To The Last Man
1918: A young soldier, trying to recover from shellshock experienced on the front in the war, is brought to a hospital in Cardiff – a hospital where the nurses claim to be seeing ghosts. Two people approach him, identifying themselves as members of Torchwood, and secure his immediate release, insisting that he come back to their base of operations with them.
2008: The soldier from 1918 is unfrozen and revived from suspended animation, as Torchwood’s modern-day counterparts try to figure out what connection he has to a series of disturbances in time, centered around the hospital from which he was taken. Toshiko is particularly taken with him, and is appalled to learn that the solution that will stitch the timelines back together in their natural order will require him to return to 1918 permanently. But worse, he won’t return only to be patched up and sent to the frontlines again – he’ll resume his shellshocked state and be executed by firing squad for “cowardice”. Knowing that this fate awaits him, can he muster the courage to return – or will Toshiko let him return – to his own time?
written by Helen Raynor
directed by Andy Goddard
music by Ben FosterGuest Cast: Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), Anthony Lewis (Thomas), Roderic Culver (Gerald), Siobahn Hewlett (Harriet), Lizzie Rogan (Nurse), Ricky Fearon (Foreman)
LogBook entry by Earl Green
Torchwood leaves Cardiff behind for a flight to Switzerland after a call from Martha Jones. Serving as part of the UNIT contingent at the soon-to-be-activated Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, Martha says that strange occurrences and even unexplained disappearances among personnel are taking place – followed by a cover-up which UNIT doesn’t seem to be able to penetrate. Torchwood gains access to the collider by passing Ianto off as the Welsh ambassador, and Martha gives them a first-hand look at what’s been happening to some of the people who enter the colliider tunnel. But when Gwen and Ianto enter the tunnel for themselves, Ianto’s certain he can hear the voices of the dead – even voices claiming to be Owen, Toshiko and Lisa – while Gwen tries to fight off the same sensation. Unknown to them, however, someone else on site has already been hearing those same “voices of the dead” – and is doing their bidding, regardless of the consequences to the collider experiment or its personnel.
A young woman appears out of thin air and plummets into the river; not long afterward, Gwen’s old friend Andy arrests the same young woman for shoplifting, and discovers a strange, futuristic weapon in her possession. Andy calls Gwen and Torchwood in to inspect both the weapon and its bearer. The girl can barely remember her own name, but when her blood tests and other facts come to light, Andy is alarmed that Torchwood wants to take her into custody, despite Gwen’s assurances. Jack and Ianto discover the true use of the “gun” – a device which can jam vehicles, communications and electronics – and Jack is certain that Earth won’t see technology like this for decades at the very least. The girl’s memory gradually returns, and she recovers enough from her ordeal to tell Gwen and Andy about a dystopian future that she barely survived…or perhaps she didn’t survive it after all.
Jack, Gwen and Ianto leave the confines of Cardiff to investigate the disappearance of thousands of people in India. The trail leads to Delhi, where they witness one of the disappearances first-hand, as hapless dockworkers are consumed by some kind of energy net. But even more suspicious is some of the cargo that was being moved – cargo addressed to Captain Jack Harkness. It turns out that Delhi is one of Jack’s old stomping grounds, and the home of Torchwood India, which Jack shut down nearly a century ago. Jack pays a visit to the colonial gentlemen’s club which was once home to the local Torchwood group, and is stunned to find that it’s still in operation – and his old cohort the Duchess is still in charge and hasn’t aged a day. Despite that oddity, nothing immediately links Torchwood India to the mass disappearances in Delhi. But clearly the presence of the team from Cardiff has the Duchess’ staff and servants on edge – their answers are evasive at best. When Gwen and Ianto disappear without a trace, Jack discovers the terrifying truth: the Duchess is so obsessed with clinging to the British Empire’s past that she’ll sacrifice humanity’s future to preserve it.
A growing number of people are ending up in Cardiff’s hospitals, trapped in a trancelike comatose state. These victims all have one thing in common: they answered a random phone call on a vintage business phone. While Jack can understand retro chic, he doesn’t understand how the outdated phones could be having this effect. A trace reveals that the same number was responsible for all of the victims to date. Jack calls the number and gets no answer, but when he gets a call back from that number and answers the phone, he joins the ranks of the victims. Ianto and Gwen call on the expertise of an old flame of Jack’s, neurologist Stella Courtney. She’s familiar with Jack and with Torchwood, but hasn’t been involved with either since the 1970s. With Rhys helping out, Gwen tries to track down more information on the phones responsible for the wave of incidents. Ianto stays at Jack’s bedside while Dr. Courtney tries to learn more by watching Jack’s brainwaves. Torchwood needs to work fast, because the effects are soon no longer limited to a specific set of 30-year-old telephones…