“Please Get Me in That Room”: ‘Doctor Who’s Freema Agyeman Explains Why We Never Got More Martha Jones in ‘Torchwood’

While acting is a full-time job, it’s also an incredibly irregular full-time job. Unless you’ve landed a huge IP that will have you sitting comfy for years on royalties or a long-standing procedural where you’re the lead, it’s any guess what your next project and, therefore, your next job, will be. During a panel at MegaCon in Orlando, moderated by Collider’s Maggie Lovitt, Freema Agyeman, who played Martha Jones, revealed she was actually supposed to be a part of the Doctor Who universe longer than what fans ended up seeing. She left after being a companion to David Tennant’s Doctor in Season 3 and came back for a couple of guest appearances after that. “So actually I was meant to, I don’t know if I’ve said this before, but I was meant to… I was meant to go to Torchwood full-time actually after Doctor Who.”

Torchwood was a Doctor Who spin-off that ran for four seasons about a covert agency, with the team in focus led by Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman). Agyeman explains “Then it was delays with all of the writing scripts, other things going on at the time, like contracts… like it was just like… there’s always so much going on.” She explains, “So sometimes we have an idea of what we wanna do and where we’re going, and then the universe intervenes” Instead, Agyeman ended up starring on Law and Order: UK. The British police procedural, created by Dick Wolf, is a spin-off from the Law & Order franchise that ran for eight seasons. Agyeman starred as Alesha Phillips from Seasons 1 through 6. Phillips was a junior CPS prosecutor until she left to become a prosecutor elsewhere. Agyeman explains why that opportunity took her away from the Who-niverse:

“Then the opportunity to audition for Law and Order came up, and I am a huge Law and Order fan, and when I found out we were doing it, it was rare that we often adapt American series, it’s often the other way round. So it was coming to the UK and Dick Wolf was attached and I was like please get me in that room. So that was happening at the same time and as timings go… that came up, and I went in that direction.”

Martha Jones Deserved Better From ‘Doctor Who’ Fans

A lot of long-time fans argue that Martha Jones is an over-hated character. Agyeman not only had to contend with the fact that she was coming in as a new companion after the departure of Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) but also the fact that she was the first woman of color to be a companion in the rebooted series. There wouldn’t be another long-term companion that was a woman of color until Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie) in Season 10. It’s often cited that fans just didn’t give Martha the fair shake she deserved because they were so devastated by the end of Rose’s arc. Martha provided fresh air for The Doctor, something he needed. While some plotlines were filled with the early 2000s trope of a doe-eyed woman falling for the Doctor, Martha called him on his nonsense. That willingness to do so no doubt also ruffled some feathers, but it’s often those characters that do so, that bring the best out of The Doctor’s character, no matter who is writing them.

Missing Martha Jones now? (Always.) You can rewatch Agyeman’s stint on Doctor Who now on Max. Stay with Collider for the latest updates.