Articles Small Worlds Episode Breakdown by DJ Forrest

Director: Alice Troughton

Written by: PJ Hammond

Producer: Richard Stokes

Music by Murray Gold & Ben Foster

Better Do Better by HARD-F1

Born To Be A Dancer – by Kaiser Chiefs

Ooh La – by The Kooks

In the quiet of the woods late one evening, an elderly woman speaks quietly speaking into her voice recorder, as she walks into the woods, her camera hung around her neck, Estelle, (Eve Pearce) is searching for her woodland ‘darlings.’

Locating them in the centre of the woods, bathed in moonlight, the creatures dance and flutter around a stone circle unaware they are being watched – until that is, when Estelle snaps a few shots for her collection.

Excited, almost too much perhaps, she turns and heads back home, but it’s not gone unnoticed. Transforming from the once white fluttering creature, stands a tall ugly deformed faerie, green and skeletal with mischief on its mind...

It’s quiet in the Hub and Captain Jack Harkness lies in his bed below the floor in his office. 

He’s drifting into another disturbed sleep, as a whistle blows in the distance, and he's sitting in a troop train carriage with a group of men on the journey to Lahore. The men are laughing, and music plays from a harmonica, much merriment is to be had. Jack jerks his head, gasps and squirms in the bed. They're not alone. Tiny wings can be heard. They go through a tunnel. The music stops playing. Jack discovers to his horror that as the train exits the tunnel, everyone in the cargo hold bar him lie dead, with a mouthful of red rose petals. He wakes with a start, bathed in sweat.

Jack climbs out of the hole in the floor, wearing a white t-shirt and trousers, braces hanging loose and leans against the desk, exhales heavily. An old Magpie television set flickers white static nearby. His desk is cluttered with paperwork and on a tray resting above the desk Jack is growing himself a new TARDIS.

In amongst the paperwork rests a single red rose petal. Jack collects it up and stares at it with some concern. Without warning he turns, startled - someone else is in the Hub besides him.

'You shouldn't be here.' Jack says, to Ianto who has his head in a file, as he walks past Jack’s door. Ianto jumps, startled, and hesitates in the doorway, folder closed, thumb marking the spot.

   'Neither should you.' he replies. After a beat Ianto returns to his work. Jack follows, placing a hand upon Ianto's shoulder, as he reviews his findings. 

   'Unusual weather patterns.'

    

Jack realises with some concern - they're back!

  

At Coed Y Garreg Primary School it’s home time and the children pile out of the gates into the arms of their parents or walk home alone.  Young Jasmine Pearce (Lara Phillipart) is waiting for Roy, her mother’s partner to collect her.  He’s late!

Also waiting at the school gates is Mark Goodson (Roger Barclay), local businessman with an interest in little girls.  Spotting one child on her own he bides his time!

Roy heads out after Lynn reminds him he’s late.

Still waiting, Jasmine is at the mercy of two spiteful girls, one of whom pulls her hair as she walks past; her yells are heard by her teacher who comes to see her, checking the time, curious as to who is collecting Jasmine.  Soon her attention is taken by other children and Jasmine is alone again.  Mark Goodson pulls away from the kerb.  Jasmine begins to walk home. Down the steps by the bridge walking towards the footpath that cuts through the forest, Jasmine is stopped by Mark Goodson who insists he’s been sent by her Mum to collect her.  Already aware not to get into a stranger’s car, she continues walking.  Goodson parks the car further ahead and climbs out.  Jasmine is in danger!

Insisting that she get in the car, he grabs her arm but as she struggles, a strong gale force wind whips up around the car and around Mark Goodson, throwing him back against the car, as he turns away, his face connects with the corner of the roof, yet all the while Jasmine is unaffected, and smiles.  Hurriedly, the man pulls open the door to his car and climbs in winding up the window and stares out as the wind doesn’t blow anywhere near the child who now skips off on the footpath home.  Goodson’s nose is bleeding!

Across the other side of town Jack is taking Gwen to meet an old friend.  Estelle is holding a meeting of Fairies – fact or fiction.  Settling into their seats at the back of the room, Jack waves acknowledgement to Estelle as she continues her talk.  The familiar photograph of the Cottingley fairies starts the topic, then her own snaps, not clear to be precise what the creatures are, but clear enough for Jack to be interested, and Gwen to still see this as all a bit silly.  Jack shakes his head as Estelle continues her talk; referring to the fairies as anything but dangerous creatures. As the meeting ends, and introductions are over, Jack asks where the photos were taken and if she has any more.

Mark Goodson is spooked.  Something is following him, he hasn’t seen them but since he left his car, he’s sensed he’s not alone along the streets.  He hears the fluttering of wings and mocking laughter.  His nose still bleeding he jumps and bumps into people especially a vocal male (Paul Jones).  Spotting the entrance to the Cardiff Market he enters hoping to hide, to escape.  But the creatures have followed, never losing their mark, and as he looks up in the rafters of the building, he sees one.  It flies at him.  Stood still in the building, he begins to throw up, the reflex action forcing the blockage up and out of him.  He coughs up petals, red flower petals.  Coughing and retching he throws up more as he staggers and stumbles through the building and out the other end, where he sees salvation in the form of a WPC (Ffion Wilkins).  Grabbing her by her stab vest he shakes her, desperate to be taken away.  His wish is granted.

Roy (William Travis) brings back a quiet Jasmine.  He’d caught her walking home.  Her mum tries to instil some form of warning but it goes unnoticed. She wasn’t in any danger.

  

Carrying back the folders and the projector into Estelle’s house Gwen marvels at the room while Jack insists on seeing all the photographs that Estelle kept of the fairies.  Estelle introduces Gwen to Moses her long haired black and white cat, then puts him out for some fresh air, leaving the pair alone.  As Gwen glances along the mantelpiece she sees a photograph of a young airman in uniform.  It looks just like Jack but he insists that it's his Dad.  'He and Estelle were quite an item once upon a time.' He says lifting out another photograph of a young man with a beautiful young woman posing for a photograph on a pier.  'They were inseparable.'

   'Then why did they part?'  Gwen asked

   'It was war time, he was posted abroad, she went to work on the land.'  Jack shrugged.  'It just happened that way.'

Leaving Jack to peruse the photographs Gwen steps out into the back garden to quiz Estelle further about Jack’s ‘father’.  Estelle tells her that she’d lost touch with him after the war and Jack never wanted to talk about his dad.  Gwen learnt that Jack had contacted Estelle a few years ago, a surprise after so long.  'So, like his dad, same walk, same smile.  I hope he’s still alive, he’ll be in his early 90’s by now!'

Jack steps from the house, still clutching the folder and insists that Estelle call them day or night if she sees the fairies again.  He wants her to stay safe.  He holds her close and kisses her on the head, acting more like the ‘father’ than the son.

As Gwen and Jack leave Estelle’s house, Jack displays concern for her.  It is a long walk back to the SUV and with the folder tucked under his arm Jack and Gwen talk about the creatures.  Gwen wants to know what they were called.

   'Something from the dawn of time how can you possibly put a name to that?'

   ‘Are we talking alien?’

   ‘Worse.’

   ‘How come?’

   ‘Because they’re part of us.’  Jack explains as they walk down the street past houses and parked cars.  ‘Part of our world yet we know nothing about them.  So, we pretend to know what they look like, we see them as happy, we imagine they have tiny little wings and they’re bathed in moonlight.’

   ‘And they’re not?’  Gwen still wasn’t sure any of this was real.

   ‘No!  Think dangerous!  Think of something you can only half see, like a glimpse, something out of the corner of your eye.  A touch of myth, touch of the spirit world, a touch of reality, jumbled together.’  Jack stopped to explain further.  ‘Old moments and memories that are frozen in amongst it, like debris, spinning around a ringed planet, tossing and turning, whirling backwards and forwards through time.  If that’s them, then we have to find them, before all hell breaks loose.’

As Jasmine heads off to the bottom of the garden and slips between the fencing into the woods, Roy wonders why, when all other children have friends over, or play with toys and laugh or read a book, that Jasmine does none of those things.

In the Hub as Ianto sets out the coffees in the boardroom, Toshiko displays the oldest sighting of the fairies on the screen.  Gwen reports that the photograph was a fake, when questioned further by Jack, after referring that Conan Doyle was gaga and Houdini was a self publicist, she explains that she’d written an essay in school on the Cottingley Plate photographs, ‘and when the girls were old ladies they admitted they were fakes.’

   ‘So where was this sighting then?’  Toshiko enquires as a photograph of Estelle’s came up on the screen.

   ‘Roundstone Woods.’  Jack replies.

   ‘Oh, I know it, it has an odd history.’  Owen adds.  ‘It’s always stayed wild, even in ancient times it was considered bad luck to walk in there even to collect timber.  Even the Romans steered clear of it.’

Toshiko confesses to have not had any word of any sighting but Jack knew they wouldn’t.  ‘These things come in under the radar.’  He suggests Toshiko sets up a programme detecting unusual weather patterns.

Brought into the police station and Mark Goodson is still protesting about the shadows.  Desperate to be locked up he confesses about his passion for little girls, and is secured a cell for the night.

In the early evening Jack, Owen and Gwen take a visit into the woods to investigate the stone circle.  Jack takes readings from his VM of the area around them.  Gwen still unconvinced about Jack’s story about his ‘father’ presses further about Estelle and her airman.

Arriving at the stones under the watchful eyes of the forest dwellers, Gwen still doesn’t fully believe in the myth, and isn’t wholly convinced that the stones were anything more than stones in a circle, while Owen takes samples.  But the disturbances in the trees above them are enough to spook the team below.

It’s night time and sleeping in the knowledge that he’s safe, Goodson wakes up to fluttering in his cell.  As he opens his eyes and turns to look up at the ceiling, the creature dives at him.

As Lynn (Adrienne O’Sullivan) carries out the cups to the kitchen she hears noises in her daughter’s room and comes up to investigate.  She hears laughter and chatter, but as she opens the door, her daughter is silent and stares at her mother as if she’s something to hide.

Understandably Lynn is concerned that Jasmine appears to have clammed up.

The Custody Sergeant (Nathan Sussex) walks the Torchwood team down to the cells relaying the details about the man who claimed when he was pulled in to have seen shadows and things following him.  Pushing open the door to Goodson’s cell it’s obvious SOCO have already been, their box and lamps are around the body.

Toshiko meets up with Gwen and Jack confirming that no other prisoner heard or saw anything and that they are being transported to another prison.

As Toshiko steps into the room, Jack asks from outside of the cell for the cause of death.

   ‘Going by the pin point haemorrhaging around the eyelids and the hairline I’d say oxygen deficiency.’  Toshiko replies.  ‘But it’s odd...’ she adds, ‘as there’s no fingertip bruising on the face, no areas of pallor.’

   ‘Nothing to suggest that pressure was applied?’

   ‘Looks like he suffocated to death in a locked cell.’

Gwen crouches beside the victim and peer closer at his open mouth. She reaches back into the box for a pair of tweezers; teases the instrument into the mouth of Goodson, takes a firm grip and extracts a flower petal!  Jack blanches.  Back in again and again Gwen pulls out more of the same.  Toshiko astounded admits she’d never seen anything like that before.

   ‘I have.’ Jack admits.

Nightfall in Plymouth Road and Estelle summons her energy crystals to show her where the faeries are, in a bid to meet them again.  Fluttering and laughter and scarily strange noises give Estelle quite a fright.  Lowering her crystal, she edges towards the kitchen and peers out of the window into the dark garden.  A pair of moonlit blue eyes peer out from the bushes and something smashes the glass scaring Estelle.

In the hub Jack views the last moments of Mark Goodson’s life, thrashing about, clearly no signs of the faeries in the cell.  He tells Gwen and Toshiko that to the faeries this is a game, they torment and punish as a warning to others, to protect their own, the Chosen Ones.

   ‘Somehow children and the spirit world they go together!’

He begins to explain to Toshiko and Gwen about the faeries and how to find out who the faeries want, because they can’t trap them, as they have control of the elements, fire, water, the air they breathe, comparing the faeries to the Mara, malignant wraiths, ‘where the word nightmare comes from, they suffocate people in their sleep.’ The phone rings and Jack is made aware that the faeries have their target, it’s Estelle and she’s in trouble, she’s realised that in amongst the good fairies there are bad ones.

As the team head out in the SUV, Moses yowls in the garden.  Torn between staying safe and rescuing her cat, Estelle steps into the garden only to fall into the trap prepared by the woodland creatures.  A wind slams the door shut and she cannot open it, no matter how hard she tries.  Rain begins to fall heavily and the faeries are enjoying their game.

En route, Toshiko detects unusual weather patterns around Estelle’s home. Moses can only watch as his mistress drowns in the rain held down by the faeries, while he remains safe in the dry part of the garden. As the team arrive there’s no answer in the house, but as they run around to the back of the garden, Jack slows as he spots Estelle, quite still.  Owen the good doctor detects no breath or pulse.  As Owen steps away, Jack kneels down closing Estelle’s eyes and lifts her limp body against him.  Gwen can see that she was right all along, it wasn’t Jack’s father, it was Jack.

   ‘We made a vow that we’d be with each other till we died.’

In the Hub Jack opens up to Gwen about Estelle and where they’d first met.

   ‘In London, at the Astoria Ballroom, a few weeks before Christmas, she was 17 and she was beautiful.’  He smiled.  ‘I loved her at first sight, but nothing lasted back then, promises were always being broken.  Estelle...’  Jack whispered, broken.  ‘...to have to die like that.’  He knocks back a shot of brandy.

   ‘Those petals in Goodson’s mouth, where had you seen that before, was that during the war?’  Gwen asked.

   ‘No! Long before then, on a troop train, fifteen men and me in charge.  Everyone happy! Too happy!  Too noisy!  Then we hit a tunnel.  We thought some birds had flown in through some open window.  Then came the silence.  Then when we came out of the tunnel, all 15 men were dead.  They’d been suffocated, my squad, men I was responsible for.’

   ‘But why were the men killed?’

   ‘About a week earlier some had got drunk, drove a truck through a village, ran over a child, killed her.  That child was a Chosen One!’

The toy horses on Jasmine’s shelf rock back and forth awakening her.  She sits up to watch the faeries at play.  As Lynn switches off the lights, locking up for the evening she hears a dog barking in the neighbourhood, and curiously looks out of her door.  She hears strange laughter which spooks her, quickly closing the door as the faeries swoop, she locks the door and switches out the lights.

At the end of the busy day both Rhys and Gwen arrive home to find their flat vandalised and something familiar sitting in the middle of the floor. A stone circle.

At school Jasmine is pushed over by the regular bullies. 

Jack steps into the lounge of the flat to find Gwen filling another bin sack with leaves. She tells Jack she’s not once had to bring the bad stuff home with her.  Jack, having never been inside Gwen’s home before, looks around at the once homely abode, the photos of Gwen and her partner, loving couple hanging squint on the wall, broken furniture and broken stones, ornaments.  Gwen tells him how scared she is as he shakes his head, surveying the damage.  She wants to know about the creatures and why they are doing this, hearing nothing from Jack she yells at him.

   ‘TELL ME JACK!’

   ‘All these so-called faeries were children once, from different moments in time going back millennia.  Part of the lost lands!’

   ‘Lost lands? What?’  Gwen stared back at Jack.

   ‘The lands belong to them!’

   ‘What exactly do they want?  Why are they here?’

   ‘They want what’s theirs, the next Chosen One!’

In the playground, Jasmine sits on a wooden fence underneath the tree.  A school choir joyfully sings ‘Lord of the Dance’ as the two spiteful girls walk over (Sophie Davies, Victoria Gourley), pulling Jasmine away from the fence and push her onto the ground, laying the boot in.

A wind begins to pick up in speed and fallen branches and play equipment falls over.  Children scream and run for cover, but the two bullies are pinned against the bushes and fence unable to reach safety, and all the while Jasmine stands in sunshine – unaffected.

The teacher (Heledd Baskerville) seen the previous day on home time duty rushes into the playground to protect the frightened girls and notices Jasmine briefly standing enjoying the moment.

As Jack and Gwen return to the Hub Toshiko reports an unusual weather system despite the dry hot spell.  ‘It’s happening again.’ Isolating the area, Torchwood responds.  They pull into the school grounds and file out, Gwen heading towards the playground while Jack, Owen and Tosh head into the school itself.  The teacher gives her account of what happened but is still pretty shaken from the ordeal.  All the children have been sent home for the rest of the day.

Gwen views the devastation of the playground noticing people clearing the mess.  Up in the trees, she hears the mischievous laughter and is certain she’s spotted the creatures and runs back into the school. Re-joining Jack in the classroom she learns about the child, Jasmine Pearce, who was unaffected by the wind, as if something was protecting her.

It’s Lynn and Roy’s party, and it’s in full swing outside, Roy has the burgers on the barbecue, drinks are flowing, guests are still arriving.  Five happy years together! In the kitchen of their house, Lynn chats to her daughter who sets out the sausage rolls onto a plate.  Lynn asks about Jasmine’s friends, and if they’d like to come over, Jasmine tells her they don’t like parties.

   ‘Not surprised if they live in trees.’

As Jasmine and Lynn rejoin the party, Jasmine notices something odd at the bottom of the garden and is upset to discover the new fence.  In a bid to coax Jasmine away, Roy takes hold of her arm, but after a hefty kick in the leg and a bite on the hand, Roy lashes out, cuffing the little girl. A loud crack of thunder echoes overhead.  As Roy returns to the party, the small windmill in the garden begins to whirr rapidly.

The SUV hurtles down Old Forest Road as Roy gives his speech to his guests about Lynn and how long they’ve been together.  The wind picks up and the faeries make themselves visible in the trees.  They leap into the garden, knocking over the BBQ scattering the food and drinks.  Guests file into the house through the French windows pushing and jostling, while two faeries trap Roy, leaping about him, singling him out from the guests.

As Torchwood arrive, they usher other guests out of the garden as the wind is now so strong they can barely see clearly.  One faerie leaps at Roy knocking him onto his back, and is soon upon him, a hand over his eyes and mouth suffocating him, before plunging its long green skeletal arm deep inside Roy’s mouth up past its elbow, stifling his very breath.  As Jack and Gwen can only watch, another faerie fancies his chances with Jack to enact the same but just as it latches its clawed fingers around Jack’s neck and climbs onto him, Gwen yells and knocks it off, knocking both her and Jack onto the ground.  The creatures leave and Jasmine follows them, through the gap in the fence made by one faerie.

Jack watches the girl go but is taken by the death of the man lying not too far from him.  The faeries had had their fun and had left their calling card.  Lynn unable to comprehend what just happened sits beside her partner, distraught. 

Owen and Toshiko remain while Jack followed by Gwen head after Jasmine through the destroyed fence.  They locate her standing on the tip of the forest.  She tells them that they are standing in a great forest, that’s magical and she wants to stay in it.  Despite Jack’s attempts of talking her out of it, and Gwen, the little girl is adamant she wants to stay with the faeries.   When Jack pulls the girl towards him suggesting the faeries find another Chosen One, Jasmine tells him that they will find her through time.

   ‘The child belongs here.’  Jack growls defiantly maintaining a hold of Jasmine.

   ‘No!  She lives forever!’

   ‘Suppose we make her stay with us.’  Jack offers

   ‘Then lots of people will die.’  Jasmine replies.

   ‘Did they tell you that?’  Gwen probes.

   ‘They promised! They can make storms at my school, kill Roy and that man and your friend!’

   ‘How do you know that?’

   ‘If they want to they can make great storms, wild seas, turn the world to ice, kill every living thing. Let me go.’

   ‘The child won’t be harmed?’

   ‘Jack you can’t.’  Gwen is alarmed.

   ‘Answer me.  The child won’t be harmed?’

   ‘We told you, she lives...forever!’

   ‘A dead world, is that what you want?’  Jasmine looks up at Jack.  He faces her properly looking at her, at her level.

   ‘What good is that to you?  There will be no more Chosen Ones.’

   ‘They’ll find us, back in time.’

   ‘Take her.’

Amidst horror from Gwen that Jack would do this, the girl skips off into the woods, turning back only to thank him.  As Lynn runs into the woods spying Jasmine, she called to her, but to no avail, a white light surrounds her and she disappears – forever.  Lynn, consumed by anguish, rage and loss, charges at Jack. He holds her back from the pummelling she wants to inflict on him, as she cries heartily at the loss of her daughter and husband to be. In his heart of hearts, he knows it was the right decision to make, but at what cost?

As the team file out of the garden, none of them can look at Jack.

     ‘What else could I do?’ 

Back in the Hub as Gwen gathers up the photos on the desk, the screen flickers with the photo of the Cottingley Fairies, looking closer she lifts the device for enhancing a picture, and isolated one portion of the screen, around one particular faerie as the haunting paragraph from W.B. Yeats poem is recited by a faerie.  The faerie at the bottom of the old photograph was of Jasmine Pearce.

  

'Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand.

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.'

 Gwen leaves the room.