CHILDREN OF EARTH, LIFE ON MARS

This blog post will contain spoilers not only for the first couple of episodes of the new 'Torchwood' mini-series, but also for another series from the BBC. Discretion is advised.....

We've been introduced to a very interesting citizen of Toobworld in the mini-series 'Torchwood: Children Of Earth'. Clement McDonald was the only child to survive the 1965 encounter with The 4-5-6 in Glasgow. We saw him in the flashback of that first encounter, when he ran away at the last minute instead of going into the light with the other eleven children. But by the time we met him, Clement was an adult in an East Grimstead institution under the name of Timothy White. In the over forty years he lived on the run (to avoid being discovered by the government officials who tried to hand him over to The 4-5-6), Clement McDonald lived all over the United Kingdom, probably under several assumed names. And eventually on his journey from Glasgow to East Grimstead, perhaps he spent some time in Manchester.

I think we've seen Clement McDonald AKA Timothy White before in Toobworld.....

When Manchester DI Sam Tyler was struck by a car and lapsed into a coma, his sub-conscious mind provided a fantasy world in which he found himself as a cop in 1973 Manchester. We assumed as the series progressed that the characters peopling his inner life were figments of his imagination. But could it be that they were based on people that he knew back in the Manchester of 2006?

In the sixth episode of the first season of 'Life On Mars', Sam found himself being held hostage at a newspaper office by Reg Cole. What if Reg Cole - in the real world - was an alias used by Clement McDonald when he was hiding out in Manchester? Perhaps he got into some sort of trouble with the Law, despite his best efforts to avoid notice, and thus came into contact with Sam Tyler. When Sam Tyler's mind needed to flesh out the character of the hostage-taker in that scenario, it pulled "Reg Cole" out of Sam's memories. Perhaps something that Reg might have ranted to Sam about The 4-5-6 stuck with the Mancunian police detective and made him consider Reg to be a possible threat to others.

The best part about this is that we're not actually saying Clement McDonald/Timothy White is the Reg Cole we saw; just that he provided the inspiraton for the Reg Cole as seen in Sam Tyler's mind. It was Sam's sub-conscious that provided the differences in personality.

I gotta say, it's a theory that feels Zonk-proof.....

BCnU!