Torchwood Declassified (2006) s01e03 Episode Script
Living History
This is the episode that shows the human side of Owen.
It's an incredibly complex storyline.
I've seen things you wouldn't believe.
It's quite dark.
It's quite real.
He goes against Torchwood rules.
Owen went freelance.
He goes out on his own.
It just sums up how Torchwood works.
It's like, there is an alien device, but it's not a laser beam.
It's not going to destroy the world.
It just taps into humans and it taps into memories.
No one knows who I am here.
I'm lost.
Come back.
It's about consequences.
It's about changing consequences.
I just think it's beautiful.
Owen is a bit of a geezer.
He is a sort of Jack the lad.
He's kind of ballsy.
He's out there.
You've gotta be joking! He's cocksure.
That is what I call a methodical investigation.
He's a bit of a cynic.
That's a bit more like it.
He's driven.
And he's brilliant at his job.
He's not afraid to go against what Torchwood is about.
Since when did we care about Court? But you can't help but like him.
One thing about that cheeky lad persona, the geezer, is that he fits well into a team, actually, 'cause he sparks the dialogue and there's always that bit of banter going.
I can't wait to see you take down her particulars.
He's got a cockiness to him.
He's a Londoner in Cardiff.
In that sense, I think he sort of reeks as though he's from a bigger city, or imagines that he's from a bigger city than this place.
A lot of the Welsh gags throughout the series keep coming from Owen.
I think he's a chancer, you know.
For example, with the girls, he'll try it, you know.
-You having a good time? -I was.
And he likes a drink, he likes to go out.
It's a sort of cheeky lad character that we strip away, and a certain amount of aggression ticking away underneath that.
And a certain amount of sexiness, as well, and that's going to start getting complicated in this close-knit team of five people.
I think for Owen, in this episode, I think you start to see that he can care, that he can emotionally engage in some of the stories.
-Owen.
Owen, are you all right? -She was so scared.
I couldn't I couldn't move.
And that's a very surprising moment, when he comes out of that scene, that crime, how that damages him and how that sends him off on his own private crusade.
That one terrible, lonely murder hits right into his heart, something he's standing there watching, Ed Morgan murder Lizzie Lewis.
And everything he's just taken the mickey out of and taken lightly, suddenly gets right into his soul.
I think you learn that Owen is actually not as big a tough guy as he really sees himself.
It's like he zones in on this and he can't let it go.
He very much goes against Jack and the unit.
So he puts himself on his own.
Mr Morgan.
I need to come in.
That's when you kind of go, ''Oh, I see.
This is what Owen's about.
'' ''You're a bad one, Ed Morgan.
''The girls said not to go with you and they were right.
'' Get out! Get out! Owen, in this episode, is coming up against his own personal feelings about crime and retribution.
It's quite scary as to how far Owen will go in avenging that crime.
Why should you get away with it? For his emotions to come to the fore in the episode, especially around his colleagues, is a very difficult thing.
They're very deep down in Owen, very hidden away.
Over the series, I think he becomes more human, if there's anything.
And it's only just the start.
There's so much more of Owen's story yet to come.
Cardiff is an amazing city.
The more that we can focus on Cardiff and what it's got to offer and how great it is, the better.
Cardiff is played in a very real way in Episode 3.
You know, the locations we go to feel very You can almost smell the reality of them.
The Cardiff setting, for me, is an absolute gift because I live here.
I can walk around town and think, ''Wow, that's a brilliant bridge,'' or, ''That's actually a fantastic landmark,'' or, ''Wouldn't it be amazing to have a scene up there?'' If you know that you want a chase sequence or you know you want two people to bump into each other or something terrifying to happen, then right from the get-go It's like being on a recce.
It's like being a location scout.
And it does influence what you write.
It was great going around location-hunting and actually finding these places that were written on the page.
And it was just like, ''Ooh!'' It all kind of came together and it was lovely because she was writing for something that was very personal and something that she sees every day.
-Splott.
-Splott? I believe estate agents pronounce it ''Splow''.
I was very keen to think that, actually, Cardiff is real, and we want to show it all.
And this is down amongst these sort of Prime Suspect areas of Cardiff.
And it's not all glossy.
It is full of real people.
We spend the whole episode running round Cardiff and you see parts of Cardiff that perhaps you wouldn't normally see.
It's a beautiful city, and I think Helen writes about it and draws you into it really well.
There's a sequence in mine which is a chase sequence, and it's quite elaborate.
There's a lot of running through gardens, and someone's trying to catch someone else.
There's something slightly pathetic about it.
It's two men just determined not to give up.
I remember reading that sequence in the script and thinking, ''We will never be able to do this.
'' I was typing it, thinking, ''I love writing this, ''but I bet it doesn't happen.
'' And it's in there.
I couldn't believe that we would get six or seven houses in a row all to agree to shoot that sequence.
And action.
Mum, there's a man in the garden! Mum, there's two men in the garden! Our locations manager went out and came back and said, ''Yeah, I got a row of houses ''who are all happy for us to use their back gardens for this chase sequence.
'' It was just like a cartoon, really.
Of course, we took it very seriously, you know.
And action.
I think it ended up being shot over three days, I think, just with the logistics of other sequences that needed to be done and time, space.
We began with just Owen spotting Bernie Harris.
Bernie Harris! We did that on a track, and then we did a bit of handheld with that.
And they come round a corner, they bump into this older woman.
And action.
Sorry! Hard cut onto a bridge.
On the bridge, 'cause it was a very narrow area space, so we used a piece of equipment called a rickshaw, which the camera is attached with a guy sat on the back of the rickshaw, and we just pulled along.
And then we shot in the back of a car.
And I wanted this distance between shooting down the other end of a street.
And we'd be going along one street and they're at the other end, going But, actually, on that wide, it's actually not our actors.
It's our actors' doubles.
We planned out this intricate process of which wall we were gonna go over.
And action.
Probably much closer to the real world than our normal chases.
So I just think it's lovely.
Episode 4 completely changes the way that you'll think about Torchwood.
You do not see this coming.
It's when you see Ianto's bare bones.
His hard exterior is completely taken away.
It's really left of field.
It has things which you will not believe.
Explosive.
Dangerous.
You can't just let him go It's a rollercoaster ride, really.
It gets kind of scary.
It gets ugly.
It's a real eye-opener.
They've got no idea what is living in their cellar.
It's an incredibly complex storyline.
I've seen things you wouldn't believe.
It's quite dark.
It's quite real.
He goes against Torchwood rules.
Owen went freelance.
He goes out on his own.
It just sums up how Torchwood works.
It's like, there is an alien device, but it's not a laser beam.
It's not going to destroy the world.
It just taps into humans and it taps into memories.
No one knows who I am here.
I'm lost.
Come back.
It's about consequences.
It's about changing consequences.
I just think it's beautiful.
Owen is a bit of a geezer.
He is a sort of Jack the lad.
He's kind of ballsy.
He's out there.
You've gotta be joking! He's cocksure.
That is what I call a methodical investigation.
He's a bit of a cynic.
That's a bit more like it.
He's driven.
And he's brilliant at his job.
He's not afraid to go against what Torchwood is about.
Since when did we care about Court? But you can't help but like him.
One thing about that cheeky lad persona, the geezer, is that he fits well into a team, actually, 'cause he sparks the dialogue and there's always that bit of banter going.
I can't wait to see you take down her particulars.
He's got a cockiness to him.
He's a Londoner in Cardiff.
In that sense, I think he sort of reeks as though he's from a bigger city, or imagines that he's from a bigger city than this place.
A lot of the Welsh gags throughout the series keep coming from Owen.
I think he's a chancer, you know.
For example, with the girls, he'll try it, you know.
-You having a good time? -I was.
And he likes a drink, he likes to go out.
It's a sort of cheeky lad character that we strip away, and a certain amount of aggression ticking away underneath that.
And a certain amount of sexiness, as well, and that's going to start getting complicated in this close-knit team of five people.
I think for Owen, in this episode, I think you start to see that he can care, that he can emotionally engage in some of the stories.
-Owen.
Owen, are you all right? -She was so scared.
I couldn't I couldn't move.
And that's a very surprising moment, when he comes out of that scene, that crime, how that damages him and how that sends him off on his own private crusade.
That one terrible, lonely murder hits right into his heart, something he's standing there watching, Ed Morgan murder Lizzie Lewis.
And everything he's just taken the mickey out of and taken lightly, suddenly gets right into his soul.
I think you learn that Owen is actually not as big a tough guy as he really sees himself.
It's like he zones in on this and he can't let it go.
He very much goes against Jack and the unit.
So he puts himself on his own.
Mr Morgan.
I need to come in.
That's when you kind of go, ''Oh, I see.
This is what Owen's about.
'' ''You're a bad one, Ed Morgan.
''The girls said not to go with you and they were right.
'' Get out! Get out! Owen, in this episode, is coming up against his own personal feelings about crime and retribution.
It's quite scary as to how far Owen will go in avenging that crime.
Why should you get away with it? For his emotions to come to the fore in the episode, especially around his colleagues, is a very difficult thing.
They're very deep down in Owen, very hidden away.
Over the series, I think he becomes more human, if there's anything.
And it's only just the start.
There's so much more of Owen's story yet to come.
Cardiff is an amazing city.
The more that we can focus on Cardiff and what it's got to offer and how great it is, the better.
Cardiff is played in a very real way in Episode 3.
You know, the locations we go to feel very You can almost smell the reality of them.
The Cardiff setting, for me, is an absolute gift because I live here.
I can walk around town and think, ''Wow, that's a brilliant bridge,'' or, ''That's actually a fantastic landmark,'' or, ''Wouldn't it be amazing to have a scene up there?'' If you know that you want a chase sequence or you know you want two people to bump into each other or something terrifying to happen, then right from the get-go It's like being on a recce.
It's like being a location scout.
And it does influence what you write.
It was great going around location-hunting and actually finding these places that were written on the page.
And it was just like, ''Ooh!'' It all kind of came together and it was lovely because she was writing for something that was very personal and something that she sees every day.
-Splott.
-Splott? I believe estate agents pronounce it ''Splow''.
I was very keen to think that, actually, Cardiff is real, and we want to show it all.
And this is down amongst these sort of Prime Suspect areas of Cardiff.
And it's not all glossy.
It is full of real people.
We spend the whole episode running round Cardiff and you see parts of Cardiff that perhaps you wouldn't normally see.
It's a beautiful city, and I think Helen writes about it and draws you into it really well.
There's a sequence in mine which is a chase sequence, and it's quite elaborate.
There's a lot of running through gardens, and someone's trying to catch someone else.
There's something slightly pathetic about it.
It's two men just determined not to give up.
I remember reading that sequence in the script and thinking, ''We will never be able to do this.
'' I was typing it, thinking, ''I love writing this, ''but I bet it doesn't happen.
'' And it's in there.
I couldn't believe that we would get six or seven houses in a row all to agree to shoot that sequence.
And action.
Mum, there's a man in the garden! Mum, there's two men in the garden! Our locations manager went out and came back and said, ''Yeah, I got a row of houses ''who are all happy for us to use their back gardens for this chase sequence.
'' It was just like a cartoon, really.
Of course, we took it very seriously, you know.
And action.
I think it ended up being shot over three days, I think, just with the logistics of other sequences that needed to be done and time, space.
We began with just Owen spotting Bernie Harris.
Bernie Harris! We did that on a track, and then we did a bit of handheld with that.
And they come round a corner, they bump into this older woman.
And action.
Sorry! Hard cut onto a bridge.
On the bridge, 'cause it was a very narrow area space, so we used a piece of equipment called a rickshaw, which the camera is attached with a guy sat on the back of the rickshaw, and we just pulled along.
And then we shot in the back of a car.
And I wanted this distance between shooting down the other end of a street.
And we'd be going along one street and they're at the other end, going But, actually, on that wide, it's actually not our actors.
It's our actors' doubles.
We planned out this intricate process of which wall we were gonna go over.
And action.
Probably much closer to the real world than our normal chases.
So I just think it's lovely.
Episode 4 completely changes the way that you'll think about Torchwood.
You do not see this coming.
It's when you see Ianto's bare bones.
His hard exterior is completely taken away.
It's really left of field.
It has things which you will not believe.
Explosive.
Dangerous.
You can't just let him go It's a rollercoaster ride, really.
It gets kind of scary.
It gets ugly.
It's a real eye-opener.
They've got no idea what is living in their cellar.