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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.
no subject
Is it? I hadn't ever seen it before. Hence the confusion. Most of your typos were easy to figure out, but that one was new.
So was the scenario. In Martha's equation, we had the Master, who the Doctor out of extreme desperation was trying to save/spare at all costs. Even enough, that he was sort of putting the attempt to help him above the potential cost to humanity, Martha's family included.
Both Martha and the Doctor were trying to put their "family" first.
Ah, we appear to be talking about completely different things. I was talking about the Doctor's reaction to Rose versus his reaction to Martha.
In some cases, yes. Viewers saw enough that was likeable in Martha, that even if it wasn't fully fleshed out, with the intent to further her character later, there's enough to work with without fear of stagnation.
Some viewers. Others wondered if she'd ever get interesting.
Plus, it's adding something to the dynamic. Because her time with Ten and the experience she'll gain at Torchwood, her medical career is being utilized to include xeno-studies. That alone will add to the things she can do once she's beack on the TARDIS.
If she acts like someone actually interested in medicine on Torchwood, I would be thrilled. So far, she hasn't done much that anyone with a CPR course couldn't handle (I mean, I can diagnose a concussion and the best treatment for it and I only had high school Health). The most involved thing she's done was the 'bones of the hand' speech, which anyone with a good memory and a course in Anatomy could pull off.
With Rose... she had so much focus in her two years that she almost eclipsed the Doctor at various points. As I said earlier, nothing wrong with that in the beginning, because it was necessary for viewers to get to know the Doctor again through her eyes. However, by mid-second season, they were ramping up her family, closing off her relationship with Mickey, while playing up her relationship with the Doctor. The writers were trying to give closure and this epic build-up for her departure at the same time, that prior to the finale, she was stuck in a holding pattern that chipped away at the characterization she built in season one.
*tips hand*
Points of view. I felt an evolution in Rose that started in Rose and continued all the way to Fear Her (the pinnacle of her development as the Doctor's partner before their relationship underwent its possibly finale change in Army of Ghosts/Doomsday). You clearly disagree. I suspect we can both provide evidence for our feelings. It seems to be subjective to me.
Basically, they were making her romance with the Doctor the most important, defining thing to her that it becomes the "death" of her character and her defining exit. In order to create the saddest, most epic good-bye, Russel kind of capped-off her character a bit. In my opinion, he tied so much of her heart into the Doctor, that being seperated from him, ripped it out.
Well, Russell was writing a love story. Generally, in love stories, losing the person you love does rip out your heart. Doesn't mean that it won't ever recover, but it is very painful in the start.
It's ironic that, Rose has so much more creative material to work with in the Alt-verse, had Rusty allowed a spin-off, than she does in this universe.
It's ironic that she's been given everything she ever thought she wanted (before she knew the Doctor), but without him it lacks its shine.
no subject
I think we might have to come to a draw on this topic. The preceptions on Rose's storyarc will ultimately be opinion. I can respect that.
But I don't understand the reasoning on why you put weight on a non-existing element versus the several examples seen in the canon of the show, in particular Martha's interest/use of medicine. Martha stated from the beginning, even well into FoB, that she was pursing her studies to become a doctor. She wants to become a doctor. Period. And even if you choose not to consider her using her basic knowledge of CPR and treating a concussion, you still have her utilizing the more complex knowledge in the Lazarus Labs. It's what moved that plot forward.
But you're going to ignore all that and argue the platform that because she didn't have medical jargon shooting out of her mouth at every opportunity or wasn't performing an alien autopsy on poor Boe or whoever, that suddenly it must be the writers trying to tell you that "OMG. She has no interest in medicine!", despite the fact they continually tell and show you that she has an interest in medicine.
no subject
But you're going to ignore all that and argue the platform that because she didn't have medical jargon shooting out of her mouth at every opportunity or wasn't performing an alien autopsy on poor Boe or whoever, that suddenly it must be the writers trying to tell you that "OMG. She has no interest in medicine!", despite the fact they continually tell and show you that she has an interest in medicine.
I don't think that I ever said anything about the writers not wanting me to believe she was interested in medicine. I just don't think they were very good at making it believable. Those are quite different things.