Torchwood: Out of Time

[alexxkay]

kestrell and I just got around to watching episode 10 of Torchwood, "Out of Time", written by Cath Tregenna. Given how low my expectations are for this show in general, I was happily surprised to find that this was a *good* story. Not super-excellent or anything, but definitely good.

As the episode begins, Torchwood meets a small passenger plane at the airport. The pilot flew into the space-time rift around Cardiff in 1953, and neither she nor her two passengers expected to come down in 2006. In half an hour, they moved 53 years into the future, leaving behind everything they knew and loved.

The biggest spoiler I'm going to give comes next -- or perhaps an anti-spoiler, since I think knowing it may actually enhance your enjoyment. The big twist is... that there is no big twist. The episode really is just a quiet character piece about three time-lost souls, and how the Torchwood characters try to help them (moving their own character arcs along in the process). Kes was convinced for quite a while that they would turn out to be "alien tech thieves in disguise". In fact, the writer made the far more interesting choice to let them be exactly what they seemed to be.

Kes speculated about an earlier episode ("Random Shoes") that it might well be a Hugo contender, because it was the sort of sentimental story that Hugo voters often go for. But I think "Out of Time" is a much better bet; slightly less sentimental perhaps, but much better written, and much better SF as well.

This is the sort of story that I call Core SF. There's exactly one fantastic element, and the rest of the story follows on naturally from that element, examining its consequences, and how it effects people. That's extremely rare in "SF" tv, and I never expected to find some in this show, of all places.