Review: Torchwood 1.10: Out of Time

Fred, Dianne and Emma-Louise enter a supermarket.

As the finale to our story creeps up on us, Out of Time presents something of an enigma. Instead of one story, it instead splits into three stories looking at one member of the Torchwood team and a guest character (again leaving Tosh and Ianto in the lurch}. While this allows for some nice variation, it also means that some areas of the episodes are very different to the others in quite ominous ways. At times Out of Time is a drama, a tragedy and a comedy, and because the three stories are interspliced it has a jarring feel to it.
     Three people from the 1950s fly through the rift and are intercepted by Torchwood. Pilot Diane Holmes (Louise Delamare}, merchant Fred Ellis (Mark Lewis Jones} and Emma-Louise Cowell (a pre-Candleford Olivia Hallinin} are forced to adjust to the world of 2006 - they look for living relatives (and find none}, live in a hostel and are generally astounded by everyone around them.
       The weakest of the three subplots was the one that I suppose you could call a comedy - Emma Louise, as an 18-year-old used to living in a sexually repressed society, is taken in by Gwen when it transpires that her parents are long since dead. She adapts, talking to girls of her own age. Later, she goes out to night-clubs and Gwen has to give her the "talk" to reassure her about modern attitudes towards sexuality. Eventually she is forced to leave Cardiff for London, not only for a job but to make sure that Rhys doesn't become any more suspicious about Torchwood.

Fred's son has Alzheimers.

       Fred Ellis' storyline should have been the most poignant of the three, but it fell short of the mark because of his unsympathetic 50s steretype character. Desperate to find his son, Fred's repressive attitude singles him out from the other three almost immediately, and Jack was the one whom he felt the most in common. When the team finds his son, he discovers that he has Alzheimers and doesn't remember who Fred is. That night, he steals Ianto's car and, after Jack fails to convince him otherwise, he commits suicide by breathing in carbon monoxide.
       The main subplot was arguably the love affair between pilot Dianne and Owen. They begin flirting almost immediately, and then they have a close, sexual relationship. Owen finds himself buying her a dress and not being able to think of anything else. On their last night together he tells her how scared he is, because just after a week he finds that Dianne is the only woman he has ever loved. She eventually flies away, trying to find the rift once again and either return home or find somewhere new.
       One thing that made Fred and Dianne's stories gel was that Jack and Owen (respecively} have such great chemistry with them. It makes sense for Gwen, the most human of the team, to take in the girl most likely to adapt to the period,but here it really didn't work and for periods her side of the story felt more like Being Human-era cringe comedy. It was trying to be serious, with casual mentions of how her parents are dead and she loved them very much, but there's nothing to empathise with in her character at all. Fred's story is about watching the people you love die, and Dianne's is about not spending your life doing the same thing. Emma's "try new things Aesop" feels more like it should belong in a Sainsburies ad. than an episode of Torchwood.

"I'm scared." "I love you too."

     I have to commend the stunning performances from Delamere and Jones, whose portrayals only strengthened their storylines. I feel sorry and frustrated about Gwen in this episode - after such a great episode previously, this week we head towards the series finale as her relationship with Owen finally ends. She's left with Emma-Louise's storyline to work with, and that really isn't very interesting. At least the development for Owen and Jack was very well executed and actually had a bearing on the plot.
     So while Out Of Time's emotional triptych was a novel idea, it only two-thirds worked, and in a 45 minute episode that's still a lot of wrong. The episode simply tried to do too much with its premise, and instead of giving us a mature examination of life, love and death it fell back on the old comedy, "fish out of water" staples in places where such things weren't required. It's a great watch in the majority of places but it's a shame that the comedy is there in the first place.

Thanks.