Torchwood: Children Of Earth - Day One

WARNING: There Be Spoilers Ahead!

Leaving no room for breath, Torchwood: Children Of Earth burst onto our screens this evening with the best hour of Torchwood we've yet seen.

It was quite literally an explosive start to the compact five-part (over five nights) series, and I wonder if it will be able to maintain this breakneck pace for the next four days or whether we're in for a slow patch around Wednesday as everyone slows down to get their second wind.

The story began in Scotland 40 years ago, with a group of children being abducted by an alien race known as the 456, then immediately sprang forward to modern day with children around the world suddenly coming to a halt. The second time this happened, all the children announced, in a typically spooky alien voice: "We are coming."

From then on, we were introduced to a government conspiracy involving the 456; Jack's daughter, Alice (Lucy Cohu, a superb addition to the Torchwood mythos and Captain Jack's backstory); Ianto's comedy family; Jack and Ianto's developing relationship; numerous sinister civil servants; a black ops organisation tasked with taking Torchwood out of the equation; and the fact that Gwen is pregnant.

Gwen follows a lead on the children's strange behaviour to East Grinstead, where she finds a man in a mental hospital, Clem (Paul Copley) who turns out to be the only child who got away from the mass abduction in Scotland. His fractured rambles suggest to Gwen that the children were deliberately handed over to the aliens!

Jack is captured by the black ops team (who I hope aren't connected to UNIT) and turned into a human bomb, which he discovers upon his return to the Hub. This necessary moment of revelation was one of Russell T Davies' neatest tricks, a subtle touch that didn't feel like a heavy-handed deus ex machina.

To be honest, I may have come down hard on some of RTD's writing in the past, but this episode was spot on in every regard; a fine balance between laugh-out loud one-liners and serious, dramatic shocks.

The Torchwood status quo was already shifting as the show opened and I just can't see how much further it can be dramatically twisted, torn and shredded and still maintain this high standard of entertainment for four more nights... but the Sky+ is set and I'm prepared to be dazzled.

Tomorrow: