10 Soul Crushing Torchwood Moments That Left Us Traumatised

10. The Hub Is Destroyed - Children Of Earth: Day One

Okay, this one isn't traditionally 'sad', but for fans of the show it hits hard. The Cardiff Hub had been the central setting for two seasons of the show, and was just as iconic as Jack's blue military coat. It was Torchwood's TARDIS, and it felt just as homely... in a dingy, wet and grungy sort of way. At this point, it had appeared in every episode, with some episodes even being set entirely within it. To this day, almost a decade later, fans are still making a pilgrimage to its fictional location in Cardiff Bay (which we'll come back to later...)

When the first episode of Children of Earth came along, so did a massive change to the format of the show. The series focused on a single, continuous plot and was condensed into five episodes, the team was smaller and, devastatingly, the hub was taken out of the equation. This central element of the show did, however, go out with a (literal) bang, after Jack discovered a bomb sewn into his stomach. With no time left to avert the imminent disaster, Jack orders his team to leave him, forcing Ianto to take the slowest lift in the world so they can stare forlornly at each other as he escapes to safety. To its credit, this is a very emotional scene, as we begin to question how even Jack could survive being at the heart of an explosion of that scale.

Jack does, of course, survive, but the hub is destroyed. And we don't mean 'destroyed and then rebuilt, better than ever, a few episodes later', we mean destroyed, full stop. The Hub is gone forever and never appears again. Finito. With it, the traditional format of Torchwood also disappeared for good. It was the end of the 'good times' for our characters, and whilst the audience was just beginning of what is arguably the best series of the show, this was an end of an era. For that, it deserves its spot.