Adam (TV story)

Adam was the fifth episode in the second series of Torchwood.

Plot
Adam, a creature of The Void, is drawn through the Cardiff rift by the intense field memories which are had by each member of the Torchwood team. Adam's power is to tamper with the memories of its prey, to sustain its own survival. So, Adam would exist as long the Torchwood team could bear him in their memories. Adam is able to both implant memories and alter the already existing ones of people merely by touching them with its hands. By such means, Jack, Gwen, Owen, Toshiko, and Ianto believe that Adam had been with them since the current team formed three years ago. However, Adam has gotten with them just 48 hours before.

Beside surviving, Adam toys with their minds. Jack retrieves his childhood memories, about his last moments with his father and brother, at the Boeshane Peninsula. Gwen forgets about her fiance Rhys. Owen becomes an introversive geek and he has a crush on Toshiko. Toshiko unleashes her personality to start a passionate relationship with the same Adam, slighting Owen. Ianto, who discovers Adam's maneuver by not finding him in his everyday diary, is harassed by him, so Ianto believes that he has murdered three young women.

It's Jack's trust in Ianto that leads him to investigate the security feed of Torchwood. Jack discovers then that Adam has been tampering with each one of his team, during the latest 48 hours. Adam is captured then into a cell. Jack orders that all his team would swallow a Retcon amnesia pill to forget all what Adam has done on them. Except him, they do so. At the holding cells, Jack confronts the now weakened Adam for the last time then. Desperately, Adam attempts so Jack keeps some tampered childhood memories, which are so bewildering now, through threats and mental torture. Nonetheless, Jack takes his pill in time and Adam dies then.

On the next day, in the Torchwood team nobody understands why two days are missing in their minds. A floral arrangement and a note of love of Owen, which were intended for Toshiko, survive but Owen dismisses them with a scorning commentary. Also, a Torchwood-labeled bag is found and it had been inked by Adam. Nonetheless nobody knows about Adam, already.

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
 * Adam Smith — Bryan Dick
 * Jack's Father — Demetri Goritsas
 * Jack's Mother — Lauren Ward
 * Young Jack — Jack Montgomery
 * Gray — Ethan Brooke
 * Young Adam — Rhys Myers
 * Weevil - Paul Kasey
 * Murdered Woman - Jo Malaren

Story notes

 * The plot element of the group's memories being altered and a "new member" suddenly appearing among them is similar to the plot of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Conundrum", the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Superstar", the Stargate SG-1 episode "The Fifth Man", and the Torchwood novel Border Princes. The similarity to Border Princes is particularly striking as the infiltrator of the novel exhibits some of the same behavior shown by Adam in the episode.
 * Whilst filming the kiss between Jack and Ianto, the crew pulled a prank on John Barrowman and Gareth David-Lloyd by not calling 'Cut!' after they had stopped filming, causing the kiss to continue for more than two minutes before the two actors realised what was going on.

Ratings

 * BBC2 - 3.8 million viewers

Myths

 * It suggested amongst the internet community that Adam Mitchell would return in this episode. (It was false.)
 * As Adam Smith came from the Void it is widely believed that the Daleks and Cybermen could too. However the episode does not confirm if this is the same Void that involved the Daleks and Cybermen.

Filming Locations

 * Talbot Place, Cardiff (Exterior Gwen and Rhys' flat)
 * The Port Of Cardiff, Cardiff Docks, Wales (Jack comes out of sewers, meets Adam)
 * Canal Park, Butetown, Cardiff (Adam following Jack around chatting)
 * Coney Beach, Porthcawl (Boeshane Peninsula beach)
 * Merthyr Mawr Warren, Merthyr Mawr (Beach near (young) Jack's house)
 * Waterguard Pub (outside), Harbour Drive, Cardiff (Outside (young) Jack's house)
 * Fox Street, Splott, Cardiff (Ianto 'remembers' the murder in an alley)
 * BBC Studios, Upper Boat, Tonteg Road, Treforest Industrial Estate, Pontypridd,

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

 * On the vials containing blood samples from all Torchwood members, some of the names are wrong. When Jack grabs them (after Ianto confesses to being a serial killer), four labels are visible and two have the first and last names reversed. From left to right, they read: "Cooper, Gwen"; "Toshiko, Sato"; "Harper, Owen"; and "Ianto, Jones". It's possible that whoever labeled them wasn't being very attentive as they did so. The team members are fallible, and given the small size of Torchwood 3 the labelling consistency isn't particularly important.
 * Rhys Williams shows no sign of injury following the previous story. The episode's early dialogue shows that Gwen and Rhys have been to Paris (with Adam having infiltrated Torchwood while she was away), indicating that a significant amount of time has passed.
 * Although all the members of Torchwood takes Retcon to forget Adam, Rhys Williams does not despite having briefly met Adam. Adam goes to some effort to integrate himself into Torchwood's past memories by touching them, indicating that this is necessary to sustain him. Rhys, whom Adam did not touch and who was traumatized and concentrating on Gwen, would have had only a fleeting memory of their meeting. This might cause some confusion if Rhys mentions him to Gwen, but they've seen weirder. Jack could also have contacted Rhys offscreen before having his final conversation with Adam.
 * How can Adam be seen on the videos if he needs to make himself part of their mermories to be real? Shouldn't the videos just show no-one? No, as Rhys is able to see Adam without being manipulated, meaning he has corporeal form and therefore can be seen by CCTV cameras. The videos only show Adam touching his victims, not their memories. He needed to be in someone's memories to become real, but once doing so he did have physical form.
 * The episode suggests that Jack's memories of his father and younger brother are repressed, yet in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang he reacts when John Hart mentions his brother, Gray. Perhaps the actual knowledge of the individuals are still present -- i.e. Jack knows he has a father and a presumably deceased brother named Gray -- but the actual memories of the individuals have been repressed. Jack knows he lost his brother, but the Time Agency stole two years of his memory (which could be simply a quantity rather than a span), and that could have included the last happy memory of him and his father, which is the memory that Adam dug up.
 * Theoretically, Adam would alter people's minds by implanting memories which would occupy the slots of the human brain which are, precisely, reserved for either old or very old memories. As the Retcon would affect the memories which are only of the last 24 hs, the pill wouldn't be able to modify 3 years of memory. Furthermore, into Jack's childhood memories, which would have been of about two hundred years leastwise, Adam had already sneaked as well. Most likely, something that disrupt memories causes Adam's influence to vanish. Or possibly the retcon wiping out the past 48 hours meant hours of implanted memories too, meaning that the memories Adam implanted will be gone too. The mechanism by which retcon physically works has not been explained.
 * When Tosh points the gun at Jack, wouldn't she know that he's immortal? Even if it wouldn't kill him for very long, it would certainly put him out of action long enough for Tosh to keep Adam safe.

Continuity

 * Jack first mentioned his home, the Boeshane Peninsula, in DW: Last of the Time Lords. (See also Face of Boe).
 * The Void is mentioned, it was last featured actively in DW: Doomsday.
 * Gray was previously referenced by John Hart in TW: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.
 * Jack's childhood in the 51st century is explored.

DVD releases

 * This story along with the rest of Torchwood Series 2 was released in a complete series boxset.