Torchwood Declassified (2006) s01e09 Episode Script
Dead Man Walking
Episode nine.
Um a very different episode, um compared to what we're used to on Torchwood.
We just loved the idea of an ordinary guy, who's tempted by Torchwood.
Torchwood is the most romantic, magical, glamorous world.
He wants a part of it.
No, I'm Hi.
Hi, um OK.
It's these, um I've got to go.
Please.
These! It's a very sweet story about this guy who's a bit of a I say nerd reluctantly but he's got a bad opinion of himself and he's not all that not much self-esteem.
Then he gets, sort of, dragged into this world which he is so inquisitive about and investigates his own death.
It's quite a moving story, really.
Andaction! My first impression was how to visualise somebody who's dead and yet not dead.
There and yet not.
I knew it would be a challenge to keep the scenes alive.
Hey! Oi! Jack! UmTosh! The guys at the rope just let me through.
At least 50mph.
Crumpled on the bonnet.
Bounced, maybe rolled, smashed its face on the road.
Umexcuse me? That looks a lot like me.
Am I dead? Am I dead? Am I dead? The challenge was to shoot it without making Eugene invisible.
Do you know someone called Eugene Jones? That's me, mate.
So the audience can see him all the time and only one or two moments when we show that he is invisible to the characters on screen.
It was tough for the actors.
Settle, please.
I catch myself doing a scene and looking up and going, ah! I'm not allowed.
He's not there.
I think some of them were struggling to pretend I'm not there.
Yeah.
I'm getting a lot of glances and looking at me when they shouldn't.
You know, 28 is one of those perfect numbers.
It's equal to the sum of its divisors.
I'm 28 I was 28.
You've completely got to, kind of, focus through him and focus around him and make it look completely natural.
You know, there's a fluidity to it.
Oh, wow! This is This is I am totally Christ almighty! The head of Vexor 11! I'm hovering around them and trying to fit in, be heard, have a voice, but it's enjoyable to play because you don't get to do that often.
Gwen, he had a thing for you and now you feel guilty.
Sod off, Owen! I am in heaven! Am I? Part of the trick of not seeing Eugene is that a lot of the tricks you use most people wouldn't notice.
It was always written into the script that he would slowly be able to interact a little bit more with things around him.
We really wanted to give the sense that Eugene was invisible.
And that you weren't, as a viewer, you won't be conscious of all the decisions we made but we wanted it to be subtle, so that when we point it up you really follow that visually.
They go to his hotel room together and then there's a wonderful confession, where he says to her, "I love you.
" I love you.
(I love you.
) And you just get that sense that she's heard something.
She wanders over to where we know he's standing.
And she's standing there, looking out of this window.
And he blows her hair and it's just a lovely moment that is building towards the climax of him being able to save her.
The director really wanted to do something other than the moment at the beginning, when he puts his hand on, and then through, Tosh.
He doesn't interact with anything solid for the entire episode.
Every time he walks into a room, or through a door, somebody else is leaving, so someone opens a door and Eugene slips through.
When he goes under the tape, the officer holds it up for another policeman.
So he never interacts with anything solid throughout the episode, until he hits Gwen at the end and saves her.
GWEN! We had to find a way of making Eugene's death very powerful and very affecting.
We had to, basically, come up with a stunt that made you really feel that's what it's really like.
That's death.
Can we cut there? So we decided to break down the stunt where Eugene was hit by the car.
And he hits the windscreen, flies up in the air, hits the roof, and then hits the ground, which is what would happen.
What we have been doing is a car knock down, which is unusual.
And, um the first one is a knock down where the driver comes forward and I smash into the windscreen.
We did that at a slowed-down speed, which meant the stuntman only got as far as the roof and then he rolled off safely.
Yeah, It was a bit of a wallop.
Everybody ready? The third pass involved the stuntman riding on the bonnet of the car, holding on to the roof with his feet on the bonnet and waiting for the moment when he lined up with the camera, then he through himself up in the air and landed on the roof of the car.
You can see the roof dips in about four inches.
It goes boom and he rolls off.
To give the sense of him flying through the air, because he was only jumping off a bonnet onto a roof, it wasn't high enough.
So we set the car and a trampoline on the ground.
The stuntman timed his run, so when the car went past the camera, he was spinning in the air.
So you see him high in the air.
When it's cut in the right sequence, hopefully it looks quite special.
What you see is Paul running out in the road.
He gets hit, he hits the windscreen, as he hits the windscreen the force takes his body on, he goes up into the air, lands on the roof, causes a dent, the car drives away and he rolls off into a ditch, where we find him at the beginning of the episode.
I suppose I suppose we did conceive Eugene as a bit of a geek.
He was a geek - a bit of a dreamer.
He wasn't the best salesman? No.
Kind of Irresistible? .
.
Ordinary looking.
Yeah.
I'm Eugene Jones and, umI have a keen interest in your work.
We wondered at one point if we should change his name - Stephen? But we all loved the name Eugene.
What I like about the show is a lot of the staff - and me - are geeks! So there was no way we would write a geek as an idiot, as anally-retentive, as thick.
I like geeks.
I think geeks are cool.
Umyou know, he is kind of geeky and he is, kind ofsweet.
But he's gentle and he's genuine and he's kind and warm and funny.
Hmm.
You again.
Gwen, I've got this thing I really need to show you.
Sorry, umthat sounded An all-round really good guy.
And it's, you know, the sadness is he's about to start his life and then it's He's absolutely the outsider, until he dies.
And then he gets this insight into the world and into the woman that he secretly loved, Gwen.
Thank you.
You just saved my life.
That's OK.
That's unbelievable.
That's un-bloody-believable.
Oh, God.
It's a real showcase part.
He's the centre of the episode.
He steals it from the team and he's lovely.
Out Of Time is about emotion, it's about life, it's about displacement.
It's also about euthanasia, dare I say.
At least it wasn't aliens.
That might have been easier.
It's a transcendental portal.
It's about three very normal people slipping through time.
They're three lost people who've somehow become our responsibility.
Everyone's had their hearts ripped out and exposed and it's time to get to the heart of Owen It's heart-wrenching.
What about me? Please.
Red Bee Media Ltd 2006
Um a very different episode, um compared to what we're used to on Torchwood.
We just loved the idea of an ordinary guy, who's tempted by Torchwood.
Torchwood is the most romantic, magical, glamorous world.
He wants a part of it.
No, I'm Hi.
Hi, um OK.
It's these, um I've got to go.
Please.
These! It's a very sweet story about this guy who's a bit of a I say nerd reluctantly but he's got a bad opinion of himself and he's not all that not much self-esteem.
Then he gets, sort of, dragged into this world which he is so inquisitive about and investigates his own death.
It's quite a moving story, really.
Andaction! My first impression was how to visualise somebody who's dead and yet not dead.
There and yet not.
I knew it would be a challenge to keep the scenes alive.
Hey! Oi! Jack! UmTosh! The guys at the rope just let me through.
At least 50mph.
Crumpled on the bonnet.
Bounced, maybe rolled, smashed its face on the road.
Umexcuse me? That looks a lot like me.
Am I dead? Am I dead? Am I dead? The challenge was to shoot it without making Eugene invisible.
Do you know someone called Eugene Jones? That's me, mate.
So the audience can see him all the time and only one or two moments when we show that he is invisible to the characters on screen.
It was tough for the actors.
Settle, please.
I catch myself doing a scene and looking up and going, ah! I'm not allowed.
He's not there.
I think some of them were struggling to pretend I'm not there.
Yeah.
I'm getting a lot of glances and looking at me when they shouldn't.
You know, 28 is one of those perfect numbers.
It's equal to the sum of its divisors.
I'm 28 I was 28.
You've completely got to, kind of, focus through him and focus around him and make it look completely natural.
You know, there's a fluidity to it.
Oh, wow! This is This is I am totally Christ almighty! The head of Vexor 11! I'm hovering around them and trying to fit in, be heard, have a voice, but it's enjoyable to play because you don't get to do that often.
Gwen, he had a thing for you and now you feel guilty.
Sod off, Owen! I am in heaven! Am I? Part of the trick of not seeing Eugene is that a lot of the tricks you use most people wouldn't notice.
It was always written into the script that he would slowly be able to interact a little bit more with things around him.
We really wanted to give the sense that Eugene was invisible.
And that you weren't, as a viewer, you won't be conscious of all the decisions we made but we wanted it to be subtle, so that when we point it up you really follow that visually.
They go to his hotel room together and then there's a wonderful confession, where he says to her, "I love you.
" I love you.
(I love you.
) And you just get that sense that she's heard something.
She wanders over to where we know he's standing.
And she's standing there, looking out of this window.
And he blows her hair and it's just a lovely moment that is building towards the climax of him being able to save her.
The director really wanted to do something other than the moment at the beginning, when he puts his hand on, and then through, Tosh.
He doesn't interact with anything solid for the entire episode.
Every time he walks into a room, or through a door, somebody else is leaving, so someone opens a door and Eugene slips through.
When he goes under the tape, the officer holds it up for another policeman.
So he never interacts with anything solid throughout the episode, until he hits Gwen at the end and saves her.
GWEN! We had to find a way of making Eugene's death very powerful and very affecting.
We had to, basically, come up with a stunt that made you really feel that's what it's really like.
That's death.
Can we cut there? So we decided to break down the stunt where Eugene was hit by the car.
And he hits the windscreen, flies up in the air, hits the roof, and then hits the ground, which is what would happen.
What we have been doing is a car knock down, which is unusual.
And, um the first one is a knock down where the driver comes forward and I smash into the windscreen.
We did that at a slowed-down speed, which meant the stuntman only got as far as the roof and then he rolled off safely.
Yeah, It was a bit of a wallop.
Everybody ready? The third pass involved the stuntman riding on the bonnet of the car, holding on to the roof with his feet on the bonnet and waiting for the moment when he lined up with the camera, then he through himself up in the air and landed on the roof of the car.
You can see the roof dips in about four inches.
It goes boom and he rolls off.
To give the sense of him flying through the air, because he was only jumping off a bonnet onto a roof, it wasn't high enough.
So we set the car and a trampoline on the ground.
The stuntman timed his run, so when the car went past the camera, he was spinning in the air.
So you see him high in the air.
When it's cut in the right sequence, hopefully it looks quite special.
What you see is Paul running out in the road.
He gets hit, he hits the windscreen, as he hits the windscreen the force takes his body on, he goes up into the air, lands on the roof, causes a dent, the car drives away and he rolls off into a ditch, where we find him at the beginning of the episode.
I suppose I suppose we did conceive Eugene as a bit of a geek.
He was a geek - a bit of a dreamer.
He wasn't the best salesman? No.
Kind of Irresistible? .
.
Ordinary looking.
Yeah.
I'm Eugene Jones and, umI have a keen interest in your work.
We wondered at one point if we should change his name - Stephen? But we all loved the name Eugene.
What I like about the show is a lot of the staff - and me - are geeks! So there was no way we would write a geek as an idiot, as anally-retentive, as thick.
I like geeks.
I think geeks are cool.
Umyou know, he is kind of geeky and he is, kind ofsweet.
But he's gentle and he's genuine and he's kind and warm and funny.
Hmm.
You again.
Gwen, I've got this thing I really need to show you.
Sorry, umthat sounded An all-round really good guy.
And it's, you know, the sadness is he's about to start his life and then it's He's absolutely the outsider, until he dies.
And then he gets this insight into the world and into the woman that he secretly loved, Gwen.
Thank you.
You just saved my life.
That's OK.
That's unbelievable.
That's un-bloody-believable.
Oh, God.
It's a real showcase part.
He's the centre of the episode.
He steals it from the team and he's lovely.
Out Of Time is about emotion, it's about life, it's about displacement.
It's also about euthanasia, dare I say.
At least it wasn't aliens.
That might have been easier.
It's a transcendental portal.
It's about three very normal people slipping through time.
They're three lost people who've somehow become our responsibility.
Everyone's had their hearts ripped out and exposed and it's time to get to the heart of Owen It's heart-wrenching.
What about me? Please.
Red Bee Media Ltd 2006