Companions: Fifty Years of Doctor Who Assistants (42 page)

Sometime after leaving the Doctor, and having qualified as a doctor herself, she is offered a job with UNIT. When she tells Jack this in
Torchwood: Reset
, they both believe it was the Doctor’s doing, later confirmed in
The Sontaran Stratagem
. In 2009 she is called in to help Torchwood. She tells Jack that her family is getting better and that she sometimes misses the Doctor. There is an obvious fondness between Jack and her which intrigues the Torchwood team – even though Jack has been closer to them since his reunion with the Doctor (
Utopia - The Last of the Time Lords
) he is still something of a mystery and they enjoy having someone there who knows him personally. Martha is careful to not reveal much about Jack, seemingly enjoying the mystery, and she particularly bonds well with Gwen Cooper and Owen Harper. When Torchwood need someone to go undercover and infiltrate the Pharm, Martha offers. The team are not so sure, but Jack is confident. As Martha says, she has been in worse situations. She takes on the alias Sam Jones (a clever in-joke and nod to an Expanded Universe companion of the Eighth Doctor). She is somewhat curious about Jack’s private life, and his interpersonal relations with the Torchwood team, in particular Ianto Jones. When questioned, Ianto plays it coy, and offers up very little information but just enough to make Martha even more curious than before.

Due to her journeys through time, she has undergone several positive mutations, and is thus a perfect incubator for the alien Mayfly. She is saved by Owen – twice. Once, when he removes the Mayfly from her and later when Pharm Director, Aaron Copley, attempts to shoot her and Owen takes the bullet. Owen is resurrected by Jack, and he begins to flirt with Martha, but she tells him that she is already dating someone. Difference is, Owen says, he saved Martha’s life, but then Martha points out that the man she is dating also saved her life (an oblique reference to Tom Milligan who laid his life down for her during the Year That Never Was – confirmed later in
The Sontaran Stratagem
). Despite her best efforts, while serving as Torchwood’s temporary medic (
Torchwood: Reset - A Day in the Death
), she fails to find a way to restore Owen’s life, but signs him off as fit for duty again. She goes to great lengths to point out that she doesn’t want Owen’s job – she is just staying on as a favour to Jack. She is aged by the Duroc (Death itself), but is restored when Owen beats it (a third save for Owen!). Before leaving Torchwood, she gives Jack a snog, explaining that ‘everyone else has had a go’. Jack tells her she can come back at any time, and she responds with a ‘maybe I will’.

Martha makes good on her promise to call the Doctor back. She summons him to help with a UNIT investigation into ATMOS (
The Sontaran Stratagem
). They have a very warm reunion, and Martha takes well to Donna, who is now travelling with the Doctor. Donna explains that the Doctor talks about Martha all the time, that he says ‘really good things’ and Martha realises that the Doctor has told Donna everything. Noticing Martha’s engagement ring Donna says, ‘Didn’t take you long to get over it, though. Who’s the lucky man?’ Martha tells them about her and Tom. Both the Doctor and Donna are a little alarmed at how involved she is with UNIT, even though the Doctor recommended her, and Donna queries if he has turned Martha into a soldier (a good point, and not far from the mark as later revealed in both
Journey’s End
and
The End of Time
). Martha points out that she doesn’t wear a gun, and that it is OK for the Doctor, he can just come and go: ‘I’ve got to work from the inside. And by staying inside maybe I stand a chance of making them better.’ The Doctor is pleased, thinking that sounds more like the Martha he remembers. Martha tells Donna about the damage done to her family – that if you stand too close to the Doctor you end up getting burned. ‘It wasn’t the Doctor’s fault, but you need to be careful. Cause you know the Doctor – he’s wonderful, he’s brilliant, but he’s like fire.’ She has Security Level One clearance in UNIT, which shows how high up she actually is. She is cloned by the Sontarans, which the Doctor notices almost immediately. He questions the clone’s lack of concern for Martha’s family when the ATMOS gas spreads out – a pointer to his suspicions. When Martha is revived, she sits comforting the clone, watching it die. She wears the Doctor’s coat for a short time, and Donna tells her it ‘sort of works’, but Martha points out that she feels like she is walking around in her dad’s clothes. ‘Oh well, if you’re calling him “dad” you’re definitely over him.’ Both Donna and the Doctor want Martha to come with them, but Martha is happy to stay behind. She has got her job, and she has got Tom, and when the TARDIS takes off unexpectedly with Martha still on board, she screams out for the Doctor to take her back. But it isn’t his doing!

Despite this, when the TARDIS lands on Messaline in
The Doctor’s Daughter
, Martha finds herself excited about stepping onto an alien world again. She is there when Jenny is created from the Doctor’s DNA, but shortly after is separated from the Doctor, Donna and Jenny, finding herself a prisoner of the Hath. She wins their trust immediately by using her medical knowledge to tend to a wounded Hath, who quickly bonds with her. Despite the fact that the Hath do not use words to communicate, Martha seems able to understand them – presumably via the TARDIS’ telepathic circuits. When she starts sinking into a bog, the Hath jumps in to save her, even though he then dies as a result. The grief overpowers her for a while, but she still manages to make her way across the surface of Messaline and finds the Doctor once more. When Jenny is shot, Martha is the first to realise she is dead, that even though she is made from the Doctor, she is not going to regenerate. She knows that she can’t carry on in the Doctor’s world anymore, and Donna wonders how Martha can go back to a normal life after seeing all this. She is sure she’ll carry on with the Doctor forever. Nonetheless, Martha leaves the TARDIS once more and walks towards her house, fingering her engagement ring.

Months later we see she is now working in New York for UNIT’s secret Project: Indigo as medical director. She seems to be on first name terms with all the staff, and when the Earth is transported to the Medusa Cascade in
The Stolen Earth
, she receives a call from Jack, who is fully aware of the project. The Daleks attack the UNIT base and Martha is forced to use the teleporter even though Jack strongly warns her against it – and she is given the Osterhagen Key by General Sanchez, the ultimate defence of Earth placed in her hands.

Once she is convinced there is little hope for Earth against the Daleks, she travels to Germany and uses the key as ransom . If she uses the key, it will destroy the planet. She offers them a chance to surrender, believing she is doing as the Doctor would want, but the Daleks lock onto her and transport her to the Crucible. There she is amazed to see that the Doctor has managed to find Rose again. She helps pilot the TARDIS in towing the Earth back to its proper spatial location, and says her goodbyes to the Doctor once again. She walks off with Jack, who tells her that he is not so sure about UNIT anymore, implying that he wants her to join him at Torchwood (since Owen died a final time they need a new medic). They are joined seconds later by Mickey.

During the 456 crisis, a suggestion is made for Torchwood to contact Martha (
Torchwood: Children of Earth
), but Jack won’t have it, as Martha is on her honeymoon and she deserves to be happy. It is implied that Martha and Tom have finally married. However when we next see Martha in
The End of Time
she is working freelance and is married to Mickey. It is an odd development that makes very little narrative sense, since everything points towards her marrying Tom. This is odd considering Martha and Mickey never shared a single word during
The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End
two-parter. Clearly more happened off-screen after Mickey caught up with Jack and Martha than has ever been mentioned on television.

Jack Harkness
–
John Barrowman
continued… (
Torchwood
and
Utopia
to
The Last of the Time Lords
, and
The Stolen Earth
to
Journey’s End
, plus
The End of Time
)

Jack’s return occurs in 2008 in
Utopia
, seemingly two years after the Doctor leaves him on Satellite 5 at the end of
The Parting of the Ways
. He appears, running across Roald Dahl Plas, Cardiff Bay, towards the TARDIS which has stopped to refuel. The Doctor spots Jack, and with a look of distaste, he sets the TARDIS in motion again. With a yell of ‘Doctor!’ Jack jumps onto the TARDIS, clinging to it as it travels through the time vortex to the year one trillion, a journey which kills him.

But what is he doing in Cardiff in the twenty-first century and how did he get back there? Jack uses his vortex manipulator to travel back to Earth, getting the dates wrong, and ends up on Earth in 1869. It isn’t until 1892 though, when he is shot on Ellis Island and survives that he begins to question his mortality. A few more deaths show him an unmistakable truth – he is ‘the man who cannot die’. He realises that only the Doctor can explain to him what has happened, so he makes his way to Cardiff to situate himself near the Rift, knowing that eventually the Doctor will return to refuel the TARDIS. After waiting six months he comes to the attention of Torchwood Three (
Torchwood: Fragments
) in 1899. They enlist him for one job and offer him more work, but he isn’t interested, until a fortune teller tells him that the Doctor will not return until the centuries turn twice. Realising he needs something to do in the meantime, he agrees to work for Torchwood.

In 1944 he meets and falls in love with a woman called Estelle Cole, but eventually has to leave. He contacts her again at some point before 2007, posing as his own son (
Torchwood: Small Worlds
). In 1975 he dates another Torchwood agent, Lucia Moretti, and has a daughter, Melissa. At some point, Melissa enters a Witness Protection programme under the name of Alice Sangster. He keeps in semi-regular contact with her, and is known to her son (Jack’s grandson) as ‘Uncle Jack’ (
Torchwood: The Children of Earth
).

After a hundred years serving as a field agent for Torchwood, Jack returns on New Year’s Eve 1999 to discover that the head of Torchwood Three, Alex Hopkins, killed the rest of the team before committing suicide. As the new head of Torchwood Three, Jack realises he will need to assemble a new team, and change Torchwood from within; rebuilding it in the Doctor’s honour.

By the time of
Torchwood
series one, Jack has taken to wearing a uniform similar to one he sported in
The Empty Child
. It could be suggested that Jack’s mode of dress is a constant reminder of why he is on Earth and who he is waiting for.

Not long before the Doctor returns, Jack travels back to 1941 (
Torchwood: Captain Jack Harkness
) where he meets the real Captain Jack Harkness, whose identity he borrowed shortly before first meeting the Doctor in
The Empty Child
. The two Jacks fall in love, but Jack is very aware that Captain Harkness is due to die the next day – they enjoy a romantic dance before Jack returns back to 2008. Shortly after, Jack dies for several days, his life force having fed Abaddon, the son of the Beast (
Torchwood: End of Days
).

At some point Jack obtains the Doctor’s severed hand, cut off by the Sycorax leader on Christmas Day 2006 (
The Christmas Invasion
), and keeps it in a jar in the Torchwood Hub – he later calls it his ‘Doctor detector’, which makes perfect sense since it reacts to the presence of the Doctor, as seen in
Torchwood: End of Days
. It is this reaction, and the sound of the TARDIS materialising above the Hub, that sends Jack running towards it.

At this point in his long life, Jack has become a much harder character, bitter almost for having to live over a hundred years on Earth just to find answers. He has no idea what happened to him on Satellite 5, or why he can no longer die. During his time in the twentieth century he even pays occasional visits to the Powell Estate to watch Rose grow up, but he is careful to not let her see him. After the Battle of Canary Wharf (
Doomsday
) Jack notices that Rose’s name is on the list of the dead, and he finds himself carrying this loss with him for almost two years until the Doctor tells him about Rose’s life on Pete’s World, which is a joyous moment for Jack.
In
Torchwood: Everything Changes
Jack enlists police constable Gwen Cooper into Torchwood service, and throughout the first series she serves a very similar function to Rose during the 2005 series of
Doctor Who
. In much the same way as Rose helps the Ninth Doctor rediscover himself, through her enthusiasm and passion for life, Gwen’s own passion for life and people, reminds Jack of the man he used to be before he became hardened by a century of service with Torchwood. He recognises this early on (in
Torchwood: Day One
), and tells her to hold on to her life outside Torchwood – it keeps her grounded, and that’s something they all need.

In
Utopia
, when Martha steps out of the TARDIS on Malcassairo, she is certain that Jack is dead, but the Doctor tells her not to bother with him. He is very aware of Jack’s state, and when Jack comes-to, he scares the pants off Martha. And then, as is his way, flirts with her while saying hello. Some things don’t change, regardless of time. His reunion with the Doctor is not a very happy one, ‘You abandoned me,’ Jack points out and receives a very blasé response from the Doctor. Jack does not understand the Doctor’s attitude towards him, but as the three of them race to rescue a man being chased by an angry mob of Futurekind, Jack remembers the joy of being with the Doctor, ‘Oh, I’ve missed this!’ he says, beaming. When Jack attempts to shoot some of the mob, the Doctor stops him, but he doesn’t stop the guards of the Silo – they’re not the Doctor’s responsibility, Jack is. ‘That makes a change,’ says a very bitter Jack.