Torchwood: Reset

Jack: "Suddenly, in an underground mortuary on a wet night in Cardiff, I hear the song of a nightingale."

Tosh asked Owen out, and he said yes. No wonder he died. Didn't see that coming. (Of course, on a show where they Kept Killing Suzie, who knows if it's permanent?)

Martha Jones fit in at Torchwood like she'd been there forever. In fact, I think Martha worked better on Torchwood than she did on Doctor Who. She was obsessed with everyone else's sex life just like the rest of the Torchies. She tromped all over Owen, and then they got along like a house afire. Maybe that's what every woman should do with Owen. That is, if he weren't dead. It did strike me as weird that they seemed to replace Owen with another doctor directly before he died. If that's what they did.

I also noticed that Jack, who is usually an equal opportunity flirt, seemed to be verbally focused on just men all of a sudden. Even though he and Martha are very good friends and comfortable with each other, it was like he was trying to keep her at a distance. It couldn't be because he's being faithful to Ianto, could it?

Anyway, enough gossip, on to the episode. Great beginning, but it fell down a bit in the middle. Medical trials, and yet more captive miserable exploited aliens. (You'd think they'd be careful not to remind us of "Meat.") I could tell from the way the singularity scalpel was introduced that we'd see it again by the end of the episode. I think maybe Owen should have subjected it to some more clinical trials before using it on Martha, but all's well that ends well. Except, of course, that Owen was just shot to death.

I couldn't help but wonder what Reset would have done to Jack (and I honestly thought we'd find out.) Would it make him mortal again? Would it make him dead? Would it have no effect at all? I suppose the only real plot choice would have been option three, which would lack drama. I wonder if Jack even wants to be normal again?

Bits and pieces:

-- Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones) got a cast credit. She and Jack met and spent time together in "Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords." Martha mentioned that she had a boyfriend who had saved her life. Would that be the young doctor she met during that three-parter?

-- It was hinted that the Doctor got Martha her hot new job with UNIT. Why isn't the Doctor discussed openly in Torchwood? UNIT knows about the Doctor, after all, and as a former companion, Jack has an in.

-- I know Ianto isn't just a coffee boy any more, but he's really not a coffee boy any more.

-- Mad scientist Aaron Copley was played by Alan Dale, who seems to be everywhere these days. (For me, most notably, on Lost.) He has a different accent in every show, too, which is impressive. He's a Kiwi, isn't he?

-- I swear, I was almost more upset about them losing those cool contact lenses than I was about Martha getting captured.

-- A newspaper on the wall had a headline about a new mayor in Cardiff. I think the photo was of Blon from Doctor Who's season one episode, "Boom Town."

-- Jack didn't die in this episode. But Owen did.

Quotes:

Jack: "Doctor Jones is from UNIT."
Gwen: "Oh, I'm sorry, I get a bit confused. Which one's UNIT?"
Jack: "Intelligence, military, cute red caps. The acceptable face of intelligence gathering on aliens. We're more ad hoc, but better looking."

Jack: "Do you think you can get me one of those caps for personal use? I'm thinking Ianto might look good in it."

Martha: "Are you and him..."
Gwen: "No, no, not at all!"
Martha: "We must be the only two people on the planet."
Gwen: "I know. What are we doing wrong?"

Marie: "He just came towards me with a great big bloody needle, didn't he? My dog bit him, and then I kicked him in the nuts."

Owen: "So you and Jack go back a long way?"
Martha: "Forward and back, really."
Owen: "What brought you together?"
Martha: "Let's say we were under the same doctor."
Under, lusting after, whatever works.

Martha: "So what's his dabbling like?"
Ianto: "Innovative."
Martha: "Really?"
Ianto: "Bordering on the avant-garde."
Jack is creative in bed. What a shock. I never would have guessed.

Martha: "Oh, I'm a camera!"
Jack: "As Chris Isherwood once said to me when we were cruising the Kurfurstendamm."

Ianto: "Oh, you are warped on the inside. How do you think of these things?"
Tosh: "I'll take that as a compliment."

Not all great, but certainly an intense episode. Three stars,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

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