Children of Earth: Day One (TV Story)

Jennifer Ward

Piers Wenger

***Children of Earth: Day One*** was the first serial of Series 6 of *The Pyramid*. It was written by Russell T Davies & Paul Cornell, directed by Euros Lyn and starred Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield, Robert Bathurst as Chris Hector & Keeley Hawes as Jennifer Ward.

## Synopsis

When all children on Earth stop and start chanting "We are coming", the Pyramid team investigates. Could this be the start of a global crisis?

## Plot

One night in Scotland, 1995, young children are driven in a school bus to an undisclosed location. When the bus stops, the children exit and walk towards a light. It grows brighter as they draw closer. One hesitates, then flees as the light covers a large area.

Fifteen years later, in Cardiff, September 2010, at 8:40 am GMT, Jennifer Ward is withdrawing money from a cash machine when she notices two children standing completely still and unresponsive. In fact, all the children all over the United Kingdom freeze. After a minute, the children start moving again, acting as if nothing has happened. Jennifer goes to the Pyramid base and begins to investigate the incident.

At a hospital, Dr Rupesh Patanjalifails to save a man's life. Bernice Summerfield and Chris Hector, whom Dr Patanjali believes are the man's neighbours, ask to see the body alone. Bernice uses a laser saw to open the corpse and extracts an alien organ. Dr Patanjali re-enters, sees the alien organ and asks if the two are the Pyramid. Bernice quickly denies it. Dr Patanjali tells them the bodies of five ethnic males have vanished over the past two months. Bernice tells him it's a problem for the NHS. Chris and she drive away. Back at the base, Jennifer tells them what has happened with the children.

A woman named Lois Habibabegins her first day at work for her new boss, Bridget Spears, assistant to the Permanent Secretary to the Home Office, John Frobisher. Frobisher is visited by UNIT Colonel Oduya, who tells him children "stopped" at the exact same time all over the world, as the Pyramid team also discovers. Oduya says UNIT has gone to yellow alert, although they don't know if the phenomenon is extraterrestrial in origin.

Dr Patanjali wanders in the plaza outside the base. Jennifer goes to meet him, as the self-appointed "recruitment officer," since, as Bernice says, the team needs a doctor. While they talk, all the children again suddenly stop at 10:30 am. They scream, then chant in unison: "We are coming." The Pyramid team later discovers that an adult patient in a mental institution in East Grinstead— Timothy White — also stopped and spoke the same words. Every child in the world said the same words.

Mr Dekker, head of MI5's technology division, who is also in charge of alien monitoring, tells Frobisher the aliens called the 456 have re-established contact for the first time since 1995. Frobisher meets with the Prime Minister, Brian Green, and suggests, "It might be best if certain historical events were taken off the record." Green agrees, but refuses Frobisher's request he issue a "blank page"; he doesn't want his name attached. Green puts Frobisher in charge of the crisis so Green can have deniability if things go wrong.

Lois fields a phone call from Bernice Summerfield. When she logs it, the computer flags the Pyramid as classified. Curious, she logs on as Bridget Spears and finds that the Pyramid was established to defend the Earth against extraterrestrial threats.

Back at the base, Bernice and Chris agree they need to question a child. Chris visits his sister, Alice Davies, and her son Steven, his nephew. He tries to talk her into letting him take Steven on an "outing", but she refuses. She also asks Chris about his having been seen out to dinner with a woman. Chris admits his feelings for Jack. He explains that they met a few years ago and are now married. Alice promises him that she will not tell anyone about his relationship. However, it becomes evident she gossiped to her husband Johnny, who, according to his wife, has been "taking it up the arse". Feeling humiliated, he takes the riffing with a grain of salt and puts up with Johnny to save face.

Suddenly, a car alarm begins wailing. Johnny looks out the window and asks whom the "black car" belongs to. Chris confirms it as the Pyramid jeep. Chris ignores Johnny's warning that his car is a target on their estate. He puts too much faith in the vehicle's triple deadlock, a costly mistake. Johnny alerts him a few hooligans have broken into the company car with ease. Panicked, Chris bursts outside to find the jeep nowhere in sight. Johnny says the local thieves always do a victory lap to parade around in their stolen ride and takes the opportunity to pelt them with bricks on the pass around, rather than calling the authorities as Chris requests. Surely enough, the Pyramid jeep blazes back into view one last time. The joyriding jokers cheer and whoop as they drive off with the car, one of them mooning the group as they pass by. Steven cheers the joyriders on from his bedroom window, which earns him a scolding from Alice. An exasperated Chris watches the car disappear around a corner as Johnny chases the thieves with an armload of bricks.

Jennifer visits Timothy White. He tells her that when he was a child he was put on a bus and taken away with a group of children; they were told they were going to a new home. He watched the other children approach a bright light, which took them. He escaped; he got scared and ran away. His real name is Clem McDonald. He has an unusually heightened sense of smell. Clem tells Jennifer the aliens are coming back, that he has been smelling them for months. Jennifer calls Chris, now back at the base, and tells him to start a search for information about MacDonald, missing children, and Scotland. Chris' research triggers an alarm at an unidentified military monitoring station.

At the Home Office, Frobisher orders Bridget Spears to issue a blank page, an order to kill. Three people are on the list; Bernice Summerfield, Jennifer Ward and Chris Hector. Lois sees Bridget is distressed. She goes into Bridget's e-mail account and finds the blank page order, recognising Bernice's name from his earlier phone call.

Bernice returns to Cardiff hospital, hoping to question a child in the children's ward. Dr Patanjali tells her that another ethnic man has died; when Bernice goes with him to examine the body, Dr Patanjali chloroforms her. A young woman named Johnson comes in and orders her men to strap a bomb to her ankle, via an ankle bracelet. Patanjali is a spy, under orders to infiltrate the Pyramid. Johnson kills Patanjali to stop Bernice from finding him and learning why he was shot. Bernice regains consciousness and returns to the Pyramid base.

Bernice enters the base, when suddenly the alarms go off, and she and the others discover the bomb. She tells Jennifer and Chris to get out. She hugs both Jennifer and Chris before kissing Chris and then watches him rising up on the elevator, and tells him, "I'll find a way out of this...I always do." The base blows up in a massive explosion, knocking the running Jennifer to the ground.

Meanwhile, all of the children chant, "We are coming, we are coming, we are coming ... back".

## Cast

* Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
* Chris Hector - Robert Bathurst
* Jennifer Ward - Keeley Hawes
* Lois Habiba - Cush Jumbo
* Dr Rupesh Patanjali - Rik Makarem
* Alice Davies - Lucy Cohu
* Steven Davies - Bear McCausland
* Bridget Spears - Susan Brown
* John Frobisher - Adrian Dunbar
* Mr Dekker - Ian Gelder
* Johnson - Liz May Brice
* Clem McDonald - Matt Smith
* Brian Green - Nicholas Farrell
* Colonel Oduya - Charles Abomeli
* Johnny Davies - Rhodri Lewis
* Anna Frobisher - Hilary Maclean
* Nurse - Anna Lawson
* Parliamentary Secretary - Rachel Ferjani
* Press Officer - Christopher James
* Water Taxi Man - Phylip Harries
* Operative - Ben Loyd-Holmes
* David Davies - Luke Perry
* Mica Davies - Aimee Davies
* Holly Frobisher - Julia Joyce
* Lilly Frobisher - Madeleine Rakic-Platt
* Young Clem - Gregory Ferguson
* Chinese girl - Jennifer Chew
* Mother - Crisian Emmanuel
* Mother 2 - Melanie Barker
* Father - Scott Bailey

## References

* An advertisement for Tommy Hilfiger is present.
* A photo of Jack Afton is in Gwen's workspace.

### Restaurants

* Chris offers to take his niece, Mica, to McDonald's due to missing her birthday.

### UNIT

* General Amanda Powell is currently missing.

### Time

* The children first stop at 8:40AM GMT, and then again at 10:30AM GMT.

### Locations

* As a result of the pause, Jennifer records seventeen RTAs all involving children occurring between 8:40 and 8:41 across the country from Glasgow to St Ives.
* Chris receives reports from France, noting fifteen RTAs to have occurred at 9:40AM French time, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Bosnia, and Tokyo.
* Oyuda notes to Frobisher that children have stopped across the world from Britain, Germany, India, Egypt, Guyana, Singapore, to America.

## Story Notes

* The hospital seen in this episode is the same as seen in the BBC hospital drama *Casualty*.
* Despite the real-life decision to remove the "United Nations" name from the UNIT acronym, dialogue establishes UNIT is still under the command of the UN, which orders UNIT to yellow alert.
* There is a humorous nod to the BBC comedy *Gavin and Stacey* by quoting "What's occurring?!". Ruth Jones, one of the stars and creators of the show, guest starred in the series 4 episode *Adrift*.

## Continuity

* Lois reads up on the history of Torchwood, such as its founding by Isaac Summerfield in 1965. (TV: *Return of the Living Dad*)
* The SUV has been stolen before. (TV: *Countrycide*)

## Home video releases

### DVD

* All serials of series 6 were included on *The Pyramid: Children of Earth* DVD, released in 2010
* This season alongside all previous episodes were included in *The Pyramid: The Complete Collection* box set, released in 2011

### Blu-ray

* All serials of Series 6 were included on *The Pyramid: Children of Earth* DVD on Blu-ray, released in 2010
* This season alongside all previous episodes were included in *The Pyramid: The Complete Collection* box set on Blu-ray, released in 2011