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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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And I forgot Turlough. *facepalms* Who actually was a companion. Sigh.
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I also don't buy that the Doctor's S3 emo was terribly much about Rose. It felt to me as more of a general Gallifrey Go Boom thing, with his recent loss of Rose just making everything worse.
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I also don't buy that the Doctor's S3 emo was terribly much about Rose. It felt to me as more of a general Gallifrey Go Boom thing, with his recent loss of Rose just making everything worse.
Again, this argument is odd to me because I see such a difference in the Doctor between seasons 2 and 3. If the recent loss of Rose makes things that much worse that would appear to be an argument in favor of him being in love with her, rather than against it. Gallifrey was just as blown up in S2, after all.
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, even Peri and Adric.) I really don't believe she was his One True Love and I have my doubts as to if their love was romantic. Mostly I read it as a very affectionate friendship. And losing your best friend can make you just as emo as losing your boyfriend--more sometimes.I suppose Jamie doesn't get pulled enough out as an example probably because of the whole burnination. It makes it hard to rejoice in his and Two's Utter Married-ness when most of their serials have holes in them.
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Thinking about Jamie too much is terribly depressing. He barely even remembers the Doctor. It's horrifying, really. At least Rose has her memories.
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Ah, but that's why I'm a believer in 6B. Do you know of the theory? Basically, it is to the effect that the CIA (Celestial Intervention Agency, that is) got a hold of the Doctor before the other Time Lords could punish him and got him to carry out missions for him in return for letting him live. Later they gave him back Jamie in order to further bribe him. This is not ever explicitly stated in the text, but it's very much backed up by The Two Doctors with its visibly aged Two and Jamie. Anyway, as the theory goes, Two and Jamie went on missions together until Jamie died (at a ripe old age we all hope) and Two was so distraught that he told the CIA he wasn't going to work for them anymore, so they forced his regeneration and dumped him on UNIT.
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But that's a rather nice fanwank of actor aging. Definitely better than lots that I heard about why the vampires on Buffy were getting older.
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I've not heard much about Jamie at all... are you speaking about how they interacted and how it appeared as a married relationship? Or something more than that? (I'm still learning about former companions!)