butterfly: (Time Lord Science)
butterfly ([personal profile] butterfly) wrote2007-09-21 08:05 pm
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Doctor Who: Did we need Martha?

Because Russell T Davies seemed to feel that the show needed to have a character who would fall in (unrequited) love with the Doctor, thus illustrating the difference between Rose and everyone else. Did it?

In some superficial ways, Martha is quite a lot like Rose -- pretty, clever Londoner girls, both of them. They even get some echo dialogue in the early episodes. The show puts them in comparable situations frequently. There are both parallels to draw and contrasts to mark.

Mostly, though, there's the Doctor.

I wasn't surprised about Martha's emotional arc. And, though it was heavy-handed at times ("He had to fall in love with a human... and it wasn't me."), I actually do agree with RTD that it was necessary. In order to establish someone as One Thing, you need to establish someone else as Other Thing. And, in this particular context, he wanted to make a distinction between one character and the entire history and future of characters to come.

Yes -- Martha was, in part, all about how special Rose was. Which sucks if you hate Rose. If you hate Rose Tyler, then a series of television that is basically saying, "Yeah, that blonde chick? One of a kind," is pretty much guaranteed to piss you off (and, of course, to the person desperately missing Rose, having episode after episode point out how irreplaceable she was is hardly going to help in the process of getting over her).

But... as the show makes very, very clear -- Rose isn't special in the ultimate 'best person ever' way. She's special in the 'best person for this one specific character/relationship' way. The Doctor writes out that she's 'perfect Rose' and, to him, she is. Now, was Rose actually portrayed as a 'perfect' character?

*bursts out laughing*

She could be petty and jealous. She wandered off. She had a tendency to throw herself into dangerous situations for personal reasons. She nearly destroyed the world because she couldn't listen to instructions. Rose Tyler was flawed.

In a lot of ways, Martha is a 'better' person. Higher class (which matters to some people). More education. Better at staying put and following instructions. Tends to do the right thing. Not so apt to get into trouble. Again, not a perfect person (she, too, had the flaw of 'jealousy'), but from an objective standpoint, probably a better bet to make. But, as they say, the heart has reasons that reason cannot know.

Now, Martha is not the first time that New Who made the distinction between Rose and Other Companions. In fact, every time that the Doctor took on someone else, it was made clear that the Doctor and Rose were a unit and other folk were nice but not necessary (something that Jack took much more easily than Mickey). Rose is the person who invites Adam and Jack on board and is also clearly the impetus for the Doctor inviting Sarah Jane on board.

There are two pre-S3 examples of the difference between Rose and Everyone Else. The first is in The Parting of the Ways, when the Doctor sends Rose home, keeps her out of danger, while everyone else is involved in the fighting (made very clear when he calls her over to help him with the wiring and takes her out of the 'active fighter' count). The second is in School Reunion and the conversation in the street that ends with the Doctor telling Rose that she won't be left behind and very nearly telling her that he loves her ("Imagine watching that happen to someone you-").

And SR, of course, has Sarah Jane -- who serves as our stand-in for Old School Companions. The Doctor very clearly has both admiration and affection for Sarah Jane (just as he does for Martha), but he's utterly thrown by the notion that he was her 'life' and that she couldn't move on without him (we see this echoed when Martha says that the Doctor is 'everything' to her, while she's basically a side-note to him -- a fun, smart, lovable side-note, but a side-note nonetheless). And both Sarah Jane and Martha have to choose to say good-bye to the Doctor in order to start getting over him.

Back when S3 was first airing, I pondered the notion that RTD was using Martha to 'ramp down' from the idea of the Doctor as a sexual/romantic person. Grace was the ramp up, a person that the Doctor was interested in who liked him not his life; Rose was the bridge (the apex; the climax; the transformation), someone he adored who adored both him and the life he offered; and Martha was someone who liked the life he offered, thought he was attractive, but didn't seem to know or like him very much as a person. Going right from Grace and Rose to a Doctor/companion relationship that was completely lacking in romance/sexuality would either be a bit of a harsh break or possibly lead to confusion. So, in order to make his divisions clear, RTD put in an intermediary position where the Doctor was clearly still a sexual/romantic figure ('lost prince') but had no interest in pursuing sex or romance (and I find it so fascinating that both of the 'unsuitable' choices were doctors -- it may show that the Doctor needs someone who complements him, not someone who echoes him).

RTD appears to believe that Martha was a necessary character to show the difference between Rose and the rest of the Doctor's companions. In balance, though I think her part could have been more strongly written, I agree.



ETA: In the end, I think the real problem with Martha is that they only had a six-episode story to tell with her (Smith & Jones through Gridlock and Utopia through Last of the Time Lords). She would have worked better if she hadn't stayed the whole season.
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[identity profile] butterfly.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 03:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, yeah, it does suck that those are considered to be things that make someone 'better', but I've seen too many people bash Rose for being a 'chav' and 'stupid' (because, of course, lack of education and lack of intelligence are the same thing. *rolls eyes*) not to know that it matters a hell of a lot to some people. For some, Martha training to be a doctor and never living in an estate does make her a better person than Rose.
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[identity profile] butterfly.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 03:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks. And if you have anything to add later, I'd love to read it.
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[identity profile] butterfly.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 03:25 pm (UTC)(link)
I found while watching season three that I enjoyed the Doctor's arc with Martha far more than hers with him. She went around in circles, which isn't so much fun to watch. But his emotional arc was far more complex.

It really was. That's part of what makes me so sad about the series, because the Doctor's arc was still there and good, so why did they fall down so hard on Martha's? It causes disappointment in the writers.
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[identity profile] butterfly.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 03:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Martha's character arc may have theoretically been intended to serve a long-term narrative purpose, but as executed it fell totally flat on its face.

Indeed. I can see what she was supposed to do (also basing that on what RTD has said about her character over the course of the series, which has been rather consistent), but the part was definitely under-written.

I think the fault is mostly that of TPTB. The writers got very lazy with the writing of their main characters in Series 3. Whether this is because they were used to having two leads who just completely inhabited their characters, I don't know. But as I've noted elsewhere, you can't severely underwrite a role unless the actor's capable of essentially writing it for themselves in their head (e.g., David Tennant, Billie Piper), or is largely playing him or herself (e.g., John Barrowman). If they wanted to allow the writers to sketch their characters in shorthand, then TPTB needed to cast someone with more experience/confidence. Knowing that they had cast a newbie, they should've leaned on the writers to be very specific and very thorough about what they wanted out of Martha.

Yeah, very true. Freema was enthusiastic enough, but she doesn't yet have that ability to give herself a backstory and motivations, so if the writers don't do it for her, all we've got is... well, what we ended up getting -- something of a flat character.

[identity profile] llywela13.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 03:39 pm (UTC)(link)
The writers and makers of TV shows are frequently a lot more fallible than we'd like to believe. They get caught up in what seems to them like a really good idea and lose perspective, which leads to deep frustration among viewers because they get some bits so very right, and other bits so very wrong.

I think you're right that a stronger, more experienced actress might have made a lot more of the role of Martha. It's a shame, but one we have to live with now. I found Rose and the Doctor grating at times in season two, so clearly nothing is perfect!

Overall, I think season one remains my favourite when taken as a whole. No coincidence that the one and only Who fic I've written is set in season one! But then if I try to break it down into favourite episodes and themes...not so clear cut. hmm.
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Re: and two...

[identity profile] butterfly.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 03:42 pm (UTC)(link)
The notion of exclusive pairbonding love taps into something a little deeper, I think. Are we looking for a realistic story or a romantic one?

The implication that pairbonding doesn't happen in real life, that loving that way is inherently unrealistic, is something that I do disagree with (and that would cause a difference in how the show is viewed as well). I mean, the concept that two people are destined for each other is one thing, but the notion that two people who have found each other can form a life-long and exclusive bond is another.

Which is to say, I don't see realism and romance as being mutually exclusive.

Often, people watch movies and TV shows to get something a little simpler and more upbeat than real life.

True. And, sometimes, people watch television that excites them and makes them think about the world, life, friendship, love, the meaning of it all. Some people watch television because there are pretty people on it (this is, sometimes, a very compelling reason for me). Some people watch movies and television that makes them want to cry, scream, or laugh to bits. I mean, I don't own the movie A Requiem for a Dream because it's more upbeat than real life. People watch television and movies for all sorts of reasons, often at the same time.

The way RTD and Julie G write about DW suggests to me that they see it as a romantic show. I mean, romantic in the sense that it isn't afraid to be a little cheesy from time to time. To give the people what they want, "Make 'em laugh, make 'em cry, make 'em wait."

I agree that DW is being written primarily as an entertainment show, a show meant to engage the feelings and through them, the mind (which, honestly, works much better than the other way around, at least for myself).

I'm also not sure that there's such a huge gap between the general audience and the fannish audience, as I definitely know members of fandom who want closure and a happy ending... or, rather, a happy resting place (I'm fond of happy stopping points, myself, but I'm also fond enough of the quote 'there are no happy ending, because nothing ends' to have it on an icon). Periods of lightness and happiness are needed in most shows that attempt to deal with serious issues.

And I know people who are not at all fannish, but still prefer to watch things that are darker and lack resolution. It's just that some people prefer one thing and some the other -- some of both sets of people are in fandom. Personally, I like both -- I love full circles (just witness my love for due South and Stargate: SG-1), but I also love hanging endings (like Angel, which pissed off a lot of people but fit perfectly for me).

People are more complex than some wanting a happy ending and some wanting conflict.
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Re: and two...

[identity profile] butterfly.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 03:51 pm (UTC)(link)
let's call it a re-imagining of the premise.

I think, fundamentally, that this is the difference between us -- you see Doctor Who as having a premise that is incompatible with a romantic relationship and I don't. My premise for Doctor Who is -- "hey, there's this alien who travels through time and space, often with companions of various sorts and always getting into trouble." And that premise has absolutely no conflict with the notion that the Doctor can fall in love. If your premise differs from mine, perhaps yours has a clause that does exclude romantic love, but it has nothing to do with the premise that I've picked up from the show.

There are places where they seem to be "very much in love," and places where they seem to be "very much screwed up." Which is perhaps RTD's point -- though he doesn't seem to be able to make up his own mind, either.

But that's life. Love doesn't... fix everything. The Doctor still has issues. Rose still has issues. They still have places where they need to work the kinks out. If they didn't have the occasional fight or the places where they didn't quite fit, then I probably wouldn't ship them because they would strike me as a highly unrealistic relationship. No relationship is perfect and without flaw or dissent.
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[identity profile] butterfly.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 04:07 pm (UTC)(link)
The writers and makers of TV shows are frequently a lot more fallible than we'd like to believe. They get caught up in what seems to them like a really good idea and lose perspective, which leads to deep frustration among viewers because they get some bits so very right, and other bits so very wrong.

Indeed!

I also think that series one was the most well-crafted, but I have enough of a preference for Billie and David's chemistry that I'd probably pick two over one if forced to choose.

[identity profile] gene-lee.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 04:08 pm (UTC)(link)
I think what gets problematic in topics like these is that it shows up on [livejournal.com profile] who_daily, and in this case, under the provacative title you provided. So not only do people approach this topic in your journal as one would an open discussion, but also in a common fashion many try to say their point. I don't think any hostility was intended and [livejournal.com profile] parrotfish did provide an existing viewpoint many fans, especially classic fans, do hold of the series.

Both of you represent opposite spectrums of WHO viewers, and I think its important to the question you pose that both your arguments get introduced. I can agree that Rose is being made by the writers to be regarded as different and special, but its not that Martha only existed for that type of suffrage as a character.

Martha and her family did not get the intense focus that Rose had, yes, but in season 3 the paradigm switched to being more the Doctor's story than the companion. And that was an existing complaint some had with the show as it progressed into season 2. Rose Tyler as a character, benefitted as being the jumpstart companion to NuWho, because it was necessary to re-introduce the Doctor through her eyes and see the pros and cons of travelling with him as it impacted her and her family... but then you get a sense of the same with Martha and her family as they represented [as stated by Russel] a much darker and negative repercussion of being acquainted with the Doctor. So maybe Rose and Martha had the same substitive intention by the writers, just Martha's was less overtly detailed.

As for Martha alone, she did get a bit horse-kicked in the gut over being made to feel a substitute to Rose as represented in S-Code and Gridlock, and that did shake her sense of competancy throughout the season. However, she had many significant moments outside that poorly-concieved sub-plot that helped give her an identity, as well as being a clear deviance from the choices that Rose made. Martha, at the very least, ended the season with many obvious developments that showed how different and separate her storyline was to her predecessor.

Ultimately though, as much as it can't be argued that Rose holds a significant place with the Doctor, it equally can't be denied that Martha has her own place in the canon of the show, or else RTD would not have furthered her character in the franchise by putting her in Torchwood, as well as bringing her back as the Doctor's companion in season 4.

And that's another note of the susbtitiveness of Martha's design, because within one season, she has the plausible premise and development to be able to have her own adventures without the Doctor in another show. Russel can be accused of not delving deep enough into her character, I agree. At certain times, you only saw glimpses of her motivation. But he also didn't strip-mine her either, which leaves her as having untapped material to be delved out in other areas too. JMO~
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Quick reply (more detailed one later today)

[identity profile] butterfly.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 04:11 pm (UTC)(link)
I think what gets problematic in topics like these is that it shows up on who_daily,

Ah! This, actually, explains a lot. I haven't posted in over a month (and then two right in a row) and I don't actually read [livejournal.com profile] who_daily anymore, so my posts appearing on there were not something that really crossed my mind. I'm clearly a bit out of practice.

[identity profile] lilacfree.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 04:35 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm going to be bad and not read all the other comments to see if someone has already said this. :)

Grace and Martha didn't both have to be doctors. The point, to me, is that they clearly had productive lives of their own, and plans that were important to them personally and worthy in general, that did not include madcap wanderings through time and space. It takes a lot of dedication to become a doctor, and they would have thrown away a lot of work to follow the Doctor.

I felt this way about Madame de Pompadour as well. She might have needed the Doctor to save her from being killed, but she didn't need him to have her full and fantastic life. The Doctor changed Rose. She became a bigger and better person for knowing him. Martha was already in the life-saving business.

[identity profile] principia-coh.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 04:41 pm (UTC)(link)
I surmise from the lack of a shooting scripts book for Series 2 that we're not likely to see one from Series 3, but I would be interested to see how the various members of the supporting cast were outlined versus Martha. The fact that I felt we knew more about what made Tish tick might be attributable to the writing versus the acting, but sans scripts it's tough to say. We've all had the opportunity to see the Smith and Jones script courtesy of the BBC, and I do have to say I don't recall there being any more significant character notes for Tish than there were for Martha.

[identity profile] principia-coh.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 04:52 pm (UTC)(link)
The point, to me, is that they clearly had productive lives of their own, and plans that were important to them personally and worthy in general, that did not include madcap wanderings through time and space.

Not having read or heard any of the Eighth Doctor materials beyond the TV movie, I can't really draw any conclusions about Grace's long-term state of mind. However, for Martha, who was ostensibly training to be a doctor, what we saw wasn't that she held her plans or academic activities as any particular priority. She did throw away a lot of work to follow the Doctor.

I've noted elsewhere that one would think if Martha were a real student, she'd have been thrilled over the opportunity for essentially infinite study time, not to mention the prospect of either the TARDIS itself having a kickass library, or her being able to access them via her travels with the Doctor. Or how about asking to meet Hippocrates? Instead, her reaction to travelling back in time is 'hey, let's record a lost Shakespeare play so we can go make some serious dosh!' Martha's status as a doctor-to-be seemed to be a convenient shortcut for the writers to indicate how very different her background was from Rose's without having to elaborate. They didn't actually do a whole heck of a lot with it.

MdP most certainly had a full and interesting life sans Doctor, but then again you're talking about someone who only knew the Doctor in fits and spurts, and whom the Doctor knew for less than a day's time. Not really comparing apples to apples here.

Did travelling with the Doctor have more of a bootstrap effect on Rose that it did/could have for Martha? Yes. But that's largely attributable to Rose's desire for growth and self-expansion. Martha, for most of the series, didn't seem to view her trip as anything other than an interesting vacation with a hot guy that didn't cost her real-world time away from home.

[identity profile] fantasyjax.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 05:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Woah, there. "Rose and everyone else"?

See, that's exactly what gives your ship a bad rep, this lumping of "Special!Perfect!Rose" vs. "Everyone else", which inevitably leads to a disregard towards "everyone else", and look, there's Martha, conveniently not-Rose. So that, you know, RTD might have been aiming to use her to show us how special Doctor/Rose was, but that is not a good thing. You point it out yourself. It's all good and nice to write the Special One True Love if you're doing it in your own little Sue-fic; it's not when you're doing it for a television show with an audience of millions. Some of them are just bound to dislike your Special One, and getting repeatedly hit over the head with her specialness, at the expense of a character they like better, just singles out how sloppy a writer you are.

Dw does make a distinction between Rose and other companions, and that's a bad thing. Because it doesn't make the distinction shown, it tells us about it. The Doctor doesn't really act any different towards Rose - you watch any episode of Four with Sarah Jane, Three with Jo or Seven with Ace, it's clear as daylight - and yet we're constantly told that Rose is Special. We're placed in a really awkward place where we're pretty much told, this is the True Love, you have to approve of her, you have to love her, and you have to give up any hope of seeing - or of having seen - anyone else in that position.

Now, being a minority of sorts, a student and "higher class", and being uninterested in romantic adventures with David Tennant, Martha served as much better identification for me than Rose. I rather like the idea that you don't have to be uneducated but plucky and true-hearted to be a hero and loved as a hero. But then I'm told, oh no, not you, only the Mythological Blonde. All those other characters whom I cared for more, for whatever reason - Sarah Jane, Romana, Ace - can only hope to get lumped as "everyone else". Future companions? Don't get invested, can't measure up. See what I'm getting at with the sloppy writing angle? It's a very effective job done of alienating any of your audience who happen to not see Rose Tyler as the end-all of Who.

So basically, yes, your argument is correct, but that doesn't reflect badly on the writing of Martha - it reflects badly on the writing of Rose.

[identity profile] tempestsarekind.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 06:41 pm (UTC)(link)
Martha, for most of the series, didn't seem to view her trip as anything other than an interesting vacation with a hot guy that didn't cost her real-world time away from home.

I guess I'd ask why that's a bad thing. I mean, I certainly think that she comes to value her travels as more than just "hanging out with a hot guy," but from "Smith and Jones," it's set up that her time in the TARDIS is limited. That doesn't mean that it doesn't change her--I think it makes her more awesome, since at the end of S3 she saves the world with basically a glorified wrist watch and a key, and it makes her more sure of herself by the end--but Martha, unlike Rose, is a character who was always going to leave the Doctor. She was always going to come back to her studies, so she hasn't thrown them away. It *is* a vacation for her, in that it's a time away from the life she was leading. And not studying doesn't mean she's not a "real student"; it means she's on a break. Which is a luxury you can have when you've got a time machine.

(Anonymous) 2007-09-22 06:54 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm sure I'd feel terribly confident about returning to my studies after spending almost 2 years away from them with no reinforcement.

[identity profile] principia-coh.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 06:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Why is it a bad thing? Because she spends about a year away from her medical training, with no reinforcement of any kind mentioned or even hinted at. And that's before her year on walkabout. Taking off for the first few trips with the Doctor, basically up through The Lazarus Experiment? That's a vacation. But when she demanded to become a regular member of the crew rather than remain a guest? That's abandoning your studies to go running off with the Doctor.

[identity profile] principia-coh.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 07:05 pm (UTC)(link)
"Rose and everyone else," versus "Martha and everyone else," what's the difference? There are just as many Martha fans who like to see her as the ne plus ultra of companions, and insist that she's the most awesomest of awesome ever, regardless of how this assertion is or isn't backed up in text.

I don't think making a sharp breaking point between Rose and the classic series companions was avoidable, given how radically different the portrayal of the Doctor/Companion relationship was from how they'd previously been shown. Some of it is probably attributable directly to the Doctor's state of mind when he met Rose, versus anything inherent in Rose herself. The Time War had changed him radically and irrevocably.

Do I think the writers did Martha a disservice by essentially using her as a case study of 'No, not every regular companion from now on is going to be a romantic interest for the Doctor'? Absolutely. I was really, really looking forward to having a Liz Shaw (or even Zoe) type as the new companion based on the way Martha was being talked about before the series started. What they promised and what they delivered were two radically different things. I don't think Martha had to be in wub with the Doctor to have done the things she did: in fact, I think the unrequited love angle diminished her character significantly. And I think the whole whiny-teenager manner in which the unrequited love story was played is what turned a whole lot of people off to the character.
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[identity profile] butterfly.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 07:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Indeed -- the first episode introduced a very strong character, who turned very weak very quickly for a very long time. Kinda disappointing.
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[identity profile] butterfly.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 07:54 pm (UTC)(link)
There's a lot of really good point here. I hadn't really considered Martha as the ramp down companion, but in that sense I can see the purpose her crush served to the overall story (aside from making it clear that Rose was different).

*nods*

RTD was, I think, pretty clear in what he wanted to portray (I judge based on the DW Confidentials), but they just didn't give Martha enough depth to make it an enjoyable story to watch. The infatuation didn't have enough meat to it and we were never given a good enough reason why felt the way she did.

And then Jack comes back in season three, and suddenly he's the Doctor's companion at least equal to Martha if not closer, it certainly wasn't two and Jack; if anything it was two and Martha (or three and Martha since Rose was so *there* in that story).

Indeed. It was very clear that Martha and the Doctor were not the pair that Rose and the Doctor had been.

[identity profile] tempestsarekind.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 07:57 pm (UTC)(link)
That's abandoning your studies to go running off with the Doctor.

Not when you're traveling in a time machine and can go back to the time you left. In "Family of Blood," which happens after she's demanded to become a regular member (which isn't the same thing as saying she's never going home, just that the Doctor should stop pretending he's only taking her along as a treat), she's still talking about her studies in the present tense; "I'm training to be a doctor," she says, not "I was."

Maybe I'm missing something in terms of the timeline, but I don't understand how Martha was gone for a whole year pre-walkabout. As I understand it, she's only missed about four days, her time.
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[identity profile] butterfly.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 08:02 pm (UTC)(link)
And I would disagree that Martha didn't like him, I think she did but she recognized he had flaws.

I think mostly of things like her saying, in Blink, that Billy should 'Just nod when he stops for breath.' -- it kind of exemplified what I felt from her character from day one. She's impressed by what the Doctor can do, but she doesn't seem to actually like him much as a person, apart from the time-travel and other neat abilities/knowledge. She likes him when he's 'ancient and forever' and 'the fire in the heart of the sun', but she doesn't like him when he acts more vulnerable and more... well, human-eske. She wants him to be impressive all the time.

I do agree that they never quite clicked -- there's a Martha & Doctor vid to a song called Oil and Water that really summed that up for me.

[identity profile] biichan.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 08:06 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm sorry, but you just aren't getting it. This argument of Rose Vs Everyone Else Who Will Never Be As Good As Her And The Doctor Will Never Care About Them As Much fucks over every other companion on the show and that is why people--Classic Series fen especially, even more than Martha fen--are pissed off at you.

I mean seriously. And they have every right to be because this argument of yours manages to demean ninety percent of the show. And I've been biting my tongue since Who Daily started linking you because I know you aren't completely batshit--I've read some of the things you've written for other fandoms and even when I haven't agreed with them, you weren't offensive. (Hell, there's an essay on Buffy Summers of yours I really like.) But I can't do that anymore.

This is not about Martha. By making it All About Rose you are short-changing every other companion on the show and every Doctor that isn't Nine or Ten. And that's just wrong.
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[identity profile] butterfly.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 08:08 pm (UTC)(link)
I think the point that [livejournal.com profile] principia_coh is trying to make is that, unless Martha has an eidetic memory, spending one or two subjective years away from her studies means that she's lost quite a bit of knowledge, through lack of use and lack of additional study. It's not that she's missing objective time, but that when she comes back, she's not going to remember where she left off, because she hasn't been doing this for two years now.
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[identity profile] butterfly.livejournal.com 2007-09-22 08:12 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm not entirely certain how my saying this 'gives my ship a bad name' when it is, as you admit yourself, the same position that the executive producer/head writer takes. Now, you can certainly (and clearly do) believe that that's a bad thing for the writer of the show to believe or that it was badly written, but that doesn't change whether or not he believes it, and that was the main issue in my post (and, you may notice, I do point out that the writing of Martha was weak).

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