Day One (TV story)


 * For the Series 3 Torchwood episode Children of Earth: Day One, see separate entry.

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
The Torchwood team arrives at an asteroid crash site. The Army is already there. The team use their Torchwood authority to get through the troops. As the others move into action, taking samples and readings, Gwen feels inexperienced and out of place. When Owen taunts her, calling her the "New Girl", Gwen tosses a chisel at him and misses, puncturing the skin of the meteor releasing a gas. The purplish gas hisses out of the meteor, coalescing and rising into the air.

At a night club in Cardiff a young woman, Carys, is leaving a voice mail to her boyfriend when she is confronted by the gaseous creature. It backs her against a wall, then flows into her body. Suddenly sexually aggressive, she regains entry into the club by kissing the bouncer, and picks up a man, Matt, and takes him into the women's toilet. They proceed to have sex, and at the moment of climax Matt dissolves into a glowing cloud of dust, the energy portion of which Carys absorbs.

Ianto informs them of the incident at the nightclub. Arriving, the team finds the CCTV tapes that show Carys and Matt having their deadly sex, and then 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, the concept of which horrifies Gwen.

While the team tries to track Carys by cross-checking video from the surveillance cameras with a database containing the faces of the UK population, Carys is feeling the effects of the alien in her body, which is causing her pain. The postman arrives at her, and Carys pulls him into her house for sex, but the team manages to arrive before she can do the deed while Jack cracks a joke.

After dressing Carys and bringing her to the Hub, Jack puts Gwen in charge of interogating her. After putting Carys in a holding cell, a consciousness takes over Carys momentarily, explaining to Gwen that 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 managing to pull herself away, Gwen suddenly begins making out with Carys.

In the main Hub room, Owen notices this on one of the monitors and is happily amused. He informs Jack and Toshiko to look at the monitor as well, calling it a "treat". While Toshiko is confused by this as Gwen mentioned Rhys, Jack laughs as humans in the 21st century have "quaint little categories". Toshiko becomes worried about Gwen, suggesting they get her away from Carys. Distracted by the monitor, Jack agrees, but 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 pressence in Carys realizes it needs a man for its energy and 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 alright and vaguely tells Rhys about how her job is going so far.

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

Ianto tells them dinner has arrived and they have Chinese. While Jack excuses himself, Ianto, Owen and Tosh ask Gwen if she has learned anything about Jack yet, hoping he would be more open about himself to a newbie. However, they soon change the subject to concerning Jack's sexuality. Owen believes Jack is gay. Tosh thinks Jack will go for anything if its beautiful enough. Ianto simply doesn't care. Jack returns and Gwen hears a faint crying and notices Carys on the monitor. She tells Jack that they should be doing something to help her. Jack then explains they are doing everything they know how to do to analyze the problem and goes on to say going further (looking into her personal history) is the boring part. Gwen decides to do this herself and Jack encourages her by asking her to show him what a person of the 21st century can do.

Gwen is succesful in tracking down the vital parts of Carys' life and Jack is slightly amused that she went to so much trouble. She further explains that Carys' is not a threat, she's a person in trouble who needs their help. Tosh soon finds them and shows the results of the tests. The alien presence in Carys is producing an ultra-powerful cloud of pheromones around her, turning her into a walking aphrodisiac. They realise they can't let Carys near any man and realise that Owen went to get medical scans.

They arrive too late to find find him naked and cuffed in the cell. Owen explains Carys toke his 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' exit and is confronted by Jack. The alien pressence possesses her and takes the Doctor's 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.

In the meantime, Carys is visitng her ex-boyfreind and attempts to hold back the alien. After Carys learns her ex was only using her, she lets the alien kill him. The team arrive later, based on Tosh's hunch and Jack makes a joke about his past exes.

While driving through town, they begin wondering how they can stop Carys. Gwen then double checks Crays' records to leatn she temporarily 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.

However, 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 invulnerability. Gwen then offers to take the host into herself, 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 then 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

Music

 * Saturday Night - Kaiser Chiefs
 * Ooh La La - Goldfrapp

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.
 * 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 favorite scene because it best defined it.
 * After Carys smashes the Doctor's hand, and as Jack picks it up, The Doctor's Theme begins to play.

Ratings

 * BBC3 - 2.5 million viewers
 * BBC2 - 3.0 million viewers

Myths
to be added

Filming locations

 * Cyncoed Consulting Rooms - Cyncoed Road

Production errors
To be added

Continuity

 * The severed hand seen in TW: Everything Changes is from DW: The Christmas Invasion. When Jack cradles the hand, a few instrumental notes of "Flavia's Theme" can be heard.
 * The blue energy of the portable prison cell resembles the technology used by Jack in DW: The Empty Child to rescue Rose and to stop the bomb in DW: The Doctor Dances and also the lift in DW: Forest of the Dead.
 * The first episode of series three is also called Day One.

Home video releases
This episode was first released on DVD, with four other episodes entitled Torchwood: Series 1, part 1 on 26 December 2006. It was later released in Torchwood: The Complete First Series on 19th November 2007