctor Who itself, a "NEXT TIME" trailer for the next episode is shown at the end of the episode.

Ratings

 * 2.5 million viewers

Filming locations

 * Cyncoed Consulting Rooms - Cyncoed Road

Production errors
to be added

Continuity

 * The blue energy of the portable prison cell resembles the technology used by Jack in TV: The Empty Child to rescue Rose and subsequently to stop the bomb in TV: The Doctor Dances.
 * The Weevil that appeared in the first episode is still in its cell.
 * The Tenth Doctor's hand that was cut off on in The Christmas Invasion appears.

Home video releases

 * This episode, with four others, was first released on a DVD entitled Torchwood: Series 1, part 1 on 26 December 2006. It was later released in Torchwood: The Complete First Series on 19th November 2007.