The Sun is claiming that former companions Rose Tyler, Martha Jones and Sarah Jane Smith will all walk down the aisle by the time that Davies and Tennant leave the series at the end of the year. The newspaper even claims to know who the first two will be marrying:

Fans will see Rose Tyler - played by Billie Piper - marry the half-human clone of the Doctor in their parallel universe. Meanwhile, Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) - her replacement as assistant - will tie the knot with Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke). Tennant will also make a special guest appearance in the CBBC spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures for the wedding of his former companion Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen).

I'd love to be unconvinced by this rumor, especially since fans are supposedly taking credit for starting it in the first place. At the same time, this is Russell T. Davies, a man whose sentimentality and desire to bring back old familar faces knows no limits. I'm holding out hope that Rose's appearance ends with her turning to the camera and saying "I swear, you'll never see me on this show again. Honest," though.

Dr Who's three I dos [The Sun]

MSN Entertainment is reporting that David Tennant's final episode as the Tardis-travelin' Time Lord will see a return not only of companions Billie Piper, Freema Agyeman and Catherine Tate but also John Simm's The Master, while Den of Geek are chiming in with the rumor that Jessica Hynes - who played the Doctor's love interest in season three's "Human Nature" two-parter - will also be making a reappearance in the final two-part story that closes both Tennant's and showrunner Russell T. Davies' tenure on the show.

Is it wrong of me to feel kind of depressed by this news? I love a huge guest-star-filled extravaganza as much as the next fanboy - but the sad fact is, we've already had one of those with season four's "This Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End" two-parter, which confused bringing back as many characters as possible with having an actual story... a trick that you can only really get away with once. Especially when that story ends with pretty definitive ends for both Rose Tyler and Donna Noble, making me wonder just how they're going to return for these new episodes without undoing those stories (And in Rose's case, undoing it again; how is anyone supposed to care about what happens to her now, if she's managed to come back from final farewells twice?).

But there's something about these returns that crystalizes one of the problems with the Davies Era; a tendency to repeat itself. We didn't need a Dalek storyline every season, especially considering the quality of some of those storylines, and the number of times they were "permanently" defeated, only to return the next year, just as the series never failed to return to characters and situations from years gone by (Whether the original series' Sontarans, the Master or the Cybermen or more recent creations like the Ood, the Face of Boe or even the farting Slitheen) whenever some audience success seems to be available from doing so. For all that Davies managed to give the show (and he gave a lot, not least of all giving the show a new life that no-one else had managed for years), there was always some strange feeling of comfortable nostalgia about the whole thing almost always.

Perhaps that's as it should be; Doctor Who is, after all, a family-orientated show aimed as much at children as adults, so perhaps being comforting and familiar comes with that territory. Surely, if nothing else, then seeing Donna and Martha and Rose again will bring cheers and gasps of disbelief from the kids, and that's what the show should really be aiming at. It's just that... At its best, Doctor Who is about wonder and discovery and adventure, and none of those things can be found by constantly going back to what you know, especially when you've already done just that very thing. Here's hoping that Steven Moffat brings the new in more than just new lead actors and set when he takes over, and the show stops going in reverse all the time.

1. Martha

"You know, I'm not sure about UNIT these days. Maybe there's something else you could be doing," leered Captain Jack at the end of Doctor Who's most recent season. He and Martha walked off hand-in-hand, with her smiling up at him and gleefully anticipating what must be a giant pay cut. So why has there been nary a hint of Freema Agyeman love in any of the recent articles hailing new Torchwood guest stars? Why does her IMDb profile have her off filming a different TV series?

Martha Jones graced us with her powerful presence for three episodes of Torchwood's second season; everyone was happy to see her, she used her medical talents to full advantage, and she even managed to flirt a little. In other words, the BBC showrunners were setting her up to be a member of the team. And now that Dr. Owen Harper has left the building — this time, permanently — our alien-hunting Welsh trio could certainly use a doctor. If she doesn't make a surprise appearance at the start of season 3 and then become a series regular, there had better be a team of interns at Torchwood HQ to take the inevitable angry phone calls.

2. Mickey

Noel Clarke has had his foot in the door of the Hub for quite awhile; he wrote season 1's "Combat," which gave us many a Weevil caged match and the odd Owen Harper brawl. After busting out of a parallel universe and returning to save our beloved Earth, Clarke's Mickey Smith is ready for anything. We last saw him in the denouement of the Doctor Who finale "Journey's End," and he had his arms thrown over the shoulders of Jack Harkness and Martha Jones. Though there are reports of Clarke on set at the series 3 filming, the BBC hasn't released anything to the press using his name and the words "Torchwood" and "regular." For shame.

Listen, I'm as excited about new guest stars as anybody — especially Paul Copley, who stole my heart when I was a young middle-schooler devouring A&E's Horatio Hornblower. But every day that Torchwood announcements emerge and I don't see Noel Clarke's name on them, that heart of mine shrivels a little bit. Mickey's fought Daleks, Cybermen, and the Doctor's bad moods. He's ready for primetime. The combined awesomeness of Smith and Jones — that is to say, Mickey and Martha — is all the proof I need for Julie Gardner's assertion that Torchwood's third series will be "unmissable TV."

So: Why so secretive, BBC? Give the people what they want!

Images from NewsOK.com, BBC America, and Adventures in Time and Space.

Agyeman explained that the unnamed "highly impeccable source" that helped Martha get the job with UNIT was a very familiar face:

The fact that it was the Doctor? Thing is, when I go back into Doctor Who and the Doctor and Martha meet up again, they do talk about the fact that she's worked at UNIT. So it is re-iterated and explained more. But it was him that got her the job there, yeah... [W]hen they do meet again it's more in a professional capacity. She's outgrown him really. She was always mature, independent and all those things but she was still a bit wide-eyed with him. And that's what's gone. She still really respects him and knows he's far beyond her intellect and the rest of it, but she was dominated by him and now there's a different dynamic there. Ultimately they're the same people, so there's still that connection, but it's a different dynamic.

They've still got this friendship but there's somebody else in Martha's life now so she doesn't need The Doctor in that respect. That part of her soul has been fulfilled. That attraction has dissipated and it's quite professional. It's nice to see how they've moved on, because she did feel quite strongly about him.

I would like to continue a little bit with Martha. I don't know how, or in what capacity, but I feel there is a little bit more I could do with her. I would like to stay within the family, whichever way... the door is kind of left ajar, in some ways, I guess, so we will see - but I would definitely like to stick around.

For most of season two, Torchwood has felt like a struggle between actual drama, with real emotions, and "drama," with shouting and manufactured tensions. (For example, the tail end of season one, where all the other characters suddenly turn on Jack, was full of "drama" but lacked actual drama.) So far, most of the real drama has come from guest stars, like the woman who finds out she's really an alien agent, or the World War I soldier who has to sacrifice himself.

But last night, we got actually great dramatic performances from some of the main cast members. In particular, Gwen's boyfriend Rhys was actually quite heart-breaking when Gwen forgets who he is, due to an alien that alters memories. And in the clip above, when Adam the memory-fucker makes Ianto think he's a serial killer, I totally bought Ianto's self-loathing and revulsion. It could have been horribly cheesy (and sort of was, a little) but Gareth David-Lloyd (who plays Ianto) made me buy into it. Even John Barrowman, who has a hard time doing anything other than cute and flirty, almost made me buy into Captain Jack's childhood trauma. Almost. (I don't have much to say about Captain Jack's childhood, except that the show really looked super low-budget for once.)

And then in the second episode of the night, Freema Agyeman showed up as Martha (from parent show Doctor Who.) And having her to bounce off seemed to make everybody else more interesting. The new version of Martha is hyper-competent and super-smart, with almost James Bondian levels of having-all-the-answers. (She suddenly knows all about the twin particle thingy.) And because Martha is mega-competent, she made all the Torchwoodies get their act together a bit more too. Suddenly everybody was good at their jobs.

And then at the end of the second episode, there was a Shocking Plot Twist. Alas, it looks as though this development will be undone in the following episode, and in the silliest possible fashion. (Read this morning's Morning Spoilers for the details.) Which is too bad, because letting it stick would have made me a mega-fan of Torchwood for life. Because it genuinely came out of nowhere and was startling. It would make the show's stakes feel a lot higher. Unfortunately, Torchwood is a show with a time rift and miracle tech, and timey whimey, flimsy whimsy, so anything bad that ever happens can be reversed with the press of a button.

So I'm abandoning my old Torchwood reviewing scale, because there were two episodes, and also because it doesn't seem to fit the new season as well. But in brief: yes, both episodes had plots. The one about Adam, the memory-faking monster, sort of made sense. The one about the insects that cure AIDS and then burst out of you really didn't, at least to me. Probably, when the BBC reruns the episodes during the family hour in kid-friendly edited versions, they'll still make about as much sense. There wasn't much naughtiness, although Rhys got naked again, and Toshiko wore a low-cut blouse. We had more hints of Captain Jack-Ianto raunchiness, but didn't get to see any. Captain Jack had some cute flirty moments. And here's Martha grilling Ianto about Captain Jack's lovemaking:

From the keyboard-mashing of fans:

"In the new Radio Times John Barrowman says of Martha [Jones, former-Who companion who's appearing in both Doctor Who and Torchwood this year] that she joins Torchwood as a member of U.N.I.T. This is the first official confirmation of the long standing rumour that Martha is now in the employ of U.N.I.T. in TW and in S4 of Dr Who."

"He out and out says she's in UNIT, not just talk about some important organisation? Seriously?"

"'Martha = Teh Awesomes. UNIT! Martha = Teh Uber Awesomes of Doom. Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...."

"Squee!for Martha coolness."

For those who aren't familiar with UNIT, it's a military organization from the '70s incarnation of the series (the name is an acronym for "United Nations Intelligence Taskforce") that has been mentioned in all three of the current Doctor Who-universe series. Quite why Martha's new credentials are cause for squeeing, I'm not so sure. Maybe there are a lot of people who want to see her in uniform out there.

Martha's status confirmed [Doctorwhoforum.com]

• Is Sarah Michelle Gellar's new movie Possession science fiction? Her character's husband and brother-in-law both wind up in comas, then the brother-in-law wakes up thinking he's the husband. Telepathy or mysticism? We'll find out in February. [Shocktillyoudrop]
• The Russian trailer for Cloverfield showcases some previously unseen sequences of soldiers fighting the monster, plus women with fake sweat on their chests. [BloodyDisgusting]
• Similarly, new clips from Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem show battle scenes in a sewer, a hospital and a pool party, plus a soldier doing the whole "you go on without me" martyr dance. [IESB]
• Coming (eventually) in Heroes: more of "badass" future Hiro, Hiro's dad's secret powers, the long-promised Jessica Collins super-spy, and a cop and crimelord in New Orleans. Oh, and Monica will dress up as Saint Joan, that cheesy comic book character, more often. [Ohnotheydidnt]
• Screencaps from the Torchwood season two trailer reveal Martha Jones in bondage! [FreemaAgyeman]
• The new KITT from the Knight Rider relaunch has all-wheel drive, laser weapons, a "mini-KITT drone" and other features that the original lacked. But no grappling hook. [Popular Mechanics, via SFSignal]
• Chuck has two more episodes in the can, which reveal more backstory on Adam Baldwin's character. [SpoilerTV]