I think the episode looks worse in retrospect. When I first saw it, we were still in the first series which had a marginally lighter tone and we were sort of being sold on the idea of "everybody's bi." That was dramatically pulled back in the 2nd series, and even moreso in the 3rd.
As I'm thinking it through now, given my real aversion to what happens to Tosh in Adam, it's hard to see how Mary is that much different. They're both playing on the same deep-seated needs and in both cases Tosh seems like a rape victim who blames herself. The fact that she doesn't want to let go of the memories in Adam is heartbreaking and deeply disturbing if you take it on a feminist level.
I think it would have done Tosh's character a world of good, if we could have gotten ONE bi-sexual throw-away line in the 2nd series, or if she'd given Martha the eye or something. I still see her as a repressed bisexual, but I wish TPTB hadn't backed away so blatantly from most of the "everybody is bi" theme and let her be not quite so repressed.
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As I'm thinking it through now, given my real aversion to what happens to Tosh in Adam, it's hard to see how Mary is that much different. They're both playing on the same deep-seated needs and in both cases Tosh seems like a rape victim who blames herself. The fact that she doesn't want to let go of the memories in Adam is heartbreaking and deeply disturbing if you take it on a feminist level.
I think it would have done Tosh's character a world of good, if we could have gotten ONE bi-sexual throw-away line in the 2nd series, or if she'd given Martha the eye or something. I still see her as a repressed bisexual, but I wish TPTB hadn't backed away so blatantly from most of the "everybody is bi" theme and let her be not quite so repressed.