Out of Time

There is half a good story here, split into one and a half thirds.

1/3 - Jack Harkness and John Ellis' plot was really good. The scene with John and his aged son was incredible, and the scene with the two of them in the car was very strong.

0.5/3 - Gwen and Emma's story was pretty good, but didn't quite seem to fit together as well as Jack and John. It had its moments, both positive and negative

0/3 - Owen and Diane. I don't care about Owen Harper.

I don't care about Owen Harper.

I really like this episode. The fish out of water stuff is great fun, and there's also some lovely emotional moments. It's more of an inner conflict, compared to the usual monster-of-the week. My one gripe is that Diana Holmes' decision to leave Owen and fly back through the rift is all very sudden. It would maybe have worked better had they used this episode to write out Owen and he had gone with her, with the idea that they could go off together on a journey through the rift seeded throughout the episode.

Out of Time is pretty cool and stands out a bit from Series One Torchwood and this spin-off in general, but it shouldn't be. The story itself makes a lot of sense as a spin-off to a show that features time travel so heavily. While many Torchwood stories might have our main characters travelling through time, this one is neat in that it brings people from another time to the present, which doesn't happen nearly as much in Doctor Who overall.

However, since three characters come through the timeline, we essentially have three stories. Diane is paired with Owen, and this is the first time I found his character more interesting after having such and awful introduction in the series. Jack meets a father that finds his son is all grown up and has Alzheimer's, and that unfolds into a story quite heartbreaking and morose. Then Gwen and Rhys have Emma, and it feels like she is largely used to further the drama between Gwen and her partner as her lies around Torchwood begin to build.

This is where Out of Time loses me a bit. Owen and Jack and their time travellers are all done well, but the whole Gwen/Rhys/Emma dynamic feels comparatively weaker. On the whole, this leaves an experience with Out of Time that is positive overall, but a little uneven. There's a lot of melodrama to Out of Time but for once, this feels earned. Travelling through time like this should be upsetting a traumatic, and Out of Time explores that really well. Still, this pairs nicely with the final third of Series One in Torchwood - more thoughtful, experimental episodes that feel like they all work a lot better as a show compared to what we initially got out of the series with gross messes like Cyberwoman and Day One.