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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Rivetting, creepy, time travel tales, 24 Feb 2003
It's been a pleasure revisiting this series. Yes, it's studio bound and severely budget limited, and this means that performances and stories have to compensate, which they most definitely do.At a time when Dr Who was degenerating into pantomime farce, this series is a darker, more eerie twist on the time travel theme. The duo are agents of a vaguely defined authority who are called to intervene in situations where 'time breaks through.' Time is here a malevolent force, seeking to undo life and creation bound within its laws. In the first episode a literally faceless character uses photographs to move around and imprison people in the photographic world. There they share the fate of whatever happens to the photo', and in one chilling scene, the 'man who wasn't there'disposes of characters trapped in a photo by setting it alight. This is a chilling, nightmarish moment, typical of the jolts the series can deliver. The atmospheric location (junk shop in this case) is also typical of the series. The second assignment concerns the machinations of time in taking advantage of a 1930's period dress party to turn the clock back and change history so a terrible plague, averted in real time, occurs. This assignment is adveresely affected by 'padding' (the string of 'whodunnit' murders seem almost superfluous) being 6 instead of 4 episodes in length, but still builds to an effective denoument. The third assignment brings the series to an abrupt close, with an ending that pulls the rug out from under you, and haunted this reviewer during a sleepless night. It leaves you wishing the writers rescued the pair for a further series, but alas... The pairing of Mcallum and Lumley is inspired. An understated, effective, fire and ice performance. Having seen these tales, Ive ordered the first lot. Recommended.
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