butterfly | Doctor Who: Did we need Martha?

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dw: series 3

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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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.

I'm sure I'd feel terribly confident about returning to my studies after spending almost 2 years away from them with no reinforcement.

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.

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.

I think the point that

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.

Ah, okay. Fair enough.

I do think she'll have to work hard to catch up, but I also don't think it means she's not serious about being a doctor--because travelling through time and space is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and one that she almost *does* pass up, until she learns the Doctor has a time machine.

To the objective observer in 2007, she has not missed more than about four days in 2007 time. To the subjective observer - Martha - she has lived through about two years away from school by the end of Series 3.

The year walk-about was completely unplanned and at that stage, she was forced to commit to it. However, Martha does mention her studies in the present tense and does use her basic knowledge a couple times during the season.

But most of all, when the Doctor is trying to get her to join him initially in Smith&Jones, she mentions her studies, and he says 'it's a time machine, if it helps'. So she understands from the get go, that she can recoup whatever linear time she's lost and her career is not in threat of being waylaid.

It's a bit hidden in the threads, so I'm going to repeat what I said above:

I think the point that 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.

So, unless she's been studying in the TARDIS in her off hours (I would have adored an off-hand reference to something like this), she's going to be off her game.

I understand what you're saying about the ramifications of lost time in LotTL, but the discussion referenced Martha's intentions about her studies, claiming she abandoned her medical trainig to run-off with the Doctor.

Martha had no pre-knowledge accepting the Doctor's invitation in S&J, that she would be wandering the earth for a year, and prior to that she kept her studies mentioned in present tense. Even after Lazerus, she had only lost a couple days. Its reasonable that she had went into it thinking she would only have to recoup a days or weeks at most. No abandonement, her committment at the time occurred before she had to suffer any long-term downtime as seen in the later third of the season.

I see what you're saying, but a medical degree is like any study -- through the miracle of revision, it's possible to pick up where you left off. I once knew a medical student who deferred her studies to go backpacking for three years -- she had to do some pretty heavy revision when she got back, but after the first few days she found she'd retained most of her knowledge.

And Martha's only been gone four days from the world's perspective -- her supervising doctor is recently dead, the hospital is only just back from the moon, and the Prime Minister has just been killed by his wife, after murdering the president of the USA. So I'm pretty sure she'll get a couple of empty weeks for revision.

*helpful*

There's a vast difference between not sacrificing more than a few days in her original timeline and having blown at least a year and a half, probably more like two years, completely away from her studies. No, one of those years wasn't her choice, but I doubt she was exactly hitting the books while she was wandering around preaching the gospel of the Doctor.

You are completely not understanding what is being discussed, despite being the one to bring it up. You attacked her intention, claiming she just abandoned her studies, when they were always evident and within her priorities, as she states this in S&J and in FoB.

And there is NOTHING wrong with her wanting to travel more with the Doctor in Lazurus, seeing that she had only lost a couple of days, and was unaware of how much time she was going to lose in HN/FoB or the Saxon arc, but she was forced to commit to those events to help the Doctor and humanity.

But most importantly, it's a gross miscomprehension to even think that a couple of months or a year away from schooling/training your brain does a complete core dump. By your reasoning, any student on a summer break between semisters or takes a year off for traveling are screwed, right?

principia_coh is, of course, more than capable of defending her own points, but I would like to point out that Martha did make the choice in The Lazarus Experiment to be 'more than a passenger' with an undetermined departure time. No, she didn't realize how much time she would lose due to unforeseeable events, but that's really the point -- she decided that she could be away from her studies for an unknown period of time. She made no reference to continuing her studies on the TARDIS (though she did, as you point out, mention that she's a student in FoB) nor did she show any interest in the medicines of the various places and times that the Doctor took her.

By your reasoning, any student on a summer break between semisters or takes a year off for traveling are screwed, right?

Actually, a portion of the first few days/weeks back into a school year does tend to be review-based, for the very reasons that

principia_coh stated. People forget things over summer break.

But it's not a loss. It is knowledge at her level of training that can be easily recouped. That is how studies often work.

And why would you dismiss that her stating that she is training to be a doctor in FOB--after her arrangement in Lazurus and after she has been stuck for two months in 1918--as not valid enough evidence of her priorities verses the writers not showing her among alien medicines. That is ridiculous. Your putting weight on a non-existant element verses what is canon.

Seriously, given the immediate strife they often encountered in their adventures--and the lack of alien planets shown--when did she even have time to poke around some lab besides what she did in Lazarus.?

And why would you dismiss that her stating that she is training to be a doctor in FOB--after her arrangement in Lazurus and after she has been stuck for two months in 1918--as not valid enough evidence of her priorities verses the writers not showing her among alien medicines. That is ridiculous. Your putting weight on a non-existant element verses what is canon.

I felt like I was told who Martha was far often than I was shown it. And that's just bad storytelling.

Have I ever said she was going to completely forget everything she's learned? No. Am I basing what I've said on a lifetime's experience of watching classmates have to relearn material after extended time away from studies either over the summer, or because of illness-related absences and stuff? Yes.

You're right that she had no idea what was going to happen when she went off with the Doctor. As in she had no idea what was going to happen. The choice is either that she made the conscious (or subconscious, take your pick) decision to ditch her studies for however long it struck her fancy to do so and try to pick back up where she left off whenever she returned, or that she didn't even contemplate the notion that there might actually be consequences to her actions.

Look, I could argue with your lot until I'm blue in the face. Clearly anyone speaking in the least bit negatively of Saint Martha is just going to get dumped on, so I don't even know why I'm bothering.

Look, I could argue with your lot until I'm blue in the face. Clearly anyone speaking in the least bit negatively of Saint Martha is just going to get dumped on, so I don't even know why I'm bothering.

I suspect for the same reason that I bother -- for the faint, distant hope that, one day, they'll reply to the actual words that I said and not the extremist version that they're morphing it to in their heads.

(no subject)

gene-lee.livejournal.com - 2007-09-24 12:16 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

butterfly.livejournal.com - 2007-09-24 14:38 (UTC) - Expand

That's not...actually how the human brain works, but apparently it's the new talking point, so okay!

So, what, once you've been told something once or been shown how to do something once you remember it for-evah without having to have it repeated or practice it yourself? It must be nice to be you.

Well, I managed to leave off studying Ancient Greek for a year and pick it right back up after a week of studying hard. You can learn a language, go years and years without speaking it, and it comes back to you within a couple weeks. Knowledge does not disappear, it goes dormant, as anyone who has ever taken a break from school would know.

(Oh noes! I left class for three months! BACK TO 101 WITH ME.)

Knowledge once thoroughly absorbed is often retained. But rarely perfectly, and in the cases of a lot of activities, it takes a great deal of relearning to come back up to speed.

Case in point, a lot of time is wasted at the beginning of the year in schools here in the US having to reteach what kids have forgotten over their extended summer vacations. Which is one of the reasons there are a lot of people who advocate for year-round schooling.

If you're convinced that Martha somehow magically remembered everything she learned in school despite being away from it for so long, there's not going to be anything I can say to dissuade you. I'll be interested to see if/how they handle it in TW and DW next year.

So, she would have to refresh a bit. People do this all the time. It is not the same as having to relearn everything or being painted as deliberately negligent of one's studies if they happen to be away for a couple months. This is so inconsequential. Why do you feel that any continuance of her career in TW and DW is suddenly this huge plot hurdle when people hit snags like this in real life and yet still move forward?

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

(no subject)

principia-coh.livejournal.com - 2007-09-24 15:07 (UTC) - Expand

We have to remember that after lazarus who knows how long they travelled until utopia- we have to fit the books in as well. We never find out WHY martha wants to become a doctor either.
As for all the time off- i spent a year out studying art and now am in uni doing an english degree and my brain is frazzled because i'm not used to it even though i have read all year, the techniques to work are like rusty wheels compared to the guys who have only had summer off.

but Martha, unlike Rose, is a character who was always going to leave the Doctor.

I totally agree. I think Martha's character arc had a much stronger ending then Rose's. At the end, Rose is still a character who always seems to define herself by the man in her life-first Mickey, then the Doctor. Whereas Martha, by choosing to leave, instead of being effectively sent away actually grew as a person in herself, instead of just in her experiences.

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