...or being painted as deliberately negligent of one's studies if they happen to be away for a couple of months.

First of all, that's my opinion, which I'm perfectly entitled to. And note it's not one that I solely slap on Martha - if one of my friends decided to skive off for some unspecified-yet-lengthy amount of time, I'd think they were slacking off too.

Second of all, she wasn't gone for 'a few months.' She was gone for, at an absolute minimum, a year and a half, and probably more like two years.

I seriously doubt the writers hold the same concerns as you.

They may or may not decide to make a big deal out of it. That's why I said I'd be interested to see what they do.

What I'm more hoping they'll get into is Martha's family dynamic with Leo, since everyone else has now been through this big trauma and he hasn't. Are they trying to pretend nothing's happened? Leo doesn't seem daft - one would assume he'd notice everyone's acting rather differently. And what about Annalise? Not that we're invested in her as a character, but are Clive and Francine actually going to get back together or have they just declared a truce?

I'm going to assume they won't get into any of her family stuff during her really short stint on Torchwood, but I guess we'll find out soon enough.