Torchwood: S2E6 'Reset'

Martha Jones guest stars, Jim Robinson from Neighbours guest stars, lots of people die and something sinister is going on in the Cardiff area.

Beware, there will be spoilers below.

First things first, its nice to see Martha in Torchwood, but her realtionship with Jack with the Doctor not there was odd. I think they managed to convey that someting was missing between the two of them, and there was a slight awkwardness. Or that could have been a slightly clumsy script?

Given that Gwen, Ianto, Tosh and Owen still have very little clue as to who Jack is, where he's from and what he's done in his own personal past (even though much of that was in the future), I'm surprised that there wasn't more effort on the part of the Torchwood team to find out about Jack through Martha. Maybe that'll come in weeks to come. The moment of bonding between Gwen and Martha was good.

Nice to see the culmination of the Tosh and Owen thing that has been building for a few weeks, even though it ends in tragedy. But of course, we now see that they were setting that up.

So the plot? Well it was OK. Nothing remarkable, not terrible, not great. But, of course, it was just the backdrop for the two events that they wanted to write in this week. Enter Dr Jones, exit Dr Harper.

Clearly Russell T. and the production team have been watching some of the big action/sci-fi shows like 24, Lost and Heroes. They've learned that you can kill off major characters and keep going. indeed, that killing off major characters can sometimes enhance a show. Perhaps that's why the show has been made to feel much more of an 'ensemble' piece over the past 5 episodes.

In fact, for most of the episode I was expecting it was going to be Martha who was going to die. Not on the basis of what was happening in the episode, but on the basis of the press coverage of Martha's appearance in Torchwood. She's been everywhere recently mentioning that she's in Torchwood for a bit but that her involvement with Doctor Who isn't over yet, etc. For some reason it reminded me very much of when Alex Fearns character 'Trevor' was written out of Eastenders. For a week or two beforehand he was making TV and magazine appearances and somehowm managed to mention in every one of them that his contract extended for several months more, and then they killed him off suddenly when no-one was expecting it. I thought they were going to do that with Martha. And it was only when Owen saved Martha that I realised that wasn't going to happen and that Owen was the one who was going to die. Somehow a death was inevitable.

And where now? Well, I've recorded episode 7 from BBC3 last night, so may watch it tonight. But does this mean that Martha will be standing in for Owen for a few episodes, or does she just do her guest appearance and leave? Will Torchwood continue as a four-piece or will they have to recruit someone new? That could be interesting... We'll just have to watch and see.