I have to admit that when Dora and Marten broke up in the surreal slice-of-life comic Questionable Content, part of me was expecting for these two to work things out and end up back together again. For all my irritation at some of Dora’s quirks (and her disrespect for Marten’s privacy), they seemed to be a fairly happy couple. (I suppose it didn’t help that Randy Milholland (of Something Positive) drew a guest comic that ridiculed the whole breakup and hinted that Dora still has feelings for Marten.) So seeing Dora going out on a date with someone else (amusingly enough her male counterpart from The Secret Bakery) was a bit of a surprise, all things considered.
Not that the date is going to be anything other than a huge disaster, mind you. Dora’s only been in counseling for a short while, and her freaking out over Faye’s casual acceptance that Dora’s going out on a date is evidence enough that she is just as damaged as she was when she dated Marten. What’s more, I’d be willing to bet that her counterpart from the bakery is just as screwed up as Dora is, and that we’ll be seeing things blow up spectacularly. Probably the only thing that would make this even more insane is for Marten to somehow end up at the restaurant Dora’s at, allowing for yet another blowup between the two.
Fortunately, the traditional sitcom approach seems to be lacking: Marten’s going to a party his friend and coworker Tai is throwing (as she has the hots for Dora as well), so we’re not likely to see him picked up by some stray girl who actually was dating Dora’s counterpart. Though I have to admit, it would be amusing to see a female equivalent to Marten; the only problem is I suspect they’d hit it off far better than Marten and Dora ultimately did, so there would be little reason for them to accidentally sabotage Dora’s date. Thankfully, whatever wacky hijinks ensue will likely be caused by Dora alone. This is a good thing; I suspect Marten’s suffered enough for now.