'Out of Time' by Catherine Tregenna

Jack, Gwen and Owen wait at an airfield as a small biplane, the Sky Gypsy, comes in to land. Having left Cardiff on the eighteenth of December 1953, the pilot, Diane Holmes, and her two passengers, John Ellis and Emma Louise Cowley, believe their flight to Dublin was forced to make an impromptu touchdown after just thirty minutes – and so they are shocked to learn that the temporal rift has transported them to the year 2006… Having decided to take responsibility for these new arrivals, the Torchwood team helps them to adapt to contemporary life, giving them new identities and a place to stay. Emma tries to overcome her shyness, but her attempts to let her hair down and make friends with her fellow hostel guests are met with disapproval from the overbearing John; taking a shine to Emma, Gwen invites her to stay with her at home for Christmas, explaining to Rhys that the young girl is her cousin. Owen and Diane soon become involved, and it isn’t long before their dinner date winds up with them in bed together. John decides to search for his son, Alan, only to find that the boy he left behind is now an old man suffering from Alzheimer’s disease in an old folks’ home. Gwen helps the repressed Emma come to terms with the sexual attitudes of the twenty-first century, and assists her in finding a new job in London. Having enjoyed a moonlit dance atop a multi-story car park, Owen and Diane head home to bed, only to realise that they have fallen in love with each other. John pays a visit to Jack at Torchwood and steals the keys to Ianto’s car; discovering the theft, Ianto informs Jack and tracks the car to John’s old house, where Jack arrives just in time to stop John from committing suicide in his garage using his car’s carbon monoxide emissions. When John explains that he wants to die because he has nothing left in this new world to live for, Jack tries to console him, but he too knows what it is like to be stranded out of time. John persuades Jack to allow him to die with dignity, and as the two men sit side-by-side in the car, Jack’s invulnerability allows him to watch as the deadly gas causes John to slip quietly away. Elsewhere, Gwen bids goodbye to Emma as the young girl boards a coach bound for London and her new life. Owen awakes to find that Diane has gone, leaving only a note behind; having read its contents, Owen races to the airstrip, where he finds Diane preparing to leave in her biplane. Diane tells Owen that she can never truly be happy living in her future, and so has decided to try to return to her own time by flying back through the rift. Although he knows that such an attempt is doomed to fail, Owen realises that he has no choice but to let Diane go, and as he looks on with sorrow, his lover’s plane flies off into the distance…

John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Burn Gorman (Owen Harper), Naoko Mori (Toshiko Sato), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), Louise Delamere (Diane Holmes), Mark Lewis Jones (John Ellis), Olivia Hallinan (Emma Louise Cowles), Sam Beazley (Alan Ellis), Janine Carrington (Alesha), Rhea Bailey (Jade)

Directed by Alice Troughton
Produced by Richard Stokes
Executive Producers Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC3):
Sunday 17th December 2006 @ 9.30 pm
(BBC2 TX: Wednesday 20th December @ 9.00 pm)

Notes:
*Featuring Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato and Ianto Jones