Toshiko in Doctor Who

[lorannah]

OK - I'm going to start this off by trying to clarify what I'm looking at, to try and avoid confusion. So here's some points to begin.

a) I believe that the Dr Sato who appears in Doctor Who Series 1 (episode - Aliens of London) - is the same Toshiko Sato who appears in Torchwood. This has actually been confirmed by both RTD and Naoko Mori in

Comments

[such_heights]

Ooh, how well-researched! I hadn't actually thought about Tosh being undercover Jack, but you're quite right, I think that's the only explanation that makes sense, especially at that point in the timeline.

[lorannah]

Thanks. :D

See that is what happens when you can't sleep between 3am and 7am.

[hellenebright]

Fascinating. Thanks so much for doing this. Having looked at the screencaps and remembering the ep (not one I have on dvd), I do believe you're right about Tosh. I've added a few notes on the various soldiery below (OK, so I'm a geek!). Interestingly, having been back to the various UNIT sites, I've been reminded of Department C19, which UNIT apparently reported to, and which specialised in collecting alien tech. If C19 *wasn't* Torchwood, there must have been some ding-dong battles between them

[lorannah]

Ooh thanks. The military uniform information is fascinating. I tried to look some stuff up when I was writing this, but was rather overwhelmed by all the stuff out there, so this is really useful.

Plus my knowledge of old-Who is sadly non-existent. Hopefully that will be sorted soon as one of my friends is planning a mammoth watching session for me. Going on what you've said, even the similarity between the two generals outfits could just be down to that being the position the UNIT general held before he joined the organisation.

I wasn't sure where all the Tosh working for UNIT stuff had come from when it first appeared, but watching the episode back could see where the confusion came in.

The C19 stuff is fascinating - I'm not sure what idea I like more - there being epic battles between the two organisations or C19 secretly being Torchwood back in the day.

[hellenebright]

No probs, while I can't say I come from an Army family, my dad ran the Wilkinson sword works that produced your actual swords as used (dress only these days) by the British military, plus I married a militaria/wargamer.

I think I prefer C19 not being Torchwood. It makes more sense as to how Harry Saxon has such a hold over UNIT. The alternative is that there was some huge dustup in the 1990s and UNIT broke away, but there's nothing to support that view.

[rojodiablo]

Have you read the iF magazine interview with Naoko Mori? She explains it, though not to the extent of actually quantifying it. Your suspicions are confirmed! I'll post the snippet here anyway:

"iF MAGAZINE: On the Internet Movie Database you are credited as being Dr. Sato on DOCTOR WHO. So is that official then, that you were playing Toshiko back then in series one?

NAOKO MORI: Yes, her character was called Dr. Sato which is the same family name as Tosh. There’s been a lot of feverish speculation as to whether she is the same person and I can now officially say that it is the same person. It was a nifty bit of infiltration from Torchwood. So she was there from Torchwood. I didn’t not know that then because Torchwood didn’t exist in the real world. [Laughs] It was more of a surprise when TORCHWOOD the series happened and I got a call from Russell [T. Davies] that he was going to be doing a new show. So it was an amazing opportunity to be called back. "

[lorannah]

Thanks. I hadn't seen that, that's fantastic.

[hellenebright]

Oh that's cool. Excellent footwork by RTD!

[lorannah]

What's really odd. Is although I doubt this was laid out from the beginning of Doctor Who - as an extremely happy coincidence Tosh works really well in these scenes as a secret undercover spy.

She says that she's never seen anything like it before and acts afraid/surprised - but what the characters' focusing on is that she believed the pig!alien was dead, so rather than it being an alien being her issue (she seems to accept that straight away) - it's the seeming resurrection that freaks her out. Plus you see her cleverness in the scenes - and she immediately realises that it must have been alien technology that did this - "aliens faking aliens" - which is so very Tosh.

It's weirdly wonderful how right this feels for her.

[ilysespieces]

in the dw encyclopedia is says she's an undercover torchwood operative.

[lorannah]

Thanks. I haven't got my hands on that yet, so it's useful to know.

[anonymous]

or the bbc were so cheap they got thwe same actor lol