Torchwood (TV Series) From Out of the Rain (2008) User Reviews

An atmospheric and spooky tale from the Torchwood team

[DVD_Connoisseur · 8/10 · 18 March 2008]

"From Out of the Rain" is yet another successful story from this excellent second series. Beginning with a haunting scene from the past, this episode is a real gem, full of atmosphere and menace.

With an excellent script by Peter Hammond and solid direction from Jonathan Fox Bassett, this is a memorable installment. There's always something more than a little disconcerting about vintage film footage of circuses and this story exploits those subconscious fears to their full extent. This is gripping stuff and I heartily recommend this slice of quality drama.

8 out of 10. I'll be sad when this season is over...

Not exactly their best work...

[LaFeeChartreuse · 6/10 · 14 July 2008]

I didn't think this episode was as bad as a lot of other people seem to have thought, but it certainly wasn't one of the better ones.

It had its moments -- I found the whole evil circus idea kind of evocative (and reminiscent of the stories behind Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's Carnival Diabolique perfume series), and some scenes were nicely creepy, but on the whole it just seemed a bit rushed, and haphazardly put together.

I'm not one of those people who demands a detailed, perfectly logical explanation for everything -- one of the things I really liked about Small Worlds was that it *didn't* attempt to rationalize everything away. But I do like to have things make at least *some* semblance of sense. This episode, on the whole, comes of looking like the writer either had the seed of a good idea but then had to turn it into a script in half an hour with no time to really think it through, or else maybe had a script for a three-hour movie and had to cut it down to 45 minutes by chopping out every bit of explanation or even the process by which the characters arrive at any of their conclusions.

It felt like had the potential to have been good if it had been differently handled, but as it was, I suspect most viewers are more likely to spend most of it going "Wait... what? Where the hell did *that* come from?" than actually enjoying it.

Since you were gone

[sinceverona · 9/10 · 18 September 2009]

In the middle of a night around early twenty's, mother and daughter arrived at circus. The man with cylinder offers the little girl a red ticket and when she accept it, she disappears along with circus and everyone else. Her mother is left alone in the dark staring at an empty field.While Jack and Toshiko are working in the Torchwood, Ianto takes Gwen and Owen to reopening of movie theatre Electro that Ianto went with his father as a child. While Jonathan Penn is working on old rolls of film about Hope street he notices that it becomes changed by sequences of an old circus. While everyone watch the movie, pictures of old circus members and their acts appear on the screen over and over again. While Jonathan and his father are trying to shut down the projector, Ianto notices that one of the participants is no other but Jack. When finally the movie shuts down and everyone leaves Ianto is the only one who notices that two shadows pass by him. Later they appear to be The members of notorious Night travelers group of performers. The Ghostmaker and his companion Amazing Pearl are loose and in their physical form they attack in a Chain Lane their first victim Netti Williams. But when Torchwood team arrives they discover that she is a mind absent, but her heart is still beating. Soon Jack reveals that he did join the traveler group in effort to find more about the ones everyone called "They came out of the rain".The ghost master had a really cool cylinder and was scary. The amazing Pearl was more delicate and looked like a parceling doll. When Jack finds his first witness Christina, now an old woman who managed to escape from the leader of the traveling group Ghostmaker when she was a child. She said that Jacks eyes looked older than the rest of him. I thought it was rather cleaver observation. This was a very complex episode. There were so many clues, and story continued in unexpected directions. Of course there were so many victims and the very uncertainty of how will they fix everything was highly appealing. The only problem I had was not miss anything, otherwise you would not be able connect all the scenes. This was so far the only episode that did not deal with current lives of Torchwood team. It was very refreshing.

Badly, badly written

[curufea · 1/10 · 16 March 2008]

Having just seen episode 10 - about evil carnies coming out of film - it hands down wins the prize for "worst written episode ever" when compared to absolutely every single science fiction series I've ever seen.

I've never seen such blatant pointless redundant exposition since Star Trek: The Pastel Generation. The bad guys do this, Ianto says the bad guys did this, Jack pulls the reason why the bad guys did this straight out of his bot-ox.

Lets not go to where two different murders happen in a straight line on a road - no, that would be logical. Let's instead engage in pointless research to allow them more time to kill other folk.

Hands down, the best acting in this episode was by the octogenarian they spent 5 minutes with in the old folks home.

Oddly,the writer was P.J. Hammond. I quite liked his Sapphire & Steel series, perhaps he's now past his prime?

Sorry... what was the plot here?

[abs_is_back · 1/10 · 30 March 2008]

I am a rabid TW fan, but I have to say the only reason I re-watched this episode was to see if it really was as bad as I thought the first time around.

It was. No, I take it back. It was WORSE.

Big play-up hint in the preview is that on this old film of a carny show, Jack is there, big as life, a part of the show. Preview has Jack stating, "I was billed as The Man Who Couldn't Die." My thought is "COOL! We'll learn something else new about Jack. There will be this big reveal that he was involved with these guys in the past or something." But no. I hate it when the best part of a show is in the preview.

And that's the thing - that reveal, that Jack was in a side show troop 80 years ago, that's the neatest bit in this whole piece (even John Barrowman couldn't pull off looking impressive in that lousy costume). Now, TW all knows Jack's "I can't die" secret, but I don't remember a big reveal that he's lived 150 years on earth (yes, there have been a few hints and pieces) but no one seemed surprised that Jack was in this 80 year old film, they were just surprised he was in a side show! And nobody even welcomed back Gwen from her honeymoon, much less asked to see pictures, or queried if she had a good time. They must have screwed up and retconned themselves as well as all of the wedding guests in the last episode. Hope they saved some for this one. I'd sure like to forget it.

The plot itself on the surface of a script probably looked good. OUTLINE: Evil carny performers in old film escape old film and run amok in Cardiff. TW chases after them. On the first read-through, the possibilities of this look neat. An old movie, The Purple Rose of Cairo has a similar scheme sans evil carny bad guys and it's a good story.

But this episode plays out so badly that at every commercial break I spent 3 minutes with the MUTE button on going "What the heck was going on there?" And that was the SECOND time I viewed this one.

The writer for this one is the same poor sap who wrote the largely forgettable "Small Worlds" in Series 1. Again, a neat sounding plot that went no where. Some neat scenes and effects, but crappy plot and dialogue. Ending left a bad taste in my mouth. Not because of the resolution of it, but that everybody dissed Jack's decision. But that's a different review.

Same kind of thing happens here though. TW figures out, basically, what's going on and how to stop it and does so. But before the credits can mercifully roll, Jack states what I'd figured out 30 minutes ago - that's probably not the ONLY film the carny goons were on - so TW may have saved the day, but only temporarily. Very unsatisfying.

Julian Bleach, who I understand has a great reputation as an actor, gave a performance that I can only hope was left over characterization from his last role as Frankenstein's monster in a TV movie. It's been predicted that he will play Davros in an upcoming Dr Who and I pray that this is either a mistake, or Davros has no mustache to twirl and much better lines.

And the "mermaid" really needed to go jump in a lake after her very first scene. I mean, I wanted to see her drown just to end the misery. Maybe Owen could have invited her to go swimming? It would have been more entertaining than this "plot" mess.

TW, I love you guys, but please, don't bring this writer back. He sucks. Are you sure he's not an alien sent to bring down the show from the inside out?? Scan him with that singularity scalpel and see if you can zap the bad story-telling out of him.

Such a disappointment

[thibaud1995 · 1/10 · 7 April 2008]

I was astonished at the awfulness of this episode. I suppose no regular series can be expected to fire on all cylinders all of the time, but this episode was poorly written, badly visualized and the actors seemed completely bored, particularly Barrowman. I was glad I'd Tivo'ed it so I could fast forward to the end and get it over with.

The most egregious part of the script was the intersection (or pseudo-intersection) between Jack's "The Man Who Couldn't Die" and the ones who come out of the rain. So a bit of film showed Jack blowing his head off. The previews led me to believe this story was going to be about Jack and his time as a travelling performer, but this was just a weird aside.

I kept hoping it would get better so I kept watching, but it remained nonsensical and ugly and I was relieved when it was over.