The Time Traveler’s Wife

When did you first meet your significant other? For most, that’s a simple enough type of question. But if you’re married to a time traveller? “It’s complicated,” says Clare Abshire (Rose Leslie) aka the time traveller’s wife.

The new TV adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s beloved romance novel starts out like a documentary, with its two main protagonists giving insightful tell-all interviews about their unusual relationship. “It’s not a superpower,” time traveller Henry DeTamble (Theo James) explains, “it’s a disability.” He doesn’t have any control over when or to where he time travels — he just vanishes into thin air leaving a pile of clothes behind, showing up naked (there’s a lot of bare bum in the first episode) in another time and place.

So when did they first meet? Clare first met Henry when she was a little girl in the mid-90s and he was her 30-something “imaginary friend” who showed up in the woods near her house and told her he was the man she was going to marry one day (not troubling behaviour in the slightest, moving right along). But Henry first met Claire when she was 20 and walked into the library where he worked and told him she was the woman he was going to marry one day.

Clare’s right, it is confusing, but we’re in safe hands — this series has been adapted by Steven Moffat, who knows a thing or two about time travel, having written close to 50 episodes of Doctor Who (also Sherlock and cult British sitcom Coupling). And so the first episode unfolds in this very satisfying way where every scene makes you think, “hang on . . . how does that work?” and then the next scene comes along and answers all your questions before raising even more new ones. If the film version left you wanting, this could well prove the definitive adaptation.