Torchwood: Reset

 (Originally written 13/10/13)

This episode occupies a strange place in Series 2. Despite introducing Martha and killing Owen, there are a lot of elements which make it quite forgettable.

The editing was a bit odd, with short shots of medical images breaking up several scenes. This is quite unlike what Torchwood has done before, but it seems like something that’s been done in other shows. The presence the Gorillaz’ ‘Feel Good’ as Owen and Martha worked together seemed out of place – again, not something I’d expect. And then the “twist” ethical problem was that aliens are being held captive and exploited for the humans’ own means – so it’s basically Meat two episodes later.

I’m not sure if the characterisation of the regulars was quite up to scratch. For all of Jack’s flirting with Martha, he made a lot of references to past boyfriends (including Christopher Isherwood) and he even said of The Pharm’s security guard, “Grey is so not her colour”. Way to make him sound totally gay (though the plus side of this is that we also got Ianto’s gossip with Martha). I also thought Owen was way too nice to Tosh – especially after Adam ended with him back to bastard mode.

It was simply weird seeing Martha in Torchwood. I don’t know if she really got the technobabble, and when she exclaimed, “Oh I’m a camera!”, she seemed like she was trying and failing to be excited. I’m also wondering what the Doctor was thinking recommending her to UNIT – I know he generally enjoys working with them but he knows they are a military organisation, so why would he want one of his companions caught up in that?

 It wasn’t clear just how much The Pharm knew about Torchwood – Professor Copley noted that Jack does alien research, but how did he know this? Furthermore, when Copley’s assistant was asked by Gwen and Ianto about the Weevil, she didn’t even ask “Is that what you call it?”, despite the name having been made up by Torchwood.

 (Speaking of Copley’s assistant, I just realised that this episode does pretty poorly on the Bechdel test. The assistant was apparently called Plummer but I didn’t hear that, and when Gwen and Martha talk it’s about how neither of them has shagged Jack yet.)

My boyfriend often talks about how he finds Professor Copley to be “a plank of wood”, but I didn’t have a huge problem with this... until his final scene, where he’s ready to kill because his life’s work is destroyed, yet he conveys no emotion while doing this. Having just watch Milton Johns’ amazingly unsettling performance in The Enemy of the World, it was particularly obvious that there was potential for Copley to become an interesting villain, but Alan Dale did nothing with it.

And Owen's bullet makes three in the gunshot count of Series 2 so far. For an episode in which the characters kept going on about high security, you might have thought they'd secure themselves a bit more.