TORCHWOOD
CHILDREN OF EARTH
DAY ONE
CAPTION: 1965, Scotland
EXT NIGHT Country Road
(A 1960s bus drives along in the gathering dark with headlights glowing.)
(Close up on one child, blond boy. Child stares out of rain covered window.)
INT NIGHT Bus
(Child looks around into the bus. He's silent.)
(Kids in era appropriate clothing sit and talk to each other)
GIRL: (quiet under music) Why am I talking?
EXT NIGHT Dark country
(Bus stops. Children get out. Look around. Ominous music is ominous.
Children walk forwards as a group. Blond boy hangs back.
Bright light! Very bright, ahead of them. They stop and look.
Start walking again. Leave blond boy behind.
Blond boy walks forwards, looks back, light behind him.
Long shot: One adult figure stands in front of the bus, the light glows ahead and the children walk into it.
Light flares.)
FADE TO WHITE
OPENING CREDITS
TORCHWOOD
CHILDREN OF EARTH
DAY ONE
(Next sequence is a lot of fast cuts and talking over different pictures. Takes longer to read than view.)
EXT DAY Cardiff from above
(Cardiff bay from the air! Millennium Centre and the Plas and all showing.)
Caption says: CARDIFF
EXT DAY A Cardiff clock tower
(A location and time stamp: It is 0840.)
EXT DAY Cardiff city street
(Gwen Cooper at a cash point {labelled John Barrowman as the credits continue over the action}.)
(Close up on Gwen, voices start out of view.)
{First deliberate words of the episode}:
MOTHER: (OS) Come on, Tyler. Tyler, just stop it.
(Gwen looks around.)
MOTHER: I haven't got time to muck around.
(A mother stands in front of a young boy in school uniform. He stares into space, she tells him off.)
(Close up and he's staring straight forward, not responding to anything.)
MOTHER: Tyler! All right, I'll just leave you there.
(Gwen at the cash point grins.)
MOTHER: (OS) Is that what you want? / If I just leave you? In the middle of town?
FATHER: (OS) Suzette! Suzette, / We're going to be late.
(Gwen looks in the opposite direction. Different parent and child there, exact same reactions – angry parent and frozen child.)
MOTHER: (VO) Come on then, come on.
FATHER: Suzette! Stop it, you're just looking silly, d'you want other people to see you, looking silly?
INT DAY Davies house
(Laundry basket fills screen, then Rhiannon carries it past to kitchen, busy. She hasn't noticed yet: Two children, blue school uniforms, boy David and girl Mica, sit staring straight ahead and unresponsive. Kitchen table, plastic cover, breakfast food, Coco Pops ad with the monkey showing, nobody moving to eat.)
RHIANNON: If he gives you any more trouble, your dad's going round his house to punch his face in. I'll punch his bloody mother. Have you got that, David?
INT DAY Frobisher house
(Man comes down stairs talking, busy.)
FROBISHER: I've booked the car for 7.30, but I might have to leave it on standby.
(Walks into kitchen of rather more expensive décor. He talks to a woman, neither notices the kids. Two girls in green school uniforms, sitting staring and not eating.)
FROBISHER: If Baxter starts talking, he never stops, so I can't guarantee what time. I'll tell you what, I'll send you a text when I'm on the motorway.