| QUOTE |
| Science-fiction crime drama series set in Cardiff. Juggling work with her hen night the day before she's due to marry, an alien shapeshifter leaves Gwen carrying more than she bargained for. As everyone gathers for the ceremony, Jack must destroy her big day - unless one of the three mothers present finds a means to stop him. |
| QUOTE |
| Torchwood Declassified (BBC Two, Thursday 13th March 7.50pm*) gatecrashes the Welsh wedding of the year. Speaking to Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper) and Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), the Declassified cameras go exclusively backstage to uncover the secrets behind the ceremony. Speaking to producer Richard Stokes and director Ashley Way, Declassified also reveals that filming the Torchwood wedding was not so far removed from planning a real one. Plus, Nerys Hughes talks about the mother of all roles as she guest stars as Brenda Williams. |
| QUOTE |
| Phil Ford discusses what inspired him to write Something Borrowed. What was your episode brief? "It's Rhys and Gwen's wedding day. It's going to be a romp. Oh, and she's pregnant by an alien!" That was about it. Russell said he wanted me to do it because of my time on Coronation Street - you get plenty of practice at writing The Wedding From Hell on Corrie. And this was one wedding I would have loved to set in Weatherfield - just imagine Rita or Gail sprouting fangs and claws at a Rovers Return reception and chowing down on Ken Barlow! Fantastic! Those are the kind of storyline ideas that got me fired! At the same time, although Something Borrowed is a romp, it's also very much about the love that Gwen and Rhys share and (given Gwen's sometime confusion in the romance department) I really wanted to demonstrate how deeply she feels for Rhys - she is prepared to go through hell to marry him today, no matter what. How did you go about creating the Nostrovite? Given that Gwen was going to wake up on her wedding day with a full-term alien pregnancy under her belt, I had to find some way of getting her in the family way that hopefully wasn't going to involve any hen night indiscretion. It also had to happen pre-titles so it had to have some clout. A pre-party alien hunt came to mind; a creature that passes on its young with a bite. I read somewhere about some male fish that carries hatching eggs in its mouth - so that's where the basic idea came from. But then there had to be a mommy Nostrovite someplace - and, as Jack says, she's the midwife from hell. And if she was going to hang around the wedding waiting for the right time for things to get messy then she was going to have to be a shapeshifter. Is Banana Boat based on anyone you know? No. Banana isn't. But Mervyn, who comes to a very sticky end, is. As I can't afford the legal bills his identity will remain a mystery. By the way, the real Barry and Brenda are two very sweet people that I have known most of my life, and I hope she forgives me! Rhys grabbing the chainsaw at the end was a great Evil Dead reference, are there any other nods to other genre works to look out for in your episode? Probably more than I realise. But the Evil Dead was a very conscious thing and probably one of the first elements of the story that I came up with - I always wanted to show that Rhys was prepared to fight for Gwen. And even though Jack ultimately saves the day, I hope people realise that fuel-or-no-fuel, Rhys would have stopped the Nostrovite with that chainsaw one way or another. And talking of Jack's big gun - I guess that's a Men in Black moment. Though, the "bigger gun" line is Jaws-inspired. The Nostrovite's bedroom manners are probably a nod to Species (and Sigmund Freud), and the cocoon is Alien. The barn was probably inspired by that scene from The Devil Rides Out. And everyone falling asleep was inspired by watching an episode of Heartbeat. Have you ever been to a wedding as eventful as the one you created? Not where the DJ got eaten and the groom's mother turned into a fanged monster in a big green hat, no. Can that really happen? You penned two of The Sarah Jane Adventures, how does writing Torchwood compare? They are both huge fun. On both shows we try to take the viewer on a rollercoaster they'll never forget, full of action, invention, and emotion. I think the only real difference is that we don't kill people on Sarah Jane. But the compensation for that is writing for Lis Sladen who has always been - and always will be - my favourite Doctor Who companion. What's your favourite line in the episode? Apart from Rhys when the chainsaw fails? Should be a Ianto line. He gets all the good lines now. But I'll go for Owen: "That's the trouble with shapeshifters. You never know what you're looking at." |