By FRANCES GRANT
Zipping across time zones can be a disorienting experience so perhaps British costume drama Longitude can be forgiven for getting off to such a jerky start on Sunday Theatre last night (TV One, 8.30 pm).
The drama is based on American journalist and writer Dava Sobel's book of the same name and acknowledged this by using the book's introduction as its opening scenes.
But as a prelude, the flashback to Sobel's childhood fascination with the lines drawn to divide the globe, had a tacked-on feel.
The scene hurtled from mid-20th century New York back through the centuries and across the Atlantic to the good stuff - a nasty 18th-century maritime pile-up on the rocks of the Scilly Isles - and Sobel never got another look-in.
But the irony of that shipwreck scene was all the better for being historical fact: the arrogant Sir Clowdisley Shovell had just hanged a sailor for trying to tell him he was wildly off-course when crunch time came for four of the British fleet's finest with the loss of 2000 souls.
After Longitude's first awkward loop in the space-time continuum, however, the action settled down into two parallel storylines: that of John Harrison the humble country carpenter who was determined to solve one of the most pressing scientific problems of his day and Charles Gould, the man who set about unearthing and restoring Harrison's extraordinary sea-clocks.
The pleasantly leisurely script (penned by Charles Sturridge whose screen adaptations include Brideshead Revisited) was matched by the calibre of the acting.
The lugubrious Jeremy Irons seemed tailormade for the part of the nervy, obsessive Gould.
And Michael Gambon avoided the cliched portrayal of the tormented and misunderstood genius to play Harrison as a man of single-minded purpose and also rigorous self-criticism.
The two characters, their stories as finely balanced as one of Harrison's clocks, also provided a poignant contrast in their personal lives.
Harrison was blessed with loyal supporters to help to shore up his determination while Gould used his obsession with the clocks to escape reality and lost his family in the process.
But the most refreshing thing about Longitude is watching a costume drama intelligently made and about something of real historical significance.
From an era of disposable wristwatches, jet travel and satellite navigation systems, Longitude stirs the imagination to make that leap back to a time when the world was vast beyond belief and crossing it was a matter of months of guesswork and prayers.
Harrison's sea trials of his clock also gave a stomach-churning expose of life aboard those sailing ships of unbelievably cramped dimensions.
And, as the best-made period pieces invariably do, it was rife with modern-day comparisons for the making.
The Longitude Board, politicking and prevaricating as Harrison tries to claim his prize, could be any committee of power-brokers.
The wacky-wigs with their off-the-planet solutions to the problem were proof that loony-tune theorists exist in every age.
Next week's second part will navigate through Harrison's long-haul quest for vindication.
Expect to see the clockmaker get seriously wound-up along the way.
TV: Once upon a time in a vast world
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