You Abused the Mayflies!

Torchwood: Reset

I think it's disgraceful the way that people still find it difficult to see Alan Dale without immediately thinking of Jim Robinson.  From the moment I spotted him in the role of the Vice President in 24 and spat my food so far across the room it hit a window, I have wished him all the best in his continuing career in the US and feel genuinely sorry for those small-minded people who insist on pigeonholing him as the patriarch from Neighbours.  It is, of course, as Dr Forrest in The Young Doctors that he should always be remembered to the exclusion of any other role he may ever take again no matter how prestigious.  I've always thought that Alan's rough no-nonsense exterior was partly down to the trauma of playing out the tragedy of Dr Forrest's wedding day during which his beautiful bride was electrocuted by a faulty table lamp. No man should have to see his pretend wife twitching on a brown carpet on what should have been the happiest fictional day of his life.

any number of dodgy quangos could have been set up

But if Big John Forrest - sorry Big Alan Dale - had decided to appear in the first series of Torchwood then he would certainly have been reminded of his days on a badly-written and woodenly-acted show like The Young Doctors.  Instead he's chosen very wisely and joined Torchwood when it's actually good.  His role as Dr Forrest does have relevance outside of my own petty obsessions though.  A lot of people, once over the shock of Jim Robinson cropping up in The OC or Ugly Betty, were also surprised to see the avuncular Jim showing a mean and unpleasant side.  Whereas people like me who saw him first as the single-minded and cranky Dr Forrest knew that menace was his strong point, and his casting as Aaron Copley suited him to a tee.  Copley wasn't a particularly well-drawn character, which is why you needed someone like Dale to fill things out with some well-judged nostril flaring.  I really enjoyed his scene with Barrowman - the "Check with Whitehall" comment and Jack's response was a welcome reference to the events in The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords .  It certainly gave rise (in me anyway) to the idea that we still don't know exactly what the Master did during his time in power, and it doesn't seem out of the question that any number of dodgy quangos could have been set up when he was in charge of the Ministry of Defence.  The Pharm could have been one of them, but there could be others and it would be nice if this idea could be expanded on later in the series.  On the flipside there is the problem that reminding us about Saxon just reminds us that the team haven't mentioned the Himalaya expedition, and no-one seems to remember the President being murdered on Captain Scarlet's skybase.  But we'll just have to let that one go.

Of course, this episode wasn't just about Dale.  Good old Martha was back in action, and I thought her return was handled very well with about as little time wasted reintroducing her as could be done without being rude.  It was nice to see her back, and the reasons for her return made sense even if she had gone from being a medical student to an all-round super genius in a matter of weeks.  (Or is it months? Somebody go and check in AHistory and let me know.)  But I suppose in her "gap year" as well as walking the Earth, reading Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon to Croatians and toasting marshmallows over the burning islands of Japan, she might have had time to cram in some extra revision.  Despite this expertise, if she had shown up in the first series then she would have probably been shot and date-raped (in that order) before they'd added her to the coffee rota, but as it is she fitted in nicely with the new, team-like, Torchwood team.  Indeed it's hard to know why they, or the producers, would be inclined to let her go again.  I don't think Martha is the most exciting character in the world, but she would make sense as a regular on the show.  So think on BBC Wales and get Freema to sign up now.

she would have probably been shot and date-raped (in that order) before they'd added her to the coffee rota

As if all this wasn't enough, Reset was written by the mighty JC Wilsher, a man who has been criminally (arf arf) underused since Between the Lines finished all those years ago.  For those of you who haven't seen it, Between the Lines was a first-rate paranoid cop thriller for at least two series and if it doesn't look as impressive now it's only because so many subsequent programmes have copied it.  Reset may not be up to Wilsher's best work, but the script was a lot leaner than some of the other, rather baroque, Torchwood episodes.  The plot made sense on its own terms, I loved the eye cameras, and Martha's nocturnal prowl around the Pharm opening combi-locks and cracking computers was effectively tense in a "Mission Quite Difficult" sort of way.  This bit of "very civilized" industrial espionage worked very well for the basis for an episode.  And it was good to get away from the shouting and running for a change.

I have quibbles of course.  Jack pontificating to Copley about a "war crime" was a bit much considering his behaviour this series and especially as he'd just been using weevils as instruments of torture.  Pot kettle.  And the alien menagerie did remind me a little of the climax to Paul Cornell's recent Primeval episode.  Do the writers hang around in the same pubs, or just go through each others' bins?  But this was such an enjoyable episode that even the new "nice" Owen being pumped full of hot lead couldn't dampen my spirits.  I was sad to see Dale go out with a slug in the head, but hopefully that means the sad memory of his wedding day and the late Liz Kennedy has been extinguished forever.  RIP Dr Forrest.  Torchwood 9/10, tick, VG.