Out of Time joins Small Worlds as one of the best episodes of Torchwood so far this season. This Doctor Who spin-off has managed to establish its own identity but has had a tough time maintaining a consistent tone. Even its “adult” content has often seemed childish. Sticking awkward swearing and lingering gore into what otherwise looks like a CBBC serial doesn’t make it “mature”. On BBC3, last week’s episode even went out with the CBBC logo by mistake, which surely was someone’s sneaky idea of a joke...?
Anyway, over on BBC HD this week, where they do get the right logo (though it’s a pity that has to be there at all), Out of Time proved to be just as good as we were hoping. The plot was simple: a light aircraft that took off in 1953 – but vanished into a rift in time – lands in 2006 where the Torchwood team are ready to meet them and try to help the pilot and her two passengers to assimilate into 21st century life.
While the HD doesn’t help the show look any more special (it still somehow appears like an expensive home movie), director Alice Troughton gets good performances from the three main players in the regular cast (John Barrowman, Eve Myles and Burn Gorman) as each of them befriend (in one way or another) one of the plane’s occupants.
Once it got its usual fish-out-of-water time-travel business out of the way, this was a solid and compelling human drama that didn’t pull its punches. The scene where Jack confesses to John (Mark Lewis Jones) that “My time is gone too” leads to a surprising and deeply sad conclusion. Writer Cath Tregenna is also behind episode 12, the first of a two-part season finale, which promises to reveal more about Jack’s mysterious origins.
As with PJ Hammond’s dark fairytale episode Small Worlds, Out of Time was not afraid to be downbeat and, despite the ambiguous ending, it would be more interesting to see Diane (Louise Delamare, pictured above) fly back into Owen’s life than to follow Emma (Olivia Hallinan) as a shop girl in London (she’s no Rose Tyler that’s for sure!).
Out of Time is repeated in standard definition on BBC2, Wednesday 20 December at 9pm. For a review of the previous episode, click here.
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