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TARDIS Guide

Overview

First aired

Monday, July 6, 2009

Production Code

3.1

Written by

Russell T Davies

Directed by

Euros Lyn

Runtime

60 minutes

Time Travel

Past, Present

Tropes (Potential Spoilers!)

LGBTQA+

Story Arc (Potential Spoilers!)

The 456

Location (Potential Spoilers!)

Cardiff, Earth, Scotland, Wales

UK Viewers

6.47 million

Synopsis

When all children on Earth stop and start chanting "We are coming", the Torchwood team investigates. Could this be the start of a global crisis?

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Reviews

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1 review

This review contains spoilers!

I've seen the entirety of Children of Earth before, so this isn't new for me, but I absolutely love it. This first episode is easily one of the greatest openers to a series of any show I have ever seen. It does such a spectacular job of establishing the sinister threat with the kids chanting 'We are coming', and goes into some delightfully dark places, with the speech about the suicide victims who lost religious faith upon the discovery of aliens in the Whoniverse, and saw themselves as nothing but a tiny part of the universe.

I really, really like the way they up the stakes by making Gwen pregnant too. It ties in thematically with the children as the threat, and also means there's more emotional peril for Gwen. Suddenly, she's not only fighting for her own safety against the aliens, but the safety of the child she is carrying too.

Oh, and that twist with the NHS doctor who you are led to believe wants to join Torchwood, and then turns out he was a spy just trying to get in to take them down from the inside is SO great. You genuinely don't see it coming. I remember when I watched it for the first time on the way back from a Scottish holiday, it took me totally by surprise. Like the best twists, I never saw it coming.


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Statistics

AVG. Rating256 members
4.46 / 5

Trakt.tv

AVG. Rating315 votes
4.12 / 5

The Time Scales

AVG. Rating61 votes
4.65 / 5

Member Statistics

Watched

663

Favourited

68

Reviewed

1

Saved

2

Skipped

0

Owned

7

Quotes

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IANTO: It's weird. It's just different. It's not men, it's just him. It's only him. And I don't even know what it is, really, so. So I'm not broadcasting it.

— Ianto Jones, Day One

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Transcript Needs checking

[1965 Scotland]

(A small bus full of young children stops in the middle of nowhere. The children get off and are lead towards a bright light. One boy hangs back to look at the adult who is with them.)

[Cardiff]

(Present day. Gwen is getting money from an ATM.)

MOTHER: Come on, Tyler. Tyler, just stop it. I haven't got time to muck around.


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