Episode 21: No Glove, No Love

Martyn and Gerrod discuss Torchwood series 1, episode 1: Everything Changes.

“Everything Changes” is the first episode of the British science fiction television programme Torchwood, which was first broadcast on 22 October 2006. The story was written by show creator and executive producer Russell T Davies as an introduction to the show’s mythos. The episode re-introduces Captain Jack Harkness, who had proved popular in the first series of the 2005 revival of Doctor Who, as the leader of Torchwood, a team of alien hunters.

The story is told from the perspective of Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles), who comes across the Torchwood team through her job as a police officer with the South Wales Police, who are investigating a series of strange deaths in Cardiff. Through Gwen’s discovery of Torchwood, the audience is introduced to team members Owen Harper (Burn Gorman), Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori) and Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd). Suzie Costello, as played by Indira Varma, had also been billed as a series regular prior to transmission, though in a twist the character was revealed as the murderer and killed off at the end of the episode, with Gwen replacing her as a member of the Torchwood team.

The episode originally aired on Freeview channel BBC Three and upon broadcast earned the channel its highest ever viewing figures. Critical reaction to the episode was mixed, with reviewers making both positive and negative comparisons to Torchwood‘s parent show Doctor Who.