Torchwood Series 1: Resurrection – Pitch

Ah Torchwood. After a turbulent first series, with some great episodes and some terrible ones, the remaining three series were very good, even Miracle Day wasn’t too bad. But its also been a show that many fans want to come back, something that has amplified with Captain Jack’s involvement in the recent Thirteenth Doctor story, Revolution of the Daleks. I’d planned this series of Torchwood long before his involvement in that Dalek adventure was known, but this is my pitch for a new, revamped series of Torchwood.

You may have noticed that this series has the overall title of ‘Resurrection’. I’ve done this because I really liked the idea of Torchwood having series titles, like Children of Earth and Miracle Day and it also gives the viewer an idea of what might be happing in this set of episodes. As one might have guessed this is the resurrection of Torchwood, with an old foe waiting in the wings, a new team needs to come together to finally defeat the menace.

Like with all my pitches, in particular the spin-off series, I’ll be taking characters from all across the Doctor canon, television, books, audios, spin-offs maybe even some comics over the following series’. Some are characters that fans have wanted to be in the series properly since its inception and some might surprise you, so below is the list of characters who will form this new team, and the main villain, and how their stories will shape out over the course of this brand new series!

Main Players

Gwen Cooper: Following the events of Miracle Day and the Big Finish event, Aliens Among Us, Gwen has left Torchwood behind and is trying to focus on raising her family. Her two children take up a lot of time but Torchwood isn’t ready to leave her behind. People have been going missing off the streets of Cardiff and when her friend, Andy Davison, now a DCI asks her for help, she can’t refuse.

It soon becomes clear that aliens are involved and that Torchwood might need to be reformed to protect Wales from different threats. But assembling this new team is more work than Gwen was expecting as at every turn someone is out to get her. And with a family to protect, is resurrecting Torchwood, once Public Enemies No. 1, a good idea?

Rhys Williams: Rhys never had an issue with the aliens, just the idea of his wife being in danger and while he knew that what she was doing was right, he wasn’t unhappy when she left Torchwood for good. Still married to Gwen, his life has been a lot easier since the aliens stopped coming to Cardiff. Raising his two children with Gwen has been enough adventure for him, but when kids start to go missing, he knows that its right to look into it. And when Gwen gets called in to help the police investigation, will Rhys be able to stop his life from completely unravelling?

Martha Jones: Having left UNIT, Martha became an alien hunter, tracking down and stopping the worst and helping the best. She also fell in love with Mickey Smith and now married, the pair have become well known alien bounty hunters. But she knows that’s not necessarily what the Doctor would have wanted for her, and when she hears about people going missing in Cardiff, she and Mickey begin to investigate. She soon finds that Gwen is already on the case and decides to help out her old friend. She quickly becomes embroiled with the formation of a new Torchwood team and her medical skills will serve the team well. But she also finds herself falling prey to problems with Torchwood, including one of their oldest enemies…

Mickey Smith: Having married Martha Jones, Mickey travels to Cardiff with his wife to help look into the recent spate of disappearances. He even sets himself up as bait. But when he does go missing, he finds that he has to get out alive and save everyone else from a mysterious realm and outwit one of Torchwood’s oldest foes. But he brings back more than just the surviving missing people and soon Torchwood find themselves at the mercy of a brand new foe. Will any of the new Torchwood members make it out alive?

Clyde Langer: Once upon a time, he used to stop aliens with Sarah Jane Smith. But she’s passed away and following a break up with Rani, Clyde throws himself into his artwork. He quickly made a name for himself as a renowned comic book artist, his own title, The Silver Bullet, quickly becoming one of the best selling comics of all time. But when he’s at a convention in Cardiff, he finds that the life he left behind isn’t ready to let him go and he needs to rely on everything Sarah Jane ever taught him to keep everyone safe.

Ram Singh: Like Clyde, Ram had to deal with aliens on a regular basis. But unlike Clyde, he wasn’t really cut out for it and following his graduation from Coal Hill Academy, he quickly followed a career in the one thing that never left him, football. Also following careers in modelling and a little acting, he finds himself at the same convention as Clyde and the pair quickly find they both have backgrounds with aliens. But the way they were taught to defeat them put them into conflict, Clyde treats with kindness and respect, while Ram sees the evil they do and strikes first, thinks later.

Thanks to his bionic leg and an accident on the Football Pitch, he finds his career on the rocks. But Clyde’s outlook on alien life has rubbed off on him and when Gwen offers him a place on a new team she’s putting together that save the missing people in Cardiff, he decides to stay for the time being.

T.O.S.H.I.K.O: A piece of sentient technology that Gwen recovers quickly developed a personality all of its own, and modelled itself after Gwen’s fallen friend, Toshiko Sato. When the team find the destroyed Torchwood base under Cardiff, T.O.S.H.I.K.O quickly integrates herself in with the remaining systems and powers up the derelict base. But Gwen views T.O.S.H.I.K.O as much more than a computer system, she’s her friend and quickly finds that in the Torchwood base, she’s found a way of making a robotic body for herself.

Now she also looks like Toshiko and is capable of moving around the city as well as just being a computer system. But with no real understanding of what it means to be human, what side will T.O.S.H.I.K.O be on when Torchwood discovers its main adversary?

Bilis Manger: Bilis Manger was one of the villains of Torchwood’s debut series back in 2006, but nothing ever really happened to him. He was instrumental in unleashing Abbadon on Cardiff but we never saw what happened to him afterwards. Big Finish has done some stories with him and he appeared in my Doctor Who pitches, for Series 3, trying to unleash spirits of the dead upon London. But having been defeated twice by the Doctor in those stories, Bilis returns to Cardiff which is where we find him now.

Now, he’s facilitating people to go missing off the streets and trying to use the residual energy of the Rift to allow, The Timeless Ones to walk the Earth. But he once killed Rhys and although that was reversed, Gwen is out to kill him. But he’s also got friends in the Cardiff Police and further afield, so when Torchwood gets too close, he makes them public enemies once again. Now wanted criminals, Torchwood will have to pull out all the stops to defeat Bilis permanently.

The Timeless Ones: A myth amongst the higher beings of the universe, The Timeless Ones travel through the time vortex and rifts in the universe and ravage planets, consuming all life forms and making them no corporeal beings to help aid them in a long ended and forgotten war. Bilis Manger has found a way of using the little energy left by the Rift to get The Timeless Ones to Earth and he’s keeping them fed by taking people off the streets. But The Timeless Ones can sense the power humanity will have in their ancient war and have plans of their own, plans that will put Bilis directly in their path of destruction. 

That’s a list of characters who will be appearing in Torchwood: Resurrection. When it came to planning out which characters should appear, I always wanted a few of the originals to be involved and Eve Myles and Kai Owen, as the two surviving members of Torchwood were a no-brainer for me. It’ll be great to have Naoko Mori back as Toshiko Sato, another of my favourite Torchwood characters. But she died at the end of Series 2 of the original run, a TV death which has scarred me for life, I was seriously distraught, so coming back as a sentient alien device, using the name T.O.S.H.I.K.O and making a robotic body for herself is a great and imaginative way of bringing her character back. 

Following their appearance in The End of Time, Martha and Mickey have long been wanted to either feature in a new spin-off or come back in a reboot of Torchwood. Given their ‘exit’ from the main show, I’ve always felt Torchwood was the natural home for their characters and a good place to explore what happened to them after leaving the Doctor. Mickey will come up close and personal with The Timeless Ones and Martha will face off against Bilis Manger. 

Clyde and Ram were two characters that I’ve always wanted to see come back. I also want characters from Class to come back in my spin-off shows because I always saw potential in that show, that many other people didn’t enjoy. But Clyde and Ram will make an interesting pairing in this series. Clyde following Sarah Jane’s teachings tries to teach Ram that not all aliens are evil, but when Ram has only had experiences with evils from the likes of the Shadow Kin, they will make an interesting friendship but will be opposed in the initial episodes when it comes to dealing with alien threats.

You may also notice that one important Torchwood character is missing. Captain Jack won’t feature in the opening series in any serious capacity but will appear in the final episode and join the team in the fight against The Timeless Ones, creatures he’s got a history with, and Bilis Manger. He will then stay on the team, again in a small capacity in Series 2, before forming the backbone for my proposed third series which will deal with his past a lot more.

The Series

Now onto the episodes, below is the list of thirteen episodes which will form Series 1 and a little blurb to tell you the sort of thing that is going on here and how the series will take shape and look!

1. Repercussions

Torchwood is no more, team members died and rifts formed in the relationships of those who survived. Jack is off-world while Gwen and Rhys are trying to live a quiet life bringing up their two children. But the world of Torchwood isn’t done with them yet. 

People are going missing on the streets of Cardiff and DCI Andy Davidson is in charge of the case. But how can he cope when he discovers that they are going missing thanks to alien interference? And with no Torchwood around this time, he has to turn to his old friend Gwen Cooper for help.

But will Gwen agree to help, when she wants to leave her past behind?

2.  A Night Out In Cardiff

Back in Cardiff, Gwen and Rhys decide to take the night off and go on a date, trying to get their normal life back. Rhys has booked a nice table at a nice restaurant and things are going great. That is until creatures from the sewers start to run riot on the streets.

The Weevils were something that Gwen wanted to forget but what has made the Weevils leave their dark lair and terrorise the people of Cardiff. Heading down into their lair, Gwen finds a strange alien device has been activated that is sending out a strange energy pulse to somewhere in the depths of space.

Can Gwen and Rhys shut the device down and get the Weevils back into the sewers before everyone in Cardiff is dead?

3. The Hour That Never Was

Announcement! Footballer turned model turned action movie star and lead in Lethal Force 1,2,& 3, Ram Singh is a guest at Cardiff Con!

Announcement! Comic Book artist and creator of the award-winning Silver Bullet series, Clyde Langer, is a guest at Cardiff Con!

Clyde Langer and Ram Singh are the headline guests at a comic con in Cardiff and with thousands of visitors at the event, loads can go wrong, but no one expected the same hour to happen over and over again. With the comic con hall stuck in a time loop and something trying to get inside, can Clyde and Ram overcome their differences to save everyone?

4. Smith and Jones

News of people going missing has reached London and two people, Martha Jones and Mickey Smith are ready to help. Tracking down her old friend Gwen, Martha begins to investigate the sudden increase in alien activity while Mickey keeps his ear to the ground and talks to those who are most at risk.

But a gang as plagued DCI Andy Davidson and the police department for a while now, handling alien weapons and Mickey finds himself caught in the middle of the resulting fight. Can he get the alien weapons away from the gang before someone gets really hurt and will Martha’s new job as an alien bounty hunter put her at odds with Gwen?

5. Red Sky at Night

Some of the inhabitants of the Isle of Red Sky have glimpsed a mysterious ghost ship and then died of drowning, despite being nowhere water at the time. With the team assembled, Gwen decides its time to investigate this ghost ship.

But what is happening out at sea? Storms are raging and threatening to destroy the island entirely. And where did this ghost ship come from?

Can this new Torchwood team pull together in time to save Ram’s life when he sees the mythical ghost ship?

6. Conversion – Part 4

The epic crossover concludes!

With the Cybermen having breached the WW2 tunnels where the survivors of their takeover are hiding, the assembled might of Osgood, Josh Carter, Mickey, Clyde, Ram Nate, Mel, Bernice Sumerfield and Miss Quill has to stop the Cybermen from advancing throughout the entire country.

Meanwhile, The Doctor, George, Kate Stweart, Gwen Cooper, Martha, Ace, K-9 and Luke Smith have taken the fight to the Cybermen’s main base. But will they be able to stop the mass conversion of London’s population before the Cyber-Controller can complete its plan and signal a Cybermen invasion force?

7. The Village of the Damned

A few weeks ago, the village of Bore-Da saw a magnificent meteor shower. But since then things aren’t right. Something has taken control of the children and they are acting out of character.

What alien force has taken hold of the children and what does it want?

And what is the secret buried deep in the hills of Bore-Da?

8. Soldiers of War

The Timeless Ones are on their way to Earth and more people are going missing. It seems like Bilis has won and his scheme will see the Earth ravaged. But Mickey has something to say about it and sacrifices himself to the darkness spreading across Cardiff. Trapped in a void dimension he finds some of the missing people, the others having been turned into Timeless Ones. Now he just has to find a way out.

And T.O.S.H.I.K.O has been busy. Installed in the old Torchwood base, she has used Cybermen technology to create a body. But will this brush with being human change her outlook on the sanctity of life?

9. The School

When security footage of a corridor being ravaged by supposed paranormal activity is trending on social media, Gwen sends Clyde and Ram to investigate, but sense a chance to make money, the headmaster has allowed a ghost hunt to take place.

With ghost-hunting equipment going crazy and Ouija Boards yielding surprising results, Clyde and Ram discover something has followed in the wake of the initial incursion from the Timeless Ones, something looking to break into our reality…

10. The Devil Wears Pinstripe

Bilis Manger had a plan. Use the lingering abilities of the Rift to allow The Timeless Ones access to Earth and destroy the planet that became his prison. But with Torchwood’s interference, those plans are slowly breaking down. But things look up when he stumbles across an alien mercenary.

Tricking the mercenary into attacking a local shopping centre, he frames Torchwood and sets it up for them to be involved.

Now Torchwood is on the run, wanted by every police force in the UK. It seems Bilis has finally won.

11. Wanted

Alone and on the run, the new Torchwood team find that they are drifting apart, new friendships are being torn apart and Gwen is at her wit’s end. Bilis set them all up and made them responsible for hundreds of deaths.

Things get worse when they learn that Bilis has infiltrated their now-abandoned base and T.O.S.H.I.K.O is forced to open the remaining Rift energy allowing The Timeless Ones one final chance to gain a foothold on Earth.

12. Together or Not At All

With The Timeless Ones spreading across Wales, it won’t be long before the whole of the United Kingdom and then the world falls. But Torchwood is broken and the bonds forged over the last few adventures are fracturing.

Bilis, with T.O.S.H.I.K.O under his control, has taken over the Torchwood base but Gwen has one final desperate plan for the planet’s survival, but she needs Captain Jack.

13. Welcome to Torchwood

With The Timeless Ones now on Earth, Gwen and the Torchwood team storm their base. Martha, Mickey and Ram have to take down T.O.S.H.I.K.O, while Gwen, Rhys and Clyde find a way of shutting down the rift and stopping Bilis for good. Captain Jack meanwhile has gone into the Void dimension and along with Mickey is trying desperately to get the missing people home.

But Bilis isn’t unprepared for Gwen’s attack and fights back, using all the alien weapons at Torchwood’s disposal. Gwen and the team though are fighting for the survival of the human race and Bilis ends up trapped forever in the Void dimension along with the Timeless Ones who are forced to retreat.

They’ve won, but now Torchwood are here to stay, is the world ready?

–

I think its quite important for a show like Torchwood, something which people know and love, to have familiar things while doing something completely new, that was something I was trying to keep in mind when creating this article. So the mixture of characters, old and new members of the team had to feel right for the series. And the main villain had to be worthy of Torchwood.

Bilis Manger was a baddie from Series 1 of Torchwood who didn’t really get his potential realised. I don’t know if there were plans for him to feature in the second series of the show, even Big Finish have only begun to scratch the surface of his character. He’s certainly a character that I’ve always felt had loads of potential that I wanted to see realised.

The Timeless Ones are completely brand new villains, time soldiers that travel through the universe ravaging planets and converting the population into non-corporeal beings for a long ended war. And the harsh realities of people going missing has always felt a lot more at home in Torchwood than Doctor Who properly, so that will be a theme tackled in this new series of Torchwood.

Looking forward in the Torchwood series’ I’ve got planned, Series 2 will see the team settle down, Captain Jack is back but still not the team leader, instead of taking his orders from Gwen. In Series 2 a villain from Doctor Who will be making their presence felt across Cardiff as the Vashta Nerada are trying to harness the power of the Rift. Series 2 will be entitled City of Shadows…