INTO IRRATIONAL RESCUE
where did Ianto learn to operate a bulldozer, exactly? For all its grittiness, “Children Of Earth” still has moments of typically
Torchwood-esque lunacy. Maybe the most memorable comes in episode two when, after Jack Harness has been encased in concrete, Ianto crashes through the wall of a military base (in reality a former explosives factory in Caerwent, used for training by the MOD) on a stolen bulldozer and carries him off...
“Releasing the immortal hero from a block of concrete with a runaway bulldozer was nuts!” Davies laughs. “I remember being delighted when the ratings for episode three went up, because that was pure Torchwood! There’s barely a nod towards the BBC One audience, or anyone who’d never seen the show before. I have to say, everybody in that military base has a very bad aim! Just because you’re on a bulldozer doesn’t mean you’ve got a forcefield around you! And why don’t they chase that fucking bulldozer? Don’t they have helicopters?”
Davies is thoroughly unrepentant. Not that he didn’t ever consider changing it, mind...
“I wrestled with that script for an awfully long time,” he admits. “I could have replaced that with a bomb, or a missile strike. It didn’t have to be concrete, it could have been chains. But in the end I remember thinking, ‘This is very
Torchwood. It’s very funny. It’s got Eve Myles on a bulldozer, with bullets pinging off the metal. [Realised in close-ups by having Myles hang off an immobile vehicle, and shaking the camera…] That’s got to be worth trying. What the fuck?’”